PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN) Failing

[jmedinger]

We haven't experienced anyone having a problem getting through the PayPal website and making the payment (and we've tested it ourselves with different browsers from different PC's connected via different ISP's)

[jmedinger]

Andy...

Anecdotal but from the posts above, working sites appear to be running perl 5.8.8
Can you find out what your 3 are using and see if this correlates?

[Andy Warner]

Does anyone know what the actual content of the IPN is?

I guess its the data in the IPN history tab, but in two parts:
the callback url is the first part (added breaks to wrap code....)

http://www.legendgames.co.uk/cgi-bin/os000001.pl?
PATH=../acatalog/&SEQUENCE=3&ACTION=AUTHORIZE_900&CARTID=86Z8Z83
Z187A1285793566B16427&ON=AG49JH10002206&TM=0&AM=850
&ACT_POSTPROCESS=1&

Note it ends with a & meaning its expecting a name pair...
followed by teh IPN response part:

mc_gross=8.50&invoice=AG49JH10002206
&protection_eligibility=Ineligible&payer_id=2558JV3ELV9AQ&tax=0.00
&payment_date=14:12:35 Sep 29, 2010
PDT&payment_status=Completed&charset=windows-1252
&first_name=Anne&mc_fee=0.49&notify_version=3.0
&custom=&payer_status=unverified&business=andy.paypal@legendgames.co.u
k&quantity=1&verify_sign=An5ns1Kso7MWUdW4ErQKJJJ4qi4-AXZXBgWEYCjOqi
5Wd5eCScohdskw&payer_email=anneat11@hotmail.com&txn_id=64D02105K
3224130
G&payment_type=instant&last_name=Goodfellow&receiver_email=andy.paypal
@legendgames.co.uk&payment_fee=&receiver_id=4FLFEHEGXU8
EG&txn_type=web_accept&item_name=AG49JH10002206
&mc_currency=GBP&item_number=AG49JH10002206
&residence_country=GB&receipt_id=3640-6530-6903-5489&handling_amount=
0.00&transaction_subject=AG49JH10002206&payment_gross=&shipping=0.00


but you need to convert & to & and the otehr escape characters to ../ and /

putting those together, and entering into the URL on IE, i get a server error of 'order expires after 3 hours"

going to make me a paypal order and re-run it myself.... hold on for results chaps....

(oh, and can we extend the order keep-alive???)

[Andy Warner]

[QUOTE=Andy Warner;307548]mc_gross=8.50
&invoice=AG49JH10002206&protection_eligibility=Ineligible&payer_id=2558JV3
ELV9AQ&tax=0.00&payment_date=14:12:35 Sep 29, 2010
PDT&payment_status=Completed&charset=windows-1252
&first_name=Anne&mc_fee=0.49&notify_version=3.0&custom=&
payer_status=unverified&business=andy.paypal@legendgames.co.uk&quantity
=1&verify_sign=An5ns1Kso7MWUdW4ErQKJJJ4qi4-AXZXBgWEYCjOqi5Wd5
eCScohdskw&payer_email=anneat11@hotmail.com&txn_id=64D02105K3224130
G&payment_type=instant&last_name=Goodfellow&receiver_email=andy.paypal
@legendgames.co.uk&payment_fee=&receiver_id=4FLFEHEGXU8
EG&txn_type=web_accept&item_name=AG49JH10002206
&mc_currency=GBP&item_number=AG49JH10002206
&residence_country=GB&receipt_id=3640-6530-6903-5489&handling_amount=
0.00&transaction_subject=AG49JH10002206&payment_gross=&shipping=0.00


OOOH OOOH... have we found it? the custom= in red above doesnt have a value...... i am guessing it SHOULD....?

NO! it would seem not. changing all missing name pairs to 0 or whatever, it still bombs with a 500 error internal server error - service not working...

[Andy Warner]

right, getting there.

http://www.legendgames.co.uk/cgi-bin/os000001.pl?
PATH=../acatalog/&SEQUENCE=3&ACTION=AUTHORIZE_900
&CARTID=86Z178Z62Z154A1285846691B1781&ON=WR51JH10002209

made an order.
didnt IPN (as expected)

I recreated the IPN, and worked up from tehy front until it worked. And this bit WORKS - it has incorrect date and value data, but it indicates teh problems start after that.

I'm gonna work backwards now!

oh and ive edited teh code so it wraps - sorry!

right 500 error until we get to:

http://www.legendgames.co.uk/cgi-bin/os000001.pl?
PATH=../acatalog/&SEQUENCE=3&ACTION=AUTHORIZE_900&CARTID=86Z178Z
62Z154A1285849201B2617&ON=TT0WR510002210&TM=0&AM=380

this results in a .pl file with value 1 in it being returned to the browser.

http://www.legendgames.co.uk/cgi-bin/os000001.pl?
PATH=../acatalog/&SEQUENCE=3&ACTION=AUTHORIZE_900&CARTID=86Z178Z
62Z154A1285849201B2617&ON=TT0WR510002210&TM=0

same there

so, there we have it, the script dies from the point AFTER the AM name pair.

go to it coders, and bring me the offending code, dead or alive.....

[Mike Hughes]

It's interesting that you're getting the 500 error. Are these test attempts generating the same message in your error log?

