Checkout issue out of nowhere - can't connect to Elavon payments

[PA.com]

Hello. Out of nowhere it seems my website's checkout has stopped working. My website is linked here - I am using SD v.16.04 and I use Elavon/Opayo (formerly SagePay) as my main third-party PSP with PayPal as backup.

Trying to pay by card, a customer now sees a message 'Error contacting Sage Pay, please try again or select another payment method'. If customers try to pay by PayPal instead they can complete an payment, but this stays in PSP Pending and does not trigger a receipt email to the customer.


My error log for such a failed order reads:
-----
Program = ORDERSCR, Program version = 43542 , HTTP Server = Apache/2.4.37 (AlmaLinux) PHP/, Return code = 999 , Date and Time = 2026/07/07 07:50, Internal Errors = Sage Pay connection failed: () Read error

Program = ORDERSCR, Program version = 43542 , HTTP Server = Apache/2.4.37 (AlmaLinux) PHP/, Return code = 999 , Date and Time = 2026/07/07 07:50, Internal Errors = GETPSPFORM CallOCCPlugIn Error: Error contacting Sage Pay, please try again or select another payment method
-----

Has anybody else who uses Elavon been finding problems like this out of nowhere? The Elavon status page suggest everything is running normally, and I don't understand how the checkout can be working one day and not the next.

Is this something a website purge and refresh might clear, or does it sound like I have a more serious problem?

Thanks
Paul

[PA.com]

To continue...

I have tried a full Web Refresh (but not purge) and while everything uploaded okay it hasn't resolved anything when it comes to the checkout.

When I use Filezilla to look at my website there are a lot of .SESSION files left on the server. Perhaps more importantly over the past couple of days there has been a build up of .AUTHORISE files, .STK files and some MAIL files, the last two of which correspond to the PayPal orders which are being completed but not having the customer email sent.

From that information does it suggest a server issue, or is it more likely to be a Elavon protocol change or corrupted file somewhere? I hope someone can help me please, as I am very confused and worried by this.

[John Ennals]

I think you may need to speak to Sellerdeck and/or your hosting provider. Sometimes a routine update to the hosting environment stops Sellerdeck/PSPs working properly.

Sellerdeck might tell you that you need to switch from Elavon to ClearAccept going forward (I did, and I'm happy with it).

It may also be a good time to consider changing platforms altogether, if only to have an exit strategy. Many of the technically-minded users who used to contribute to this forum have moved on, so help with new Sellerdeck Desktop issues is not as readily available as it was.

John

[MDN]

John I absolutely right here, I would reach out to Sellerdeck first and see what the position is with your current card providers.

[PA.com]

Thanks John

I have accepted that it is probably time for me to switch to ClearAccept going forward if I want to stay within the Sellerdeck ecosystem, which I do (albeit with my current hosting). None of the other e-commerce platforms I've seen offer the ability to sell exclusively digital download products with multiple components to customers around the world in such a straightforward way.

Trouble is for me that is one almighty upgrade, from 16.04 to 18.2.4 (I believe), and as I understand it that would mean needing to purchase Desktop Cover (to get a new licence) and also sign up for a SellerdeckPay account. I would naturally be happy to pay for a new version of the software to get new functionality, but is it then obligatory to keep paying for Cover going forward?

Yours is one of the Sellerdeck websites I'm most impressed by, and the way you have incorporated the ClearAccept checkout that works well for you is great. I notice you are using the Swift template, however do you know if it's still possible to use older templates like Classic and incorporate the new checkout into that? At the initial stage I would want to make as few content/formatting changes as possible to my website apart from having a new checkout.

Thanks,
Paul

[John Ennals]

ClearAccept (AKA SellerdeckPay) requires either Sellerdeck Desktop 16.1.3 or 18.2.2 or above. My understanding is that it works with non-Swift themes. So you might be able to use SellerdeckPay if you upgrade to 16.1.3. It is my understanding that this would be a free upgrade even without Cover, since it is an incremental upgrade to V16 (at least that's what Sellerdeck told me about upgrading V18 to a later version without a Cover contract).

https://portal.sellerdeck.co.uk/sell...ew/price-book/

I used to have a Cover contract, largely because you can't really expect a company to develop and support a product if they're not receiving any income. However, it became clear that Sellerdeck were no longer developing Desktop and were not willing to fix bugs I reported, so I cancelled Cover.

If you're considering upgrading to V18, I would recommend 18.2.2. Later versions no longer support payment types other than ClearAccept/SellerdeckPay and PayPal Account. You can't use PayPal card payments (or Elavon) with any version later than 18.2.2, and I like to have PayPal cards ready in the wings in case something goes wrong with ClearAccept.

For resilience purposes, I have set up payment methods of "Please Reserve" and/or "Email Invoice and Payment Link" (according to country). That allows customers to place an order even if my card payments aren't working. I then just log in to my PayPal account and send the customer a PayPal invoice, completely independent of Sellerdeck.

Incidentally, this method works well for orders from the USA and (from 1st July) some EU countries, because I can add any pre-paid duty/VAT/handling charges to the invoice before sending it - although this probably isn't an issue if you're selling downloadable products. I let Royal Mail Click & Drop calculate duty and tax by inputting/importing a dummy order prior to making up the PayPal invoice. This works for me, although I appreciate it would become a pain if my sales volumes were higher!

John

[PA.com]

Many thanks John, that's really useful information to know prior to contacting Sellerdeck when the inevitable time comes to upgrade.

However your first instinct that it was an update to the hosting environment appears to be correct. I have deduced from my error log that server software changed from Apache/2.4.6 (CentOS) PHP/8.2 to Apache/2.4.37 (AlmaLinux) on the 6th July, and this is when the checkout errors started. Connection to Elavon is completely broken and customers using PayPal aren't returning to the receipt page or getting their emails sent. PayPal have even sent me an email warning me that my IPNs are failing and they could disable my account, so I have suspended ordering completely. Trust me, I'm urgently pursuing this with my webhosts and waiting to see what has happened.

I have done a Web Site Analysis from the Troubleshooting page and the following Perl Modules are installed on the server. While I understand ActEncrypt1024 is rarely required, does anyone know if the lack of Crypt::SSLeay or Net::SSL could be causing these issues? I doubt a server upgrade would delete Perl modules but it would be good to know if these should be present for third-party PSPs to function correctly. Many thanks.


Perl Modules
Digest::MD5: 2.55
ActEncrypt1024: Not installed
Exporter: 5.72
File::Temp: 0.2306
LWP::UserAgent: 6.34
Crypt::SSLeay: Not installed
CGI: 4.38
CGI::Carp: 4.38
Archive::Zip: 1.60
Net::SSL: Not installed

[John Ennals]

My host has Crypt::SSLeay 0.72 and Net::SSL 2.86 installed, if that's any help.

[PA.com]

Thanks John, if and when my webhosts reply to my support tickets I shall ask whether they have recently removed these modules and if so whether they can be reinstalled.

I am having to take contingency measures at my website now to keep any remote semblance of a business going, and this has indeed started me considering what my exit strategy should be. I would like to hope my business has another 20 years' life left (AI redundancy notwithstanding) so I'm starting to wonder if I need to rebuild it from scratch on a different platform, in particular one that I know other SD customers have migrated to. Or maybe a different web host could come to the rescue, I've already started making enquiries.

[PA.com]

At some point today, I discovered from a Web Site Analysis that my webhosts have installed Crypt::SSLeay 0.72 and Net::SSL 2.86 on the shared server my website is on, perhaps as a courtesy to me or perhaps because they had previously been deleted by mistake. But the good news for me is that this has remedied the checkout issue I was having, and now customers are once again able to order using Elavon and PayPal successfully, and the orders download fully in Sellerdeck. So this is obviously a huge relief and it's good to know what the root of the problem was.

But equally I'm considering this something of a wake-up call in terms of how vulnerable my website is to hosting and PSP idiosyncrasies, and will start working on contingency plans for future.