Alright, For months I tried but could not get shipping and carrier selection to work with prestashop 1.5.4 so I worked around it with a 'fix' but then had to add a product where that didn't work anymore. So in frustration I upgraded to 1.5.6. hoping that this had a better carrier solution.
Here is my new problem: the carrier selections work perfect now at checkout, but only after refreshing the shipping page. If I was a client logging in at checkout to buy a product, I would be presented with the wrong carriers in the shipping page of checkout. Of course I wouldn't know that these are wrong and that if I refreshed that page I'd be presented with exactly the right carriers. Is there some way to fix this problem so the right carriers show up every time when someone goes to the shipping page of checkout?
I've struggled with this shipping problem for a long time and wished I could somehow get past it to move on to other tasks. But no matter what I try and I've tried lots of things, it defeats me.