Getting PayPal Direct API to Work Information

[Kojak]

This is not a thread asking for your help, this is a thread telling you folks what I did to resolve this issue so you can get your Zen Cart running with PayPal's Direct API and Express Checkout at the same time.

A little upfront information...
Yes, get your own SSL Certificate and get it installed on your website. Sorry, but installing on your website is not going to be part of this thread.

Get set up with PayPal's Website Payment Pro.

Set up a SANDBOX account with PayPal at https://developer.paypal.com/. Please note that this account is only for testing, but requires to be set up like a real account. PayPal should help you with this if you need further assistance. I say should because I had someone so frustrated at PayPal that they actually hung up on me, but they did say thanks for calling PayPal first.

Once you have your PayPal Website Payment Pro, you should receive an email letting you know the link to get the modules for Zen Cart.

There is a file to help you install the modules, but if you have any problems, there are threads on this site to help you install modules and they are fantastic!!!

Once you have your PayPal account and have gone to the Profile tab while being logged in, you should then go to the API Access option and create your "Client Side" certificate file. This is the type of file required to make this work. You will want one certficiate from the Sandbox and your regular PayPal account. For setting up your server, you will only be using the sandbox certificate. Also, please note that you can rename your certificate and remove the .txt extension. You can name your Sandbox version with the word "sandbox" in it and your live version with the word "live" in it. These are only examples and you can modifiy it to your needs.

Now, the area that causes the problem is when the module is asking for an absolute path to your certificate. Using http://www.mydomain.com/files/certificate_file_pem will not work. If you follow the recommendations of PayPal, you will not put your certificate in the root folder with your Zen Cart. Lets say you have a folder of public_html/zen_cart_store, you could create a folder under public_html called certs. In this example, you would list your absolute folder as "../certs/certifcate_file_pem" without the quotes. Make sure you use case sensitive letters. Don't use a "C" when it should be a "c". Enter your API Account Username and API Account Password and you are good to go.

Remember that in this module and the Express Checkout module, you should check the "Sandbox" option when testing your Zen Cart.

This concludes this thread. Good luck and good sales!!!

[DrByte]

FYI - the Express Checkout module and other PayPal support built in to Zen Cart do not work with the downloaded api certificate (pem file) discussed in this post.

The Zen Cart modules use the API Signature components for security, *not* the API Certificate option.

Also worth noting ... at the present time, PayPal does not allow the use of both API signature and API certificate on the same PayPal account.

[Kojak]

That is correct, you need to get the module from PayPal which is a new Express Checkout that uses the certificate only. When one signs up for the Pro checkout, their sales person should send them the information/link to download a new module for the Express Checkout as well as the Direct API. They say to not use the existing version in Zen Cart since it is using the signature and not the certificate.

Thanks for your update.

[Merlinpa1969]

Kojak,

thats kinda funny, that a paypal rep would tell you that and would NOT tell the developers ( who are in constant contact with paypal ) that they shold NOT use the module that they approved

[Kojak]

This is not surprising to me. It is the old story about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. I had people at PayPal giving me information on how to get their Direct API to work and they were not even in the same ballpark as the real information.

[KaworuNagisa]

Ok, I'm using Zen Cart 1.3.7, with the Payflow Pro module. I've got a Payflow Pro/Website Payments Pro account, and I've downloaded an API Certificate and uploaded that to the /home/account_name/public_html/store/includes/modules/payment/certs/ folder. I've tested the module just fine and the module is now in Live mode. In this module, I have fields for Merchant Login, User Login, Password, and Partner ID. There's no place that says anything about an API User name or Password. Am I missing something?

[Kojak]

I have PayPal Direct Payment and the module is noted as paypal_dp. Perhaps I don't have the latest that PayPal offers. Can you tell me about the module you have and under Modules > Payment, what do you have?

[DrByte]

I have PayPal Direct Payment and the module is noted as paypal_dp. Perhaps I don't have the latest that PayPal offers. Can you tell me about the module you have and under Modules > Payment, what do you have?

Kojak,
Are you saying that something's not working for you?

[Kojak]

Oh no. I was just responding to the reply before my last one.

[DrByte]

Ok, I'm using Zen Cart 1.3.7, with the Payflow Pro module. I've got a Payflow Pro/Website Payments Pro account, and I've downloaded an API Certificate and uploaded that to the /home/account_name/public_html/store/includes/modules/payment/certs/ folder. I've tested the module just fine and the module is now in Live mode. In this module, I have fields for Merchant Login, User Login, Password, and Partner ID. There's no place that says anything about an API User name or Password. Am I missing something?

If you upgrade to Zen Cart v1.3.8, you'll find that there's a Website Payments Pro module, which does use your API User/Signature/Password information, and allows you to process credit cards directly from your website.