PayPal checkout not bouncing

[MASTERforge]

I am nearly ready to go live with my site so I thought I would test the payment system.

Actinic connects to paypal, although very slowly. Is there a fix for this?
PayPal does not show the product listing just a purchase code. I understand this is normal. Can the products be listed in this part so the customer can still see?
Then when I logged into a test paypal account and payed it bounced me to a page with the information below.

Here is the page

A General Script Error Occurred

Error: Bad input string "SEQUENCE=3&ACTION=Finish&ORDERNUMBER=LR33DP10000001&REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2emasterforge%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2ftest%2facatalog%2findex%2ehtml&&tx=3FJ269609R621960L&st=Completed&amt=0.50&cc=GBP&cm=&sig=NSYfxYxjDTQBKeHRsLVAAggdLYGT%2bJjSO0HHLIa7T8yEYP7GQGQUzjSzX4H34Kd8%2b%2br5lKXBUDIlHegg05B6P7p7bo%2bLdsp9vHp1kJbPfBoOPQ5DWk1nV9o%2bKYbsUUfuWu%2ftTbMR1cGpabx4OnJ0ISXCfrrUtZWTg0FWcXWcKS8%3d". Argument count 20.

I have had so many problems with actinic, just trying to get a tidy site working functional that I wasn't at all surprised. My fear is that there is a major problem now.

I am in test mode could this have an effect?

Please help.

[MASTERforge]

Is it something to do with website payment preferences auto return?

[los_design]

Leigh may have something there.

Check your settings within Paypal (IPN set up i think).

By default, there 'should' be no issue with Paypal, it is a case of email addy only, but if something has altered on the payment receiving site, that could throw a spanner in the works.

Maybe someone who uses PP more often may have more input?

Regards and best wishes

[RuralWeb]

2fwww%2emasterforge%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2ftest%2facatalog%2findex

I suspect that this is the problem - paypal expects this to be the url defined as your business url. When V8 is in test mode the urls dont match.

I would go live with V8 in the late evening and check it out - you can then upload the old V7 site again. It is VERY unlikely that it is V8 at fault as I have 3 V8 sites running Paypal without any problems.

[MASTERforge]

I will try to test it while its live. The problem is that I have visitors from all over the world so any time is a bad time!

I would have thought that paypal should work in test mode otherwise test mode should be called 'nearly test mode'

Having to do testing live is a pain because potential customers can see the mess you are testing and this could cost sales.

Hopefully its not too critical because I can recieve payment tests.

[MASTERforge]

Tried it on the live shop. Exactly the same error has occured.

Payment is accepted but no bounce

[RuralWeb]

Exactly the same error has occured.

Very odd - have you altered the checkout pages in any way?

[MASTERforge]

I try to keep everything as standard as possible. too much messing around causes all sorts of head aches.

I closed all my programs then restarted my computer and tried again. This time it worked. I can only speculate that either the server went a bit crazy after my connections or there are bugs in actinic.

Perhaps the disconnection then reconnecting to the server reset something? Or a shut down and reload of actinic wiped the bug out for the moment.

Either way something is not behaving as it should. My money is on actinic because my ftp and email work fine from my host normally. The problem seems to lie within actinic but as to what it is I am at a loss.

[RuralWeb]

My money is on actinic because my ftp and email work fine from my host normally. The problem seems to lie within actinic but as to what it is I am at a loss.

Once the pages are uploaded there is not much to go wrong. Try a purge and refresh. If that fails then email me a snapshot and I will take a look.

[MASTERforge]

Thanks for the offer of help.

After the shut down and reload it seems to be working. Strangely though it is set with my host smtp and my isp username and password!!!

Im going to try and not touch it. I think the problem is caused also when switching between test and production modes. I feel that if i go into test then back to production the problem will reoccur. Or if i change any setting in the network setup it will cause problems. I will tiptoe around the setting hoping not to trigger a fault.

[RuralWeb]

Or if i change any setting in the network setup it will cause problems.

The network settings will have no effect on the paypal transfer. I would not worry about switching between the two as the problem is more likely to have been a missing file during upload due to a transient connection problem or the like. All the work you will have done in test mode will have confused things on the server and a purge and refresh usually sorts things out.

Its always a good idea to check the checkout procedure after any major work.

[MASTERforge]

is this the housekeeping>purge>purge content option?

Then web>refresh website?

I havent used this option before so thought it best to ask before I go pressing things that could really make things go wrong

[RuralWeb]

NO - Help | Troubleshooting | Website Purge and refresh.

Before you do it suspend ordering wait and hour and check for orders. .

[MASTERforge]

Ive noticed on the refresh that it occasionally pops up

ftp error error null
click retry or cancel

I click retry and it seems to go through o.k. then it popped up again and I pressed retry and it continued I suspect this may be part of the problem

[RuralWeb]

as the problem is more likely to have been a missing file during upload due to a transient connection problem or the like

As I said the problem is likely to have been caused by some "bits" not uploading correctly. This is usually down to BT working on the line or server problems.

If you get such an error its always best to do a refresh just to be on the safe side and then check the checkout is ok. These things are usually transient and things will sort themselves out with time.

With Actinic you need to remember that there are other factors which can affect its functioning and this is an example.