PayPal has unexpectedly returned a blank address

Hi,
I have a Zen Shop (1.3.9) up & running with activated PayPal Express module for payment.

If a customer is not registering manually, but directly bypassing the whole registration part by using the paypal express method, everything works fine. Cashflow works, Account is created, Email to the customer... all good!

But if an already registered customer chooses 'PayPal' as payment method at the end of the order process it does not work. Paypal login page will load as it should, but after entering the customer paypal credentials Zen-Cart returns the following error message:

Error message text:

PROBLEM: We're sorry. PayPal has unexpectedly returned a blank address. <br />In order to complete your purchase, please provide your address by clicking the "Sign Up" button below to create an account in our store. Then you may select PayPal again when you continue with checkout. We apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any trouble with checkout, please click the Contact Us link to explain the details to us so we can help you with your purchase and prevent the problem in the future. Thanks.'

Any idea where the root cause is located? I already reviewed some threads and learned that there were some issues with Zen 1.3.8 and the blank adress, but those should be fixed in Zen 1.3.9.

Thanks for any idea, where I can approach to do some more bugfixing / testing. The IPN configuration looks good to me as long as the express registration & payment works, or am I mistaking?

Looking forward to some answers of the specialists...

Best regards,
Michael

Please click Reply below and answer all the questions in the Posting Tips section.

• Using Zen-Cart 1.3.9
• not upgraded yet
• just the andover modern template, for the rest all out of the latest release
• just the regular stuff from the release has been installed
• no layouting problems
• no hosting issues
• After reviewing the FAQ / search I just found the issues with blank adress on ZenCart 1.3.8
• This is my first store. I was in the final testing, leaving the sandbox and test the paypal payment on production

I hope that those informations will help to determine the problem I'm experiencing at the moment.
Thanks for your patience and attention.
Best regards,
Michael

Which 1.3.9 release?
What settings have you changed in the admin?
What languages are you using?
What country/state deletions have you done?
What zones have you created, and why? What have you used them for? (shipping? payment? taxes? other?)
What shipping settings have you set up for your products?
etc
etc
etc
etc
etc
How is your site different from a clean brand new uncustomized ZC install?

My ZC>Paypal was working during testing with PP.

Then I moved to a sub-domain for permanent location and tested checkout without PP and all was well. ZC also works with 100% off coupon while logged in. However, when logged in to ZC, PP express fails with the same above message.

ZC 1.5.0 RC3.
Added flexible attributes.
Made some changes to ZC admin email accounts.
Adjusted some attributes.

Solutions tried:
Re-pasted API info.
Uninstalled PP module and reinstalled.

It appears to have something to do with the ZC customer address being lost during the transaction.

When it ask for you to sign up, you are still logged in and the good are still in the cart???

If it's related to addresses, then maybe you've tampered with country and zone settings or deleted the defaults. Hence the questions I posed in the prior post.

I reset my country and state (they were correct).
Where else would you suggest I look?

That's not what I was referring to.

Zen Cart has a default list of countries and zones (states if you're american). PayPal collects an address from the customer and sends it back to Zen Cart. But, if it comes back blank from PayPal, or if there is no country/zone "match" available because you've deleted all the country/zone details from Zen Cart, then naturally it won't be able to do a proper match, and that could trigger the error.

So, if your reaction to that is that you've not touched any country/zone/state details in Zen Cart, then the only way to figure out your unique problem is to capture debug logs for review. http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61199

Plus a list of EXACTLY what I would need to do to recreate the same problem EVERY TIME when starting with a blank fresh install of Zen cart with only the demo products. How exactly would I adjust MY site (which does NOT have the problem you're mentioning) so that the problem happens consistently all the time?

Log conditions:

First test:

I deleted my customer info and ran through check without an account and then when to paypal, logged in and successfully checked out.

Second test:
While logged into ZC, attempted to check with PP and was returned to ZC with the same error.

Logs:
http://register4tkd.com/index.php?main_page=page_2

The link doesn't appear to work. 404-not-found error.
PM me with a working link.

It does indeed appear that PayPal isn't sending full address details back. Nothing we can do about that from our end.

You'll need to log a ticket with their support people: https://www.paypal.com/mts

Give them the contents of these log files: Paypal_CURL_EC-7DE42988S3908964J_VEYD.log and Paypal_CURL_EC-7DE42988S3908964J_PSBd.log

DrByte, thanks for the help so far.

Spoke with PP and they informed me that the shipping varible that I'm sending is messed up. I don't use shipping and most of it is off.

I will turn on some shipping and run test.
Can you advise on how to PROPERLY set up no shipping for use with PP?

Thanks again!

Also, others may want to read these:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88416&page=4

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125948

I don't see how either of those links is relevant to the matter at hand. The first is talking about Website Payments Standard. And the second is about PayPal's inability to receive 2 addresses per transaction for a customer.

As far as free shipping goes, simply setting up products with free shipping is the easiest way. How exactly have YOU configured things for no shipping? And why?

I am selling services not products. I don't have anything to ship.

The tech at PP said there was a conflict with my shipping info that is being sent to them. He said that a varible is sent to them indicating a shipping address (or not). He said if I sent a 0, PP would look for a shipping address. If I sent a 2, PP would not look for a shipping address.

I will try to set up free shipping.

Ok, I found the problem.

I change one of my products from virtual (no shipping) to not (shipping required).

The transaction WAS successful.

Now, I would like some advice on how to set up the products (service) and shipping properly.

Preferably, I would like my customers to never have to deal with shipping concerns during checkout.

Also, if I go directly to PP with something in the cart, PP kicks me back to ZC step 1 of check out, then 2, 3, and then back to PP.

slingblade01:

The tech at PP said there was a conflict with my shipping info that is being sent to them. He said that a varible is sent to them indicating a shipping address (or not). He said if I sent a 0, PP would look for a shipping address. If I sent a 2, PP would not look for a shipping address.
Sounds like the feedback they give to people using Website Payments Standard, not Express Checkout.

So, after reading hundreds of post, what exactly is a virtual product and how do you skip shipping info with PP...successfully?

You have several ways of doing Free Shipping ...

If your Products are all Virtual Products, the checkout_shipping page is skipped completely ...

If you have your Products set to 0 weight, and 0 weight is defined to be Free Shipping in the Configuration ... Shipping/Packaging ... then you will see the checkout_shipping page with the only choice for shipping being the FREE SHIPPING freeshipper ...

I understand that. I tried the virtual products/zero weight/free shipping senario.

But what is the point when PP sends the customer right back to the the ZC to verify the customers shipping address before completing the purchase. This is extremely confusing to the customers.

The shipping is not skipped, it's just prolonged.