Two Questions, Both about Paypal integration

[only1patrick]

After pulling my hair out, I recently found out Paypal IPN Standard DOES NOT push the information on orders to Paypal.
I was told to use Paypal Express, but the problem is, this can't be the only option, as some people don't have paypal accounts.

So, two questions.
1) If I upgrade to Paypal Pro, will THAT work in sending the order information to paypal and through the Merchant Order E-mail?

2) Second question, I DID install Paypal Express, but when I clicked the button for it on my site to test it, it said it can't communicate with Paypal. I got the following error:
An error occurred when we tried to contact the payment processor. Please try again, select an alternate payment method, or contact the store owner for assistance. () - (7) couldn't connect to host

So of course I tested the http://fitgirlwear.com/extras/curltest.php, and although I don't know what all the numbers mean, it said the data validation was good.
So, anyone with any idea why I'd be getting this error with Paypal Express, please advise. And don't forget about the first question.. lol

[DrByte]

a) The Website Payments Standard/IPN module in Zen Cart 1.x does not push line-item details to PayPal: it simply passes the customer info and the order amount. PayPal issues a payment receipt and your store issues the detailed receipt for what was purchased.

b) The Express Checkout module in Zen Cart *does* pass all the line item details in addition to the customers' info and order amount.

c) Most geographic regions nowadays are able to use Express Checkout regardless of having a PayPal account. The exact range of that is up to international banking orgs and their relationship with PayPal.

d) PayPal Website Payments Pro functions almost identical to (and requires enabling of) Express Checkout, and *does* include line-item details when the order is transmitted to PayPal. Those order details can be seen *in* your PayPal account when viewing the transaction detail. However, the email that PayPal sends to *you* (the merchant) does *not* include those line-item details in the case of a Website Payments Pro transaction. It is just like a common credit-card receipt (since Website Payments Pro is just a credit card gateway).

e) If you're getting Error (7) couldn't connect to host, then you've got server connectivity problems that you'll have to take up with your host.
The difficulty in troubleshooting that comes from the fact that the curltest.php script which you pointed to shows that CURL (which is used to talk to PayPal Express/Pro) appears to be functioning fine, whether talking to PayPal or not.
You'll notice that using it in paypal-test-mode: http://fitgirlwear.com/extras/curltest.php?paypal=1 the output shows a PayPal response (it talks about a transaction failure, but that message comes directly from PayPal and thus confirms that PayPal can receive messages from your server and reply back to them, as required).
Normally the (7) couldn't connect to host error would appear consistently if the problem were with CURL itself.