Paypal issues, no error code

[nightdesigns]

For about the past 48 hours I've been getting a lot of random Paypal issues that don't return an error code. Seems to be mostly happening with express checkout, but website payments pro as well. If the customer tries to check out several times it will eventually go through. It looks like the requests to paypal are timing out, but connections to the paypal API url direct from the server are always successful.

I'm also getting a lot of errors in the admin panel when trying to get transaction details: There was a problem retrieving transaction details. ()

2016-10-02 01:20:07
-------------------
(live transaction) --> https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp
Request Headers:
Array
(
[0] => Content-Type: text/namevalue
[1] => X-VPS-Timeout: 90
[2] => X-VPS-VIT-Client-Type: PHP/cURL
[3] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Product: PHP::Zen Cart(R) - PayPal/NVP
[4] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Version: 1.5.4
)


Request Parameters: {GetTransactionDetails}
Array
(
[TRANSACTIONID] => [[Omitted]]
[METHOD] => GetTransactionDetails
[USER] => [[Omitted]]
[PWD] => ****************
[VERSION] => 61.0
[SIGNATURE] => ****************************************************nF2w
)


Response:
Array
(
[] =>
[CURL_ERRORS] =>
)


GetTransactionDetails, Elapsed: 285ms -- Failed

E-mailed error

Dear store owner,

An error occurred when attempting to initiate a PayPal Express Checkout transaction. As a courtesy, only the error "number" was shown to your customer. The details of the error are shown below.


Zen Cart message: 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.

Problem occurred while customer was attempting checkout with PayPal Express Checkout.

Hosting provider says they are not aware of any connectivity issues.

Any ideas?

[DrByte]

Those messages are all indicative of the paypal module being unable to reach the paypal servers.
This is typically a hosting-company issue. Perhaps they've got a firewall block against port 443, or their TLS infrastructure (CURL, OpenSSL, etc) is broken and outdated and therefore no longer compatible with PayPal's current-day requirements.
Or maybe your old version of Zen Cart hasn't been patched to work with PayPal's newer requirements.

Or maybe those were happening at a time when PayPal was having issues. They have a site which reports downtime issues, and a mailing list for those too.

[nightdesigns]

I've been doing more testing and I can't even open a curl connection (via command line or php) to https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp from my server. I can access via the sandbox, and I can access via a different hosting provider. My hosting provider (rackspace) says there are no issues on their end, and paypal will never admit to anything. Any suggestions how I can prove where the issue is?

[nightdesigns]

Paypal is returning a 403 Forbidden error...

[DrByte]

Try visiting http:// your_domain.com/extras/curltester.php
What's the output say?


You could even replace the one on your server with the latest one, available from Github

[nightdesigns]

Tried both for http and https with same result

Array
(
    [field1] => This is a test
    [statuskey] => ready
)

Data validation
Good

[DrByte]

Tried both for http and https with same result

Array
(
    [field1] => This is a test
    [statuskey] => ready
)

Data validation
Good

That's the output from an ancient version of curltest, not the one I pointed you to.