shiptostste problem with UK shipping address

[ChrisK]

I am based in the UK. Even Having applied the latest patches I am having the same problem - ShipToState : Required parameter missing

[ChrisK]

Looking at the log file :

[LOCALECODE] => GB
[CURRENCY] => GBP
[PAYMENTACTION] => Sale
[ADDROVERRIDE] => 1
[SHIPTONAME] => Paypal Test
[SHIPTOSTREET] => Paypal Road
[SHIPTOSTREET2] =>
[SHIPTOCITY] => London
[SHIPTOZIP] => N10 1BY
[SHIPTOSTATE] =>
[SHIPTOCOUNTRY] => GB

The SHIPTOSTATE is blank, but with LOCALECODE (correctly) at GB this shouldn't matter(?)

I have customers in UK, US and Europe, but as previously stated for UK and Europe customers selecting a 'STATE' is counter intuitive.

[Pulsatilla]

I am running into the same problem in my testshop - located in Norway. I have not activated logfiles yet, but the email error reports say: Paypal Express checkout error (81108) - and body of email states "Missing Parameter - ShipToState : Required parameter missing"
This parameter should not be required, in Norway (as in most of Europe) we do not have states, we do have counties, but they are never used as part of address.

I am running a clean install of 1.3.7, with the latest patch for PPE and norwegian language, taxes and currency activated.

[Pulsatilla]

added: I tried both with and without a Norwegian county entered in the checkout prosess, but I still get thrown back to the startpage of checkout.

However; if I choose Paypal express at once in the shoppingcart, the order is accepted, with the same information put in...

[NamSingh]

Would like to add that I have the same problem. Find it too confusing asking people in the UK to select State or County as they are called here. For UK you generally need house number and postcode and deliveries work fine. I am turning this module off until the UK is included by Paypal.

Is there anywhere we can let Paypal know this is a feature they need to recognise - probably DrByte is the one to answer/forward. this.

[Pulsatilla]

added: I tried both with and without a Norwegian county entered in the checkout prosess, but I still get thrown back to the startpage of checkout.

However; if I choose Paypal express at once in the shoppingcart, the order is accepted, with the same information put in...

Correction - I tried it without logging in to Paypal, just adding information through the creditcard-page - and when I am returned to shopping cart; I have a billingadress in Norway and a ship-to adress in United States. Easy to spot the error, but this brings me problem with the taxes, as I charge all norwegian customers 25% VAT, but when shipping out of the country, the VAT is deducted. Any fix to the problem?

[FunkySlings]

This is still a problem for our UK store, still getting (81108) Missing Parameter - ShipToState : Required parameter missing, with the latest patches installed.

[DrByte]

While a bandage approach is possible, I have escalated the root cause of this to PayPal tech support, as there are some issues they need to address on this matter.

One thing you could do is add actual "zones" to your "United Kingdom" and "Norway" etc countries in your Zen Cart admin. This way, your new customers will be auto-linked to working zones, and then possibly the "state" field will be correctly populated with the defined name of the zone.
In the case of UK addresses, counties could be used as zone names. There's a contribution in the downloads area that addresses UK zones, which you might consider trying out after doing a database backup.
Not sure what zone info to use for Norway.

PayPal *requires* that a State be supplied ... and it cannot be blank. Repeating the city name would probably suffice, but of course that doesn't look as pretty in your order-detail records.

[DrByte]

The SHIPTOSTATE is blank, but with LOCALECODE (correctly) at GB this shouldn't matter(?)

No - the "LOCALECODE" is used primarily to determine the language of the page viewed on the PayPal site. I don't think PayPal uses it to drive any other specific rules such as address format exceptions.

[ChrisK]

I was following the logic of what Naani1 had said:

if the localecode is set to US, (as in my previous posting), the shiptostate is required + it is validated by paypal. However, if you leave localecode as null, it defaults to whatever the paypal account is, i.e. UK paypal in my case.

I thought the LOCALECODE setting then determined if state was required.

The zone option presents a problem as I have customers from every country in europe and

Not sure what zone info to use for Norway.

YEP! (or sweden, germany, france etc etc.)

and it cannot be blank. Repeating the city name would probably suffice, but of course that doesn't look as pretty in your order-detail records.

This doesn't seem to work. On the log file test - posted above. The customers state was set to London - but passed a blank value. I'll double check this. From what I read on the paypal dev forum the shiptostate has to be a recognised two letter US or Canadian format. ie. CA...