Wrong non-english characters in names/addresses when using paypal express

**tj1** · 18 Dec 2008, 06:02 AM

This not only happens with PayPal, but also GoogleCheckout, and I'm guessing any other mods that send this type of characters to ZC.
So, I think this really has something to do with ZenCart and how it handles those characters. Unfortunately, my technical knowledge on this is very limited and don't have a solution.
Until there's a solution we'll just have to log in to paypal or GoogleCheckout to see the info correctly formatted.

**anniti** · 20 Dec 2008, 12:47 PM

My problem is a bit different, but maybe related;

In the description of our (Italian site) in Google the è (è) is displayed as an Russian character.

In the <head> we have:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

In Mysql:
MySQL connection collation: utf8_general_ci
MySQL charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8)

in the Google Webmaster Tools - Statistics - What Googlebot sees:
Encodings: CP1251 Windows Cyrillic (Russian)

What goes why, where wrong.
Thanks in advance for your help,
regards, anna

**manton** · 27 Dec 2008, 06:45 PM

I face the same problem of not displaying correct the characters and I am wondering if there is by any chance, an option by which the customer's data are not transferred to the paypal's form.
That way, customer should have to enter his personal data on his own.
I think this would be better instead of viewing his personal info on characters that seem nonsense.

Thanks

**whitt** · 28 Dec 2008, 06:21 AM

I noticed today that sometimes the customer address is Ok and shows accented characters ok. It is sometimes only the shipping address that is wrong.

Notice I say sometimes.

**dharma** · 13 Jan 2009, 06:36 PM

I see this on my cart also, I am not 100% sure if this issue is a ZC bug or specific to some hosts. I have been working with my host on extensively to solve some text encoding issues when upgrading to UTF-8 on MySQL 5, but since this issue existed before my ongoing upgrade and is the genesis of my issues I thought I post my findings, in hopes that someone will see what the issue is here. So:

When a foreign address ex.:

Code:

 test13 üöä

is entered at paypal site using paypal express checkout the address is input as utf8 at paypal's unicode utf8 site and displays correctly there as

Code:

 test13 üöä

the foreign address is then written to the ZC db in utf8 which is then displayed in ZC's Western latin1 browser as

Code:

test13 Ã¼Ã¶Ã¤

on the checkout_shipping page etc..

Switching the browser's text encoding from western latin1 to unicode will translate it back to what was entered at paypal, on the checkout_shipping page:

Code:

 test13 üöä

viewing the address book entry in phpmyadmin (which is viewed in unicode/ utf8_general_ci) the address is

Code:

test13 Ã¼Ã¶Ã¤

dumping the table data into a Unicode (UTF-8, no BOM) file the address is displayed

Code:

test13 Ã¼Ã¶Ã¤',

reopening the file using the encoding Western (ISO latin 1) the address is

Code:

test13 ÃƒÂ¼ÃƒÂ¶ÃƒÂ¤'

.

another issue is when adding an address in ZC

Code:

 test13 üöä

and using paypal express:

paypal sees:

Code:

test13 ���

in its default unicode browser setting, changing the view to Western latin:

Code:

 test13 Ã¼Ã¶Ã¤

I have tried to get rid of this issue by setting the default charset in the db to latin1 () ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=139 ;) and even utf8 () ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=139 ;), but nothing works.

sidetracking but: Possibly related to this issue: With my host no matter what the charset or collation the db is in all data will default to utf8 unless ZC specifies that it speaks latin1. Adding a line of code to the query_factory will fix this issue. However the paypal express issue remains with or without the query_factory change.

I am running ZC 1.3.8a on PHP5 and MySql 5, I have seen this issue with paypal addresses [Kübeckgasse] also on PHP5 and MySql 4.

**dharma** · 13 Jan 2009, 08:19 PM

I forgot to mention in the above post, that credit card transactions & addresses via authorize.net display üöä ok.

So, at this time customers using paypal express will experience text encoding issues if special characters are used, but otherwise the cart has no text encoding issues.

**dharma** · 23 Jan 2009, 07:11 PM

Update: Been getting a lot of paypal orders from Europe lately, every address with a special character is displayed incorrectly in the order email, admin and ZC address books.

Code:

AllÃ©e

Our work around is to send each customer an email after their order stating the correct address.

Code:

Allée

We then change their customer address in the admin, which displays correctly. So far we have been unable to change the order address, using phpmyadmin, any entry whether the phpmyadmin browser is set to unicode or western or the phpmyadmin collation is set to utf8 or swedish latin1.

Regardless of our fixes, this makes of look bad...is there anything that can be done?

**dharma** · 24 Jan 2009, 04:07 PM

Another update: Some how changing the customers address, set the corresponding order status to 0 which makes the order disappear from the admin display, searched for the order # and the order was displayed.........I then changed the order status and the order appeared again. whew!

I then went into Phpmyadmin > order table: the paypal API address looks correct because Phpmyadmin is dispalyed in unicode, all credit card orders with special charcters are displayed

Code:

�

because those orders were placed in ZC which is latin1.

I changed the phpmyadmin browser to Western and selected the order with the paypal API address and replaced the address

Code:

AllÃ©e

with

Code:

Allée

now all the customers addresses are correct in ZC admin and in ZC..

Im not sure what will happen when or if this customer returns, in terms of the address match, but at least for now when they return to my shop, their information will be displayed correctly and inspire confidence to place an order to be sent to

Code:

Allée

I seem to be talking to myself on this thread, but I hope my info will help others and perhaps shed some light on this issue for the ZC developers.

**Snowflake71** · 25 Jan 2009, 04:10 PM

I'm in the same boots, unfortunately my php skills are way below average; I saw this when using the standard IPN: I have the ugly monsterized accented characters on the paypal side, express checkout however pushes the characters right thru, no ugly chars!
OK, it gives me the error 10401 when using hungarian, but that's something else, IPN does rounding correctly. but just thinking that maybe the codebase from the express checkout can be reused in the standard IPN... I don't know.
(1.3.8a here too with Hungarian language/currency added)

**mrjens** · 12 Jul 2009, 10:33 PM

Hi,
I have been in touch with Paypal on this and their only suggestion is to log on to Paypal, Profile and then change Language Encoding.

This - however - does not solve the problem.

The problem seems to be that Paypal posts the customer information back in the encoding set in Paypal (e.g. utf-8) but no matter what Zencart CHARSET is defined, the result is the same. My site (www.4evershop.com/shop) supports Danish, German and English - and no matter what language I have chosen, the result from Paypal is the same. It even changes the delivery country to United States, which is not what Paypal posts.

Has anybody solved this - 3 year old - problem with Paypal Express and Zencart?

Hoping very much for an answer.

Jens

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