Suddenly site Owner's email notification of purchases not arriving

[adf169]

My client has notified me that they are no longer receiving emails notifying them that something has been purchased. The first they get to hear about it is the Paypal advice. The item is showing as Sold on the site and all else appears ok. This has just started happening, the site has been working well since I upgraded it to 1.3.9h about 2 years ago.

I don't know where to begin troubleshooting this, beyond checking that the emails aren't going to Spam. Any suggestions?

[DrByte]

Simple: change them from PayPal Standard to PayPal Express Checkout instead.

[adf169]

Simple: change them from PayPal Standard to PayPal Express Checkout instead.

Thanks for this, could you explain why this will resolve the problem?

[DrByte]

Standard relies on waiting for PayPal's servers to tell your store about completed payments in the background, completely independently of your customer's activity. And if there's ANYTHING wrong with that communication, your store will never know about the payments, thus they won't be stored in your store's orders data, nor will you receive emails.
Express Checkout is more modern technology and confirms the payment in real-time while your customer is actively engaged with your store, and gives confirmation immediately, without waiting for updates in the background.

Your symptoms are classic indicators of communications problems with your store and PayPal.
So, you have two options:
a) fix the communications problems -- requires a lot of diagnostics and testing and site inspection http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/PayPal
b) bypass the problem by using more modern more reliable approach by switching to the EC module instead

http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?...xpress-and-pro

[adf169]

Standard relies on waiting for PayPal's servers....

OK thanks for that. Its good to know why things work, or not.

I've switched the site over to Paypal Express and made a test purchase, I received an email ok from the site, but the site owner still isn't getting one. Any ideas what this could be?

[DrByte]

... and made a test purchase, I received an email ok from the site, but the site owner still isn't getting one. Any ideas what this could be?

If you the customer received the email but the storeowner did not, then that suggests the store is set up with the wrong "send extra order confirmation emails" email address in Admin->Configuration->Email Options.

[adf169]

Yes, that was the first thing I checked, and sent a couple of test emails to that address also. It all appears to be ok, and this has suddenly stopped working after previously working ok.


E-Mail Options



Title Value Action
E-Mail Transport Method PHP Info
E-Mail Linefeeds LF Info
Use MIME HTML When Sending Emails false Info
Send E-Mails true Info
Email Archiving Active? false Info
E-Mail Friendly-Errors false Info
Email Address (Displayed to Contact you) [email protected] Info
Email Address (sent FROM) [email protected] Info
Emails must send from known domain? No Info
Email Admin Format? TEXT Info
Send Copy of Order Confirmation Emails To [email protected]
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To - Status 0 Info
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To [email protected] Info
Send Copy of Tell a Friend Emails To - Status 0 Info
Send Copy of Tell a Friend Emails To [email protected] Info
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To - Status 0 Info
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To [email protected] Info
Send Copy of Admin GV Mail Emails To - Status 0 Info
Send Copy of Customer Admin GV Mail Emails To [email protected] Info
Send Copy of Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To - Status 0 Info
Send Copy of Customer Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To [email protected] Info
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To - Status 0 Info
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To [email protected] Info
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To - Status 0 Info
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To [email protected] Info
Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List Info
Allow Guest To Tell A Friend false Info
Contact Us - Show Store Name and Address 1 Info
Send Low Stock Emails 0 Info
Send Low Stock Emails To [email protected] Info
Display "Newsletter Unsubscribe" Link? true Info
Audience-Select Count Display true Info
SMTP Email Account Mailbox YourEmailAccountNameHere Info
SMTP Email Account Password **************** Info
SMTP Email Mail Host mail.EnterYourDomain.com Info
SMTP Email Mail Server Port 25 Info
Convert currencies for Text emails £,£:€,€ Info

Send Copy of Order Confirmation Emails To


Please make any necessary changes

Send Copy of Order Confirmation Emails To
Send COPIES of order confirmation emails to the following email addresses, in this format: Name 1 <email@address1>, Name 2 <email@address2>


Cancel

[DrByte]

Then either you've got PHP errors happening when the 2nd email is being sent, or you've got something in the destination mailbox spam or black-hole.

Fix your PHP errors by reviewing the logs: http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?124-blank-page
Fix your spam/blackhole issues by getting your hosting company and mailserver administrator to fix whatever issues are causing the emails to not arrive when sent from your store. It might require using SMTPAUTH instead of PHP in order to send authenticated emails instead of generic emails.

Whatever "suddenly" caused things to stop is an issue you need to take up with whoever runs all the servers involved in sending and receiving those emails.