Paypal problem

[gkrehbiel]

From time to time on our site someone purchases a product with PayPal, the payment is actually charged, but it never shows up in Shopsite, so the customer never receives his product.

Has you seen this sort of thing before? How can I fix it?

I'm running ShopSite® Pro 10 sp2 r2.

Thanks,

Greg

[Jim]

This problem is the result of PayPals IPNs not being received by your server. There are a number of reasons why this could be happening but recently the problem has been worse because of changes PayPal madey to the way their servers IPs are handled. They implemented a temporary fix a couple of weeks ago but that will be removed shortly. Starting next Tuesday, Oct 16, the fix them implemented will no longer work and you will not receive any IPNs for orders unless you follow the steps in this kbase article.

http://support.shopsite.com/KBase/questions/2548

You should immediately contact your host and request that your store be upgrade to the latest version 11sp2r4. If they cannot or will not upgrade your store and you are using PayPal Standard method (not Express Checkout) then you should at least apply the fix to the paypal.aa file making sure that the token ACGI: has the value /cgi-bin/webscr (with the leading /) otherwise there is a high likelihood that you will no longer get any PayPal orders.

If you are using the PayPal Express Checkout feature then your store must be upgraded to 11sp2r4 (or 11sp2r3 with all patches) or PayPal will no longer work.

[gkrehbiel]

Jim, thank you for that excellent answer.

[kiawah]

Can you please tell me exactly where to find the payapl.aa file? I have tried to locate it and cannot find it.

I am also running an older version of shopsite (10.2) and am not able to financially afford an upgrade at this time.

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

[Jim]

paypal.aa will be in your store's data directory. If you have access to the Preferences > Hosting Services screen, the path will be listed near the bottom of the screen in the Hosting Service Configuration section. If you don't have access to the Preferences > Hosting services screen (it is blocked by some ISPs.) and you have a Pro or Manager level store the path is listed at the bottom of the Merchandising > Custom Templates > Pages/Products screen as part of the path to the templates. You would have to navigate that path until you find the file, it will be in the same directory where the directory "templates" is located.

If you need assistance you should ask your host to help you find it and if necessary edit it for you.

[kiawah]

Thank you - found it and made the change. I appreciate the help.

[circlekstrings]

Hi Jim, we are experiencing the same problem. However we ARE running ShopSite® Pro 11 sp2 r4 and using PayPal Standard. We are receiving notifications from paypal that payment was received - but no order information is being processed by our site.

I modified the paypal.aa file this am to see if that helps, but would love a more permanent solution if possible

thanks in advance

CKS

[Jim]

Paypal continues to have issues with their payment processing IPNs. I am subscribed to one of their alert notice lists and have received a number of emails over the past few days saying that they are working on various issues.

If you have ShopSite 11 sp2 r4 you should not need to modify the paypal.aa file as mentioned in the kbase, http://support.shopsite.com/KBase/questions/2548 .

[circlekstrings]

Thanks Jim!
does modifying the paypal.aa pose any risks/problems under ShopSite 11 sp2 r4? or is it just moot? We modified the paypal.aa just due to the fact that ShopSite 11 sp2 r4 was still experiencing problems and we have lost ALOT of order information in the last 5 days - so was graspong at anything that might help fix the situation

thanks again - you are the man!

CKS

[circlekstrings]

Just a follow up post for anyone else experiencing problems right now -
We just got flooded with 50+ orders placed in the last 4 days, it looks like something on the PayPal end has been addressed, not sure if its permanent but we received ALL of our missing orders from the last 4 days.

Big thanks to Jim for all the help and guidance, we appear to be back up and running!!!

CKS

[Jim]

Glad to hear things are moving along again.

[Peter Gregg]

Today, Oct 28 I had 2 orders from Paypal that did not come into or show up on the SS system.

I was running the prior version so I upgraded to the newest version but the orders did not show up.

I will just email the clients and ask them what they ordered and send it.

I thought I would just add my experience to the pot.

I will monitor my Paypal account and if I continue to not get orders from Paypal I will drop them and just take credit cards and Google Checkout. I may add Amazon but not right away.

If more info on this issue pops up please write it here.

Regards,
Peter

[Peter Gregg]

Hi Jim,

Sorry to be problematic but I need some direction here please.

Paypal still not sending me orders to my Shopsite data base so I do not see any orders coming in.
I have updated to newest version of Shopsite AND I have added the slash in the paypal.aa file (and also took it out to see).
I need some help above my head to look where the problem is. This is getting very important as i am getting orders and have no idea what they ordered.

Peter

UPDATE: I called Paypal on the phone and expressed frustration. The guy tried a little harder and returned the following info - after X number of ipn failures the IPN is turned off automatically and he said I need to turn it back on and add a URL in the box.

a: is that okay to do that (turn IPN on)?
b: will updating the version to the newest and also adding the / as the instructions said be causing a brand new problem. Do I take the / out of the paypall.aa file or leave it in there?

[Jim]

Yes, you should have IPN's enabled especially if you are using the PayPal standard payment method. If you don't turn it on you will never get orders in ShopSite. Just make sure that you have the correct url configured for you store.
As for the leading '/' character if you have a version other than ShopSite 11sp2r4 (or higher) then the slash is required, if you have 11sp2r4 then it won't many any difference as far as I know since the code now check the value and adds the / if it isn't there.

Did they tell you where you enable the IPNs?

I think this is how you get to it but there is never a full breadcrumb trail to the page.
Login to your PayPal account.
Click the My Account tab
Click the Profile Link
Scroll down to the Process My Orders section and click the Process Orders button
In the Receiving Orders section is an Instant Payment Notification section with a "Learn More" link. Click that link.
On the next screen is a Choose IPN Settings button. Click it
Now you can enter the url and specify Receive IPN

Disclaimer: My store is currently just a test store so I don't get actual transactions to see if the IPNs come through after following those steps. We have had some merchants report that they were able to resend the IPN and I assume that this is how they did it.

[Peter Gregg]

Okay - it works again - YES!!!!

So what worked??

I haven't gotten an order from Paypal since Oct 18th and today is Nov 5. Tonight I got an order.

The simple answer is I put in the slash in the paypal.aa file, updated to the newest version, and turned on the IPN notification ("Instant Payment Notification"), added the return URL.

The problem seems to have been a "perfect storm" type of thing where a number of things converged at the same time. I got an email from Paypal that revealed something I did not know. From the Paypal email from the guy helping me:
"10/18 – 3 transactions generated a 500 response from his server." This automatically turned off the IPN, so while I was waiting for the thing to get fixed, the notification was turned off by the Paypal computers so it would never start working again until I went in and corrected something I didn't know was wrong.

I didn't remember what the return URL was but the Paypal tech had what the last URL I had in there was. I pasted it back in.

So for the first time in a couple of weeks I finally got an order like I have been getting for years.

Thanks,
Peter