Mike

[Andy Warner]

It's interesting that you're getting the 500 error. Are these test attempts generating the same message in your error log?

Mike

it would seem not all the time. working back from the full string, you do get the subscript code error (the sc000001.pm line 616 one), then it reverts to teh one below, but i didnt note which change brought that about....

Program = ORDERSCR, Program version = 20697 , HTTP Server = Apache/1.3.41 (Unix) PHP/5.2.9, Return code = 999 , Date and Time = 2010/09/30 12:33, Internal Errors = CallPlugInScript, execute: Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript -15 at sc000001.pm line 616.


Program = ORDERSCR, Program version = 20697 , HTTP Server = Apache/1.3.41 (Unix) PHP/5.2.9, Return code = 999 , Date and Time = 2010/09/30 12:33, Internal Errors = No POSTED data recieved from PayPal callback.
Program = ORDERSCR, Program version = 20697 , HTTP Server = Apache/1.3.41 (Unix) PHP/5.2.9, Return code = 999 , Date and Time = 2010/09/30 12:38, Internal Errors = No POSTED data recieved from PayPal callback.

[Fairyglass]

Andy,
You lost me some time ago, but I wanted to say thanks for your time so far- if you succeed in solving this you'll make a lot of people happy
Ben

[Andy Warner]

Andy,
You lost me some time ago, but I wanted to say thanks for your time so far- if you succeed in solving this you'll make a lot of people happy
Ben

lost you!!! im in mental knots here myself. im no programmer.

as far as i can see, the more people bring to the discussion, the more it might help.

thanks for your vote of thanks....!

[Andy Warner]

being stupid?

I don't think putting the IPN string in the browser URL works as its not POSTing the data.

hence the 'no POSTED data from PayPal' in the error file

having said that, I was checking stuff, and found the failed IPNs have DIFFERENT name pair content to the working ones.

there is a missing - there is a missing &receipt_id= towards the end of the string.

Failed one:
&item_number=TT3WR510002211
&residence_country=GB
&handling_amount=0.00
&transaction_subject=AD34QA90000002
&payment_gross=
&shipping=0.00

working one:
&item_number=AD34QA90000002
&residence_country=GB
&receipt_id=4498-3304-5891-2286
&handling_amount=0.00
&transaction_subject=AD34QA90000002
&payment_gross=
&shipping=0.00

now, that could be my actinic settings??? so are sites set to send a receipt OK and those not sending a receipt dying?

[stualk]

Hi All,

Just to add my two penneth:

On the website www.blacksheepwools.co.uk they get most of their orders via PayPal at they're getting a lot of people phoning in to say that they've placed their order via PayPal and had a receipt from PayPal to say the funds have been taken from their account. However, they're getting an error page when they're being sent back to the website after payment is taken and if they go back to the website itself their basket still contains the items that they ordered (and no Actinic order confirmation email is received either) This all results in lots of phone calls from worried customers. The error log for this site is littered with errors relating to this problem over the last week - 10 days.

[Mike Hughes]

Hmm. That's interesting. The email, receipt page and checkout process are all tied together as explained towards the end of this thread:

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=26704

When the customer returns to the receipt page the scripts first try and send the customer email, then display the page. If the smpt server is busy then the whole checkout process can hang (as discovered by Jo).

I believe the scripts also wait for the IPN to confirm payment has been received before sending the email and showing the receipt page. This suggests that the email / receipt page problems could just be due to the IPN process failing rather than an indication of something else going wrong.

Mike

PS. I've just checked a few of my IPNs and none of them have the receipt_ID bit, all worked OK. This is on V6 though and we ought to consider that Actinic versions might be a relvant factor.

[Andy Warner]

i am now going to assume its a perl 'upgrade' or change - server error 500 says 'service not running' - so, what services do these scripts call?


its not just actinic users:
http://support.webs.com/webs/topics/...from_gsfn=true
https://www.x.com/message/184347

[PatchworkRabbit]

Hi All,

Just to add my two penneth:

On the website www.blacksheepwools.co.uk they get most of their orders via PayPal at they're getting a lot of people phoning in to say that they've placed their order via PayPal and had a receipt from PayPal to say the funds have been taken from their account. However, they're getting an error page when they're being sent back to the website after payment is taken and if they go back to the website itself their basket still contains the items that they ordered (and no Actinic order confirmation email is received either) This all results in lots of phone calls from worried customers. The error log for this site is littered with errors relating to this problem over the last week - 10 days.

If it is a GENERAL SCRIPT ERROR (your symptoms are EXACTLY as my customers stated) then I had the same problem and I don't think it's related to this one. The solution is to switch OFF Auto Return and PDT in Paypal:

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=48290

This does mean, however, that customers are not automatically transferred back to your site so the Actinic Order Received email may not fire.

Since switching them off, the problem I was also having of receiving 2 orders (1 pending, 1 complete) for each order has also stopped.

[GeertK]

Am I the only one that's getting annoyed by the behaviour of PayPal and Actinic. I don't know which of the forum members that posted in this thread actually work at Actinic or their support department. But there doesn't seem to come any specific answer from either Actinic or Paypal.

I bought the software because I hoped it would be hassle free...