PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN) Failing

[sazoo]

Very interesting as I am also on a 1and1 Virtual Hosting package?

[Mike Hughes]

There definitely seems to be some server (OS? PHP? installed services? reboot?) dependency to this. Hopefully Actinic will be able to work out exactly what's causing the scripts to fail and from that the underlying problem.

Mike

[gcamley]

Progress on identifying the root cause of this problem.

During the payment authorisation callback the Merchant's server establishes an SSL connection with a PayPal server. The connection is made using NET::SSL if available or with a perl script ActinicSSL. When connecting with the Actinic script the SSL connection is rejected by the PayPal server. It should be noted that this script is unchanged for many years.

The error seen in the error logs of some servers is a bug in the Actinic script but it is not the root cause of the problem. The bug merely conceals the fact that the PayPal server is rejecting the SSL connection. This information was passed to PayPal this afternoon and we are waiting for their response.

Our QA team this afternoon have ben able to demonstrate that PayPal is working with NET::SSL but not with the ActinicSSL script. This was tested using a single site uploaded to a single server but in one case NET::SSL was enabled and in the other it was disabled.

Where it has been found that NET::SSL is not solving the problem it is most likely that it is an older version and this older version may suffer from the same problem as our SSL script.

The Actinic development team are working on the underlying problem to determine a solution but as you can imagine this is not a simple task unless PayPal can say what they have changed.

[Duncan Rounding]

I think number of people may have something to say to Paypal next week in Richmond at this rate.

[Andy Warner]

we've done a re-boot, so now waiting for a paypal order to come in. i'm off to work now, so don't have time to order....... i'll do it this afternoon and report back.
andy

[Mike Hughes]

Gordon,

That looks like good progress.

What is the latest version of NET::SSL and is there an easy way for people to check what version is installed on their server?

Mike

[NVL]

Late in the game, but we are having the exact same problem with PayPal and indeed have not sent some orders over the last few days...

[gcamley]

Gordon,

What is the latest version of NET::SSL and is there an easy way for people to check what version is installed on their server?

Mike

Not sure of the latest, CPAN quotes the version of the distribution rather than the module itself.

Our QA team have NET::SSL version 2.81 with Perl 5.8.8 which is working with PayPal.

I have modified our SiteExplorer script (attached) which will show the installed module versions rather than just Installed or Not Installed.

To use, download the file and unzip into your site folder replacing the existing SiteExplorer.pl.

From the 'Help | Troubleshooting' menu selct 'Web Site Analysis'.

I have attached 2 scripts. One for v7 and one for v8, v9 and v10.

No news from PayPal today as yet.

[Mike Hughes]

Reading around this a bit I see that net::ssl requires openssl to be installed. I wonder if this could explain why those who'd already tried net::ssl without success were still seeing a problem? It would seem odd that they'd somehow managed to install an old version.

Mike

[stualk]

Update from us is that having read someone posting previously that a server restart fixed their problem I decided to do a server restart myself last night and it appears this has resolved most of the issues here.

Previously, when this issue first came to light, customers paying by PayPal were given the error message when trying to bounce back to the website after paying in PayPal, plus they weren't getting order confirmation emails, their basket was still full of the items they had ordered if they went back to the website and the order itself went into the 'pending' tab in Actinic, which is a real pain.

Since the restart it appears the customer no longer gets the error message when bouncing back to the site, they see the receipt page and their basket is shown as empty. All good so far! However, no order confirmation email was received when we tested and the orders are still going into 'pending' in Actinic.

So we've solved most of the problems by doing a server restart and from the customer's point of view I think they'll be 99% happy with this as there are no frustrating error messages and no confusion with baskets still showing items. It should stop the phone ringing at least! Could do with sorting the other issues now though. (The site is www.blacksheepwools.co.uk)

[NVL]

Not sure of the latest, CPAN quotes the version of the distribution rather than the module itself.

Our QA team have NET::SSL version 2.81 with Perl 5.8.8 which is working with PayPal.

I have modified our SiteExplorer script (attached) which will show the installed module versions rather than just Installed or Not Installed.

To use, download the file and unzip into your site folder replacing the existing SiteExplorer.pl.

From the 'Help | Troubleshooting' menu selct 'Web Site Analysis'.

The script is taken from v10 and should work out-of-the-box with v10 and v9 and possibly with v8 (I need to check). It won't work with v7 or earlier. If anybody needs to check for v8 or earlier i will apply the change to the earlier versions of the script.

No news from PayPal today as yet.

We're on V8 Gordon, would be appreciated...

[jmedinger]

Our QA team have NET::SSL version 2.81 with Perl 5.8.8 which is working with PayPal.

I have modified our SiteExplorer script (attached) which will show the installed module versions rather than just Installed or Not Installed.

Having just run this, it has come back telling us that Net::SSL is *NOT INSTALLED* (although we'd been assured by our hosts that it was)

I'm on the phone at the moment with the hosts identifying why Net::SSL wasn't presenting it to Perl on the server - once this is resolved we'll see if it fixes the problem...

I don't know if others who *definitely* have Net::SSL installed (and working) are still not receiving IPN's but *if* this fixes our issues then it will be clear where the problem is...

[Andy Warner]

reboot and NET::SSL

we've done a re-boot, so now waiting for a paypal order to come in. i'm off to work now, so don't have time to order....... i'll do it this afternoon and report back.
andy

It would appear the reboot has NOT corrected the problem.
We also DONT have NET::SSL installed - im onto Pinbrook now!

[jmedinger]

GOOD NEWS!

IPN's are being received again now that Net::SSL is recognised and functioning

After some lengthy discussion with the host it became apparent that there are 2 parts to Net::SSL

There is Net::SSL and also a further package called Net::SSLeay

BOTH parts were required to be installed to talk correctly with Paypal.

The first part (Net:SSL) was packaged up in another module called 'Crypt::SSL' and this was what hadn't been installed.
Once this had been installed, test payments made using PayPal started receiving their IPN's again.

We were very impatient to try it once the module had been enabled and at first thought it wasn't working as a test order didn't receive an IPN back into Actinic. We therefore went into PayPal and did 2 things:-
1) re-sent the IPN for the transaction
2) Re-enabled and then disabled IPN in the settings for the account

We're not sure whether either or neither of these steps actually made any difference but we're now receiving IPN's from Paypal and orders are being correctly put into the correct order tab.

WOO BLOOMING HOO!

[Duncan Rounding]

So what changed since mid September though that meant these two modules need to be installed?

...and why did it only affect Actinic users?

There must be more to it I think.