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PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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21 Apr 2008, 17:10
#1
mountain_mama avatar

mountain_mama

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PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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.

[COLOR=Black]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!
[/COLOR]
22 Apr 2008, 05:19
#2
wolfsz avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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.
22 Apr 2008, 05:23
#3
merlinpa1969 avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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
16 May 2008, 07:21
#4
n_36 avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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??!!
16 May 2008, 14:01
#5
drbyte avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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.
17 May 2008, 08:24
#6
n_36 avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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"
18 May 2008, 01:15
#7
woodlandsprite avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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.


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.
18 May 2008, 01:27
#8
woodlandsprite avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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.
19 May 2008, 23:15
#9
trinity avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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
26 May 2008, 07:55
#10
mypashop avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

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.
26 May 2008, 13:57
#11
drbyte avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

mypashop:



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


As the post you referred to says, if the customer elected to pay with CC but not with a PayPal account, then if they didn't click the button to say yes or no to create an account after the purchase was made, sorry, your store will never see the order.

Express Checkout doesn't have that problem.
26 May 2008, 15:25
#12
mypashop avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

Thanks for suggesting to switch over to express-checkout.
I will go through the docs for that.
In the meantime i changed the "paypal account optional" setting to OFF,
and will add some text on the confirmation page that tells the user to come back to the site using the return link.
It's great to understand what this problem is about. Great thread. Thanks to all & Mountain Mama. :clap:
29 May 2008, 08:11
#13
ipaulpro avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

Wait. . . so thats it?

Our options are:

a. Use express checkout or PayPal Pro

b. Put a disclaimer on the confirmation page reading "When you complete your order at PayPal, be sure to return to the our site to complete the transaction" in the hopes that they may actually follow complex directions??

These are miserable options. The former is not for everyone, and the latter is a joke. How is one supposed to follow conversion statistics this way? there's got to be something we're missing here. Accepting non-member credit cards through PayPal IPN is absolutely necessary for my client.

I was trying to find out why orders were not showing up in Analytics, which is definitely a problem. But to hear about the loss of information, lack of direction in the IPN (no account) process is far more serious.

:wacko:

- Paul
29 May 2008, 22:54
#14
bryntowns avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

Same problem here - payments but no orders to go with them so having to contact my clients - terrible! I need to take credit and debit cards as well as paypal payments - any change to the status of the problem?
30 May 2008, 06:30
#15
ssp711 avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

i also have the order lost problem in my store.

i just wonder, why the paypal checkout (normal one) do not included the store ORDER ID and the order centent in the paypal remarks field?

can anyone direct me to this?

even we got the order normally, sometimes when we check the paypal payment.

besides the TXN ID, we also want to use the ORDER id to find something.

but the zen cart paypal payment only included the zenid

what is the purpose?
30 May 2008, 08:27
#16
paulm avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

If you only have this once in a while you can try the Paypal Session Viewer version with pushorder feature:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98343
30 May 2008, 16:31
#17
ssp711 avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

thanks paulm,
i download it the page is more than 100 pages....

its really better to have the search function.

but its a nice script~

thanks
30 May 2008, 18:36
#18
merlinpa1969 avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

ssp711,

Zen Cart cant send the order ID to paypal, this is not created till the purchase comes back.
30 May 2008, 20:07
#19
trillion avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

I'm new to Zen Cart and still testing in the PayPal Sandbox. Everything was working great up to two days ago. Since then, none of my orders go through even though I'm getting notification of being paid. After reading this thread, I tried making sure I (as the test customer) returned to my website -- order still didn't go through. Then I tried turning off my PayPal account optional setting -- order still didn't go through. I'll keep tracking this thread in hopes I'll discover something that will help. My products are all downloadable. Is there anything I might have set incorrectly that could cause this problem.
30 May 2008, 23:09
#20
drbyte avatar

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Re: PayPal IPN issues with Auto Return

Are you aware that PayPal has been having some technical problems with their IPN system in the last few weeks? It's been rotating back and forth between the live system and the sandbox.