Nothing to process. Please return to home page. when using paypal express checkout

[DickTurpin]

I'm sorry to be a pain in the neck and I have read numerous similar problems to mine and followed the directions to the best of my knowledge but every time I test the Paypal express checkout I recieve the message:
"Nothing to process. Please return to home page." after entering my paypal account details and confirming the item is correct. I get the email to welcome the new customer ok but nothing other than that is processed.

I have error logs but I can't make head or tail of them, and Paypal say that that the error itself is on my cart not with them.

I thought at first that it might have been a mod I'd installed or the database but I'm not so sure now as I just installed a brand new cart with no mods and using a brand new database and I get the same result. Ever since I remember this has been a problem although the standard IPN works ok.

I'd appreciate any help in the matter

• What version of Zen Cart are you using? v1.3.9h

• as your site been upgraded? When? From what version(s)?
  Several times in the past last time from 1.3.8a to 1.3.9h although this has also happened on a fresh install with new database as explained

• What addons have you installed? When? as explained

• name of your hosting company: Easy Internet Solutions LTD

[DrByte]

PM me with a link to where I can download a zip file of your logs.
And the PayPal MTS tech support ticket number where they're saying the problem is "not with them" would be helpful too.

Also, can you post information about the transaction you were attempting? Was it just a single product with no discounts/sales/specials? What price? Any particular taxes? if so, what? Tax-included vs excluded? ie: how can I simulate the same transaction on my own site to trigger the same error condition?
Does it make a difference if the customer already has an account in your store using the same email address as the paypal account you're buying with?
And, to clarify, this "please return to home screen" message ... is it showing on *your* site or on PayPal's site?

[DickTurpin]

I've checked all the variables I can thnk of to try and illiminate this issue now.
tried with an account on my store and without
Tried with an existing and new paypal account
Tried different cards to pay with
Trided different items of varying prices and options free ship and pay

The page with the error message on is:
http://www.mysticminds.co.uk/store/i...ckout_shipping
the contents of the page simply reads "Nothing to process. Please return to home page."

I see the customer's account on my admin after this and they get an email welcoming them to my shop but there is no order details and nothing in paypal side either

I've even added the line of code suggested on http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpo...8&postcount=15
I installed the IPN check tool which I believe says that everything is ok
I checked the CURL tester.php script again seems everything is communicating ok
Again double checked (cut and pasted) the settings in the express checkout payment page.
reconfirmed I've followed the instructions on http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=15

Still I have no luck

Dr Byte, I've pm you with the error logs but again I can't make head or tail of them and paypal said that its an error with zencart not on their side. I'm currently stuck in a rut and not sure which way to go. I've been unable to accept any payments now for several weeks

[DickTurpin]

Ok so now I think I've damaged the cart. I created yet another new store and compared the structure of the new database with that of the old one I've been using keeping all the indexes but removed a few old mods left in the database. Everything other than my usual problem works still.

Copied over the paypal items from includes/modules payment and over written the ones I had
same for the ones stored in languages/english/modules payment/ and now I'm getting different error logs than before.

One change is that when going through the paypay express checkout is within the error logs and the process is a little different as one minute it goes to paypal the other it instantly goes to http://www.mysticminds.co.uk/store/i...ain_page=login with the message "Nothing to process. Please return to home page."

My latest error logs one says "Jun 09 2011 12:37 -- IPN ERROR :: Could not find stored session {} in DB; thus cannot validate or re-create session as a transaction awaiting PayPal Website Payments Standard confirmation initiated by this store. Might be an Express Checkout or eBay transaction or some other action that triggers PayPal IPN notifications.

Jun 09 2011 12:37 -- IPN ERROR :: No saved Website Payments Standard session data available. Must be an Express Checkout or Direct Pay transaction.
Could be a test notification, or the incoming IPN notification is not actually a bonafide PayPal transaction.
NOTE: It is likely that all the following log content is meaningless or irrelevant.

