Paypal - session logged out - please sign in again

[DrByte]

What browser is this customer using?
What operating system?
Does the problem continue if attempted from another computer?
What firewall software/hardware is the customer using?

[velvetgirl]

I am having this same problem with PayPal IPN. I don't know if the customers are trying to use a credit card or if they have a PayPal account - I didn't think to ask them that as I have never experienced this problem with my previous shopping cart system. I have had at least 5 customers tell me they are getting a timeout message when trying to pay with PayPal. The only patch I can seem to find is for PayPal Express which I am not using.

[DrByte]

The patches posted in the PayPal Patch thread are for "PayPal" ... both IPN and Express Checkout:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56216

1. When did these customers start complaining? Over what time period have you had these complaints?
2. Do you see the same thing when you do a test transaction? Can you reproduce the problem?
3. Were there any successful transactions between those that encountered the timeout message ?
4. What is PayPal tech support telling you about this when you try to reproduce it with them on the phone ?


Instructions for testing PayPal transactions can be found here:
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/PayPal

Instructions for enabling debug logging can be found here:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61199

[velvetgirl]

I installed the patch files but still have the same problem.

1. I have had complaints since I began taking orders last Friday (3/16).
2. My test transactions went through fine both with PayPal account and credit card payment.
3. Yes, I have had several successful transactions.
4. I emailed Paypal and have not heard back from them yet.

I just switched to this format last week, before that I was using another shopping cart system and host, using PayPal for payments and have never had this problem. The people that are experiencing this are return customers and did not have this problem with the previous shopping cart.

[DrByte]

Have you seen this error message yourself ? Are you able to reproduce it on-demand ?
I can't .. which is why I'm asking. It's kinda hard to fix something that can't be triggered easily, let alone confirmed that a solution is found, etc. Hmmmm...

[velvetgirl]

Have you seen this error message yourself ? Are you able to reproduce it on-demand ?
I can't .. which is why I'm asking. It's kinda hard to fix something that can't be triggered easily, let alone confirmed that a solution is found, etc. Hmmmm...

No I have not, I just had someone email me what they received trying to process a payment with their paypal account:

Enter Payment Information

[IMG]aoladp://MA17026817-0001/pixel.gif[/IMG]
Your session has timed out, please log in again.

PayPal is the authorized payment processor for Bo Peep's Wool Shop. To continue, please enter the required information below. Learn more about PayPal.

I have not been able to reproduce this issue, my test payments went through without any problems. I understand it is difficult to figure out a problem without being able to reproduce it but I know this is happening because these are regular customers that are experiencing it.

[DrByte]

Where are these customers located?
What are their IP addresses?
Are they all AOL users?
Do they show up in your whos-online tracking (admin->tools->whos online) ? (this list only shows the last 24 minutes).

[velvetgirl]

Where are these customers located? they are in different places
What are their IP addresses? I don't have that information
Are they all AOL users? I don't know
Do they show up in your whos-online tracking (admin->tools->whos online) ? I haven't checked this (this list only shows the last 24 minutes).

..........

[DrByte]

To anyone having this problem .... please determine whether or not the customer is accessing your site and/or PayPal via AOL. This may or may not be an AOL issue, but could very well be a proxy issue with various ