PayPal Express Checkout Error 82001 - Unspecified Method Error

Yesterday my site worked fine. Today no one can check out.

PayPal Express is the only payment method we take. I'm using an older version of Zen Cart (please don't tell me to upgrade -- first things first, I need to get this working again pronto) and I got an email last night saying I had an older version of SSL that was going to be eliminated soon. I assume they were referring to that whole Poodle thing, which I thought the upgrades had taken care of but I guess not.

This morning when I took a look at the site, I found that customers couldn't checkout -- they got to PayPal's website but were shown a screen that said invalid transaction, then were never redirected to my site.

So I reapplied the Poodle upgrades and reuploaded those pages. Suddenly the checkout pages wouldn't advance -- customers got stuck in a loop that took them from step 3 of the checkout process back to step 2. The logs came back with the error 81002 Unspecified Method Error - Method specified not supported. Part of the logs look like this:

***
Request Parameters: {SetExpressCheckout}
Array
(
[] =>
)


Response:
Array
(
[ACK] => Failure
[L_ERRORCODE0] => 81002
[L_SHORTMESSAGE0] => Unspecified Method
[L_LONGMESSAGE0] => Method Specified is not Supported
[L_SEVERITYCODE0] => Error
[CURL_ERRORS] =>
)
***

I disabled SSL and then disabled PayPal Express and installed PayPal Standard, which seemed to solve the problem -- payments were taken but orders weren't fed back to my admin. Suddenly they just disappeared.

GRRR!!!

I'm on Dreamhost and they don't seem to know what's going on. I called PayPal and got the same thing. Suddenly a site that's been running fine for going on 5 years has up and stopped working overnight. I've read and re-read the forums and tried everything I could (short of upgrading to the latest and greatest version) to see if I can't fix things.

Can anyone help me patch it back together again? Any ideas on what might be wrong?

I'm this close to just saving the database, deleting the whole site, uploading a fresh install, and trying to see if I can't load my database into it and go from there. But would that even work?

So frustrated ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jmsnyder23

Request Parameters: {SetExpressCheckout}
Array
(
[] =>
)

---

The "method not supported" is because the Request (shown above) is blank.

I can't figure out why that could even happen using any version of Zen Cart at all ... unless someone has been tampering with files on your server and has mangled them in a way that they no longer operate as expected.
The first thing I'd do is check all the files on the server to be sure they match how all the files were before the problems started happening. ie: compare them to the last backup you took when the site was operating fine. Then fix the discrepancies. Then figure out what the new symptoms are and fix those, etc.

I suspect whatever you did to "re-apply the poodle fixes" (which would have been unnecessary IMO) probably broke something. So, put the files back to how they were before you did that.

Then hopefully it'll put the site back to the previous symptom (ie: "This morning when I took a look at the site, I found that customers couldn't checkout -- they got to PayPal's website but were shown a screen that said invalid transaction, then were never redirected to my site.") ... which I suspect was actually a temporary problem on the PayPal end. But, until you can get that symptom to happen again, you won't be able to get PayPal to explain why they're displaying that message (Only PayPal can explain why they're displaying such messages).

Yes, I tried that. I still get the same error I got earlier in the day. The customer is taken to PayPal, where they get this error:

This transaction is invalid. Please return to the recipient's website to complete your transaction using their regular checkout flow.

My log has this error message:

2015-09-11 06:21:08
-------------------
(live transaction) --> https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp
Request Headers:
Array
(
[0] => Content-Type: text/namevalue
[1] => X-VPS-Timeout: 45
[2] => X-VPS-VIT-Client-Type: PHP/cURL
[3] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Product: PHP::Zen Cart(tm) - PayPal/NVP
[4] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Version: 1.3.9h
)


Request Parameters: {SetExpressCheckout}
Array
(
[] =>
)


Response:
Array
(
[] =>
[CURL_ERRORS] => (35) error:14094410:SSL routines:SSL3_READ_BYTES:sslv3 alert handshake failure
)

(35) error:14094410:SSL routines:SSL3_READ_BYTES:sslv3 alert handshake failure
Array
(
[url] => https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp
[content_type] =>
[http_code] => 0
[header_size] => 0
[request_size] => 0
[filetime] => -1
[ssl_verify_result] => 0
[redirect_count] => 0
[total_time] => 0.204912
[namelookup_time] => 0.133823
[connect_time] => 0.20496
[pretransfer_time] => 0
[size_upload] => 0
[size_download] => 0
[speed_download] => 0
[speed_upload] => 0
[download_content_length] => -1
[upload_content_length] => -1
[starttransfer_time] => 0
[redirect_time] => 0
[certinfo] => Array
(
)

[redirect_url] =>
)


SetExpressCheckout, Elapsed: 301ms -- Failed
(35) error:14094410:SSL routines:SSL3_READ_BYTES:sslv3 alert handshake failure
Array
(
[url] => https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp
[content_type] =>
[http_code] => 0
[header_size] => 0
[request_size] => 0
[filetime] => -1
[ssl_verify_result] => 0
[redirect_count] => 0
[total_time] => 0.204912
[namelookup_time] => 0.133823
[connect_time] => 0.20496
[pretransfer_time] => 0
[size_upload] => 0
[size_download] => 0
[speed_download] => 0
[speed_upload] => 0
[download_content_length] => -1
[upload_content_length] => -1
[starttransfer_time] => 0
[redirect_time] => 0
[certinfo] => Array
(
)

[redirect_url] =>
)

****

Obviously it's the SSL issue, so when I comment out the offending line, then I get the checkout page loop, and the logs give me this error:

2015-09-11 06:22:30
-------------------
(live transaction) --> https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp
Request Headers:
Array
(
[0] => Content-Type: text/namevalue
[1] => X-VPS-Timeout: 45
[2] => X-VPS-VIT-Client-Type: PHP/cURL
[3] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Product: PHP::Zen Cart(tm) - PayPal/NVP
[4] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Version: 1.3.9h
)


Request Parameters: {SetExpressCheckout}
Array
(
[] =>
)


Response:
Array
(
[ACK] => Failure
[L_ERRORCODE0] => 81002
[L_SHORTMESSAGE0] => Unspecified Method
[L_LONGMESSAGE0] => Method Specified is not Supported
[L_SEVERITYCODE0] => Error
[CURL_ERRORS] =>
)


SetExpressCheckout, Elapsed: 588ms -- Failure

ACK=Failure&L_ERRORCODE0=81002&L_SHORTMESSAGE0=Unspecified%20Method&L_LONGMESSAG E0=Method%20Specified%20is%20not%20Supported&L_SEVERITYCODE0=Error&CURL_ERRORS=

****

I don't understand why this suddenly started happening. I had orders come in late last night.

Code:

---

[CURL_ERRORS] => (35) error:14094410:SSL routines:SSL3_READ_BYTES:sslv3 alert handshake failure

---

Appears that there are curl errors and/or sslv3 handshake failures
Go to https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ and enter your domain name
See if ssl3 is being supported
Check in your ZC admin tools server version info and search page for "curl"

Okay, the only thing that's changed recently is that my server updated to a newer PHP version. Curl version is 7.22.0. I'm thinking the newer PHP has most likely broken my site.

So I guess it's time to upgrade after all :(

Could I do a brand new install and just import my existing database? That seems the easiest way ...

Quote:

---

So I guess it's time to upgrade after all

---

What bversion are you using now?

Quote:

---

Could I do a brand new install and just import my existing database? That seems the easiest way ...

---

https://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?148

I'm using 1.3.9h.

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately nothing about the upgrade process looks easy, which is why I've put it off for so long.

Quote:

---

Unfortunately nothing about the upgrade process looks easy

---

If you have followed the template overrides system and do not have too many 3rd party addons it is not as daunting as it looks

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jmsnyder23

Okay, the only thing that's changed recently is that my server updated to a newer PHP version.

---

What's the new PHP version?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jmsnyder23

Okay, the only thing that's changed recently is that my server updated to a newer PHP version. Curl version is 7.22.0. I'm thinking the newer PHP has most likely broken my site.

So I guess it's time to upgrade after all :(

Could I do a brand new install and just import my existing database? That seems the easiest way ...

---

Hi

Not sure if this is any help to you but yesterday paypal had a blanket glitch ... On my purchase on Hermes Courier website the same error came up as a consumer - I couldn't pay via paypal it was as if my card was declined so I used the pay by debit card option ( the card was the same one that is linked to paypal ) and it worked . It was nothing to do with my card but there was an issue with paypal gateway itself ...

Sorry if this is no help but just saw your post and thought I would mention it . Have you tested it today ?

Tracey-ann