"
I wish I knew how to remedy all of this it's giving me a headache. and I'm now feeling rather down having spent so many days and nights going round in circles to fix this.

[DrByte]

When did these problems first start on your main site?

[DickTurpin]

Thinking about it, when I first opened my online store in 2007 I had trouble with the express checkout feature and I think I used to get the same result/message although I can't be 100% sure as I gave up several years ago when the basic IPN method (I think that's what it's called anyway,) worked beautifully.

When I started with zencart I didn't have a secure socket installed on my server so I presumed that that was the reason for it not working but now I have a SSL and can really see the potential for using the express checkout that it would be foolish not to utilize the feature. It's just very frustrating that after several weeks of intense restructuring of my site and upgrading zencart I still cannot use it. I know in the past when speaking to other zencart users thay have had the same issue and gaveup.

[DickTurpin]

Ok after many days of searching for the answer. I finally got a clean install and clean database to work, not done anything different from any other times. In fact was able to have several different locations with indipendant databases working. And by working I mean I have a test item and the entire paypal express checkout has worked, every process completed successfully.

I have laboriously checked the table structures and nothing is different I don't even have any of the old mod tables or fields present in my old database but it still doesn't work so I'm guessing that this is something to do with the data within the database itself.

Having waded through the database schema of the product info and importing the data into the new working data base breaks the new and working cart by looping from paypal to the login page > login> checkout > payal return to login. So I appear to have narrowed down the search tremendously but I fear that I may have lost the use of this data unless I can find the troublesome entry and to be honest I don't know what to look for. I'm still to investigate if importing the customer related information in the other new and working database results in the same which will confirm what I have written here. I do recall having some strange characters appear like little squares in the past and I'm wondering if that might be where the error lies. Each time the shopping cart has been upgraded to the latest version more of these funny characters have appeared and they are a real mission to remove from within the cart itself.

[DickTurpin]

Well after restoring the working database using a working backup of it with the test item and paypal settings in it made through the mysql admin and restoring it from the same place I'm back to the loop mentioned in my last post. I'm really not having much luck.
I even deleted the tables and done the restore again and the loop is back.

[DrByte]

What's most odd here is that the "Nothing to process. Please return to home page" message only exists in the IPN handling logic, and then only when the data being returned from PayPal is blank ... which is why it's saying "Nothing to process". There is one other time when that will happen ... and that's when you visit your own ipn_main_handler.php page using *your* browser without any parameters, which is perfectly expected since you'll never be sending an IPN to yourself, nor could you.

So, this begs some additional questions about addons on your site that might be breaking normal functionality, most notably anything that rewrites the normal Zen Cart URLs by stripping or translating any URL parameters. If such addons are stripping off the control-directing parameters that ZC instructs PayPal to append to the ipn_main_handler.php URL when returning from and Express Checkout setup, then I'm not surprised that it's not working. Most URL rewriter addons serve no meaningful purpose, and instead end up causing more harm than good.

Perhaps you can enumerate which addons you normally have on those sites that are *not* working properly with PayPal?

[DickTurpin]

I had thought about using one of the friendly url mods in the past but never did so I know that can't be the reason and I'm not sure of any other mods which make such adjustments to the urls.

I find it very strange that with this new clean installation with no mods or custom themes installed with only one test item added to the cart, and using the per item, free shipping and flat rate shipping options configured only, there is a loop going on and no error message appears on screen like my old store. Even the paypal express checkout configurations I've cut and pasted the IPN details to eliminate any typos. It was also a brand new clean mysql database as-well. It succeeded the very first time I tested the express checkout but when tested again without any changes to the cart codes or manual changes to the database the loop appeared. I was hoping this new information might help. It eliminated the server not being able to communicate with paypal theory I originally had but seems that during the first communication the cart or database is damaged and I don't know where to look next. I've exhausted all variables I can think of. Curl is off as another post which had this new loop issue found that it was turned on although they don't recall turning it on.