Duplicate Paypal orders

[HeleneWallis]

I don't know whether this is a Paypal issue or what. We're having repeated problems with our site being so slow that our credit card processor times out before it gets a reply back from our site. We get an error message, but the order still comes through and the customer's card is debited. I assume our CC processor is just pinging the site until it gets a reply when that happens. Paypal appears to be sending the whole order record back each time, which results in duplicate orders, even though we are only credited once and the customer is only debited once.

Has anyone else run into this? I'm going to complain to our host company again--every time this happens they say okay, we'll move you to a new server, and every time it improves for a while and then slows down again. And I don't even have a high traffic site. But even if the site is slow, Paypal shouldn't be repeatedly sending the whole order record back to us. Probably nothing I can do about that, though I'm going to call them.

Is there some way to actually remove these order records from the database (other than going into it manually)? I've changed the order status to Cancelled, so no one will try to fill the duplicate orders, but the numbers are still there and are going to throw off our reports.

[DrByte]

You could try turning off "IPN: Instant Payment Notification" in your PayPal account Profile, under Payment Receiving Preferences ... just in case it is indeed their system telling your store about a "new sale".

(When using PayPal Express, or PayPal Pro, the IPN is normally only utilized to receive transaction "updates", such as holds-removed, or refunds-issued, or checks-cleared, etc. But maybe yours is treating those like PayPal Standard does, where the IPN is actually used to insert the order into the database at the end of payment completion, because PayPal Standard is an ancient artifact (kept only for convenience for sites who won't move to modern tech) and doesn't know how to confirm a payment in real-time.)

[HeleneWallis]

Thanks, I will try that.

[mespe]

I just experienced the same thing. Two orders, one payment. one unique payment identifier. I was unable to locate the "IPN: Instant Payment Notification" in your PayPal account Profile, under Payment Receiving Preferences

[mespe]

ahhh wait paypal moved it to "My selling tools" it's disabled now thanks.

[badarac]

Just in case this is not related to the IPN and is really the submit button being hit multiple times after it's no longer disabled. Have a look at this thread https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....76#post1317476