Paypal IPN Failing suddenly

[chriscana]

I checked my configure.php files and server configs are set to https without the www. It was like this, so I think it is OK on that side. I have tried both http and https on the paypal side for configuring the IPN (without the www), but still getting fails. My hosting provider has run all kinds of firewall tests and they are now saying that maybe paypal is blocking on their firewall. Any support request to paypal gets a generic IPN troubleshooting email.

The response error on paypals side is "retrying" which they have listed as: Retrying - indicates that PayPal did not receive a 200ok and the message was resent between 1 and 15 times and that PayPal is continuing to resend the message.

[DrByte]

The only ipn_xxxxx.log files you supplied are those that come from people using browsers to access the ipn_main_handler.php file. There's no evidence of PayPal's servers actually reaching that file. You'll have to work with PayPal to find out what the actual response code was. Their generic answer is that it didn't get a 200 response. But surely you can get them to tell you what response they *are* getting. You'll have to escalate your MTS ticket to do that.

Maybe you have /.htaccess rules set up that are interfering with normal operation. There are many URL-rewriter addons that attempt to change the way Zen Cart writes its URLs, and if implemented improperly then the symptoms you describe are not surprising.)
(Zen Cart only supplies .htaccess files for subfolders. It does NOT come with any .htaccess in the "root" of your store, so any .htaccess file in the same folder as your ipn_main_handler.php file is something you added yourself. And the rules you've got in there could be interfering.)

[chriscana]

I don't have any url rewriter add-ons and the .htaccess files are only the ones put there by a default zen install. None in either the root or the same folder as the ipn_main_handler. I have tried opening several tickets with paypal and it seems to matter how I word it mts just sends me a generic troubleshooting doc and IP address list with little other information and then closes the ticket.

[DrByte]

Can you give me those ticket numbers?

[chriscana]

Incident: 120628-000140
Incident: 120722-000025

Issue was happening (to start) on 1.3x install after working fine for a long time. Took the opportunity to do a new install with 1.5, new database, everything in efforts to support the ipn issue.

[DrByte]

My own testing by asking the PayPal simulator to send a test IPN to you is also getting instantly rejected. I can't tell what the actual response is, but hopefully the MTS folks can dig into it further. I've asked for an escalation to see if something further can be explained from PayPal's end.

However, it does seem to me as though something in your server is specifically blocking PayPal's servers from accessing. I can get to your site from a browser without difficulty, so it seems that your host's firewall is being choosy.


If they can't sort it out, you do have the option of turning off the IPN feature in your PayPal account's preferences. The downside to that is that your store will not be notified of refunds or echecks clearing or anything else that might affect existing transactions. It won't prevent Express Checkout or Website Payments Pro from working properly. It just prevents "updates" from being passed on to your store automatically.

[chriscana]

thank you. I also have had an existing ticket open with Lunarpages for awhile now and they have tried adding all paypal IPs to the firewall all the way to disabling it, but its still open and hopefully they are still troubleshooting it also.

As it stands, I get daily emails from paypal and eventually it disables itself. I am able to re-enable it, but hopefully paypal or lunarpages gives some idea.

[chriscana]

Two additional replies to IPN support requests from Paypal and Lunarpages. Lunarpages generically blames paypal and paypal does the same and blames lunarpages. Nobody gives me any additional technical info other than "we don't know" and I'm back to square one.

Do I need to give up on IPNs?

[DrByte]

I just got word back from one of my contacts about this. Apparently PayPal has been suffering from an IPN bug that was causing these problems for you.

a scheduled fix should be pushed out sometime tomorrow. The IPN messages that were affected will not be resent, to avoid any confusion for merchants that created a workaround for the time-being.

So, if your IPN switch gets disabled again before Wednesday, turn it back on on Wednesday and theoretically things should be better.

If the problem persists after that, re-open one of those tickets or log a new one (quoting those last 2 incident numbers) and post the new incident number here again.

[chriscana]

I really appreciate you looking into this. I will wait until the end of the week and re-enable IPN is it gets auto-disabled again.