PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

[Mountain Mama]

Hello,

I hope this is a good place to post this message. I have been reading about a number of folks using PayPal IPN who are having problems with customers being charged by PayPal for an order but that order information not reaching ZenCart. It is my understanding from reading the posts that a customer must be returned from PayPal to the ZenCart site so that the order can be recorded by ZenCart.

When signing up for PayPal and configuring my website payment options, I noticed the following: If you check the box to allow PayPal Account Optional (that is you choose to receive payments other than PayPal), your customer will not automatically be returned to your site even if you have enabled Auto Return.

From the PayPal site:

When PayPal Account Optional is turned on, your customers who are new to PayPal will no longer be required to create a PayPal account to complete a purchase—they will go through an alternate checkout, and will have the option to sign up afterward. Customers who already have PayPal accounts will continue to enjoy the privileges of those accounts, such as payment history and integration with eBay Auctions, and their checkout experience will remain the same.

This feature is available for Buy Now, Donations, and Shopping Cart buttons, but not for Subscription buttons.

Note: If you have turned on Auto Return and have chosen to turn on PayPal Account Optional for new users, a new user will not be automatically directed back to your website, but will be given the option to return.

As my understanding is that, if a customer does not choose to return to the site, the order information will not be available. Yikes! Does anyone have any suggestions for resolving this issue? I would like to figure this one out before I launch my store.

Thank you!

[wolfsz]

Hi there
It seems to be that you are making this more complicated then it needs to be. I use PayPal IPN and several other (ZC) payment modules side by side. If a customer uses PayPal then PayPal must return them to my site! If they don't want to use PayPal then they can use one of the other payment options available during checkout (direct bank depost, cheque, phone/fax CC etc.). I Have been using this setup for the last two years and all works well.

[Merlinpa1969]

place text on your checkout confirmation page that lets the customer know that they MUST return to the store after paying at paypal to complete the order.


its the only way

paypal dosnt care that this causes an issue and has for several years

[n_36]

I've just had the exact same problem.. I've been using Paypal for 4 years and have had all my customers automatically redirect back to my site i.e. not losing any orders in my ZC, for over 4000 orders.

Then yesterday I lost 4 orders from customers who had paid in Paypal. It is terrible for the business profile if a customer makes an order and we have to get in touch and say, "thanks for your money, but what did you order?"

I am in the process of emailing back and forth with paypal, but not getting anywhere so far. Is there no other way to get round this Paypal not redirecting issue?

What is strange is that this has all been working quite happily for 4 years! what has Paypal changed yesterday around 4pm GMT??!!

[DrByte]

PayPal has been having system problems intermittenly all week. If you've subscribed to their notifications, you'll get emails about the status on a regular basis. They also have a system-status website you can review to know when things are up and down.

[n_36]

Thanks DrByte, I'll subscribe to their updates in a sec. I just had pretty much the same response from a chap at Paypal:

"There is an issue in our system with the IPN product not communicating with Zen Cart. Do to the way Zen Cart operates, this issue is causing the order failure through Zen Cart, even though you are getting the payments in your PayPal account. So - the issue is actually a communication issue between Zen Cart and PayPal directly related to the handling of IPNs. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, I apologize for the frustration this has caused you"

[woodlandsprite]

place text on your checkout confirmation page that lets the customer know that they MUST return to the store after paying at paypal to complete the order.

Merlinpa, could you be so kind as to direct me in how to update my checkout confirmation page? I think I need to actually change the php file, but I'm not sure how to simply add that text.

Thanks in advance for your assistance. I unfortunately am also one of those affected and it certainly appears to be an intermittant issue at best. I've contacted one of my affected customers to see if they can help me troubleshoot.

[woodlandsprite]

Merlinpa, could you be so kind as to direct me in how to update my checkout confirmation page? I think I need to actually change the php file, but I'm not sure how to simply add that text.

I'm going to presume I just add appropriate lines of HTML at the end of the checkout_confirmation.php file and be sure to save it as a part of my customized template - at least that is what I am trying for now - PHP is a mystery to me.

[Trinity]

We are also having difficulties with this and logged a support call with Paypal. We received a reply today...

Thanks for your question. I am sorry to hear of the difficulty you have experienced recently with IPN. Our engineers have identified the issue that was returning INVALID IPN post and it has been resolved. Please let us know if you continue to have problems with IPN.

Hope you all have had the issue resolved now!

Cheers

[mypashop]

Paypal IPN still seems buggy,
i received a payment on Saturday but have
no order in zen cart.

What is actually strange, i have no cart left
in the recover cart modules, which makes me think that the cart has somehow been by accessing "checkout_success". A wrong IPN could be a clue, having a query to fail.

Now i want to know if the first post, about checking options, would help in this issue of receiving payments but no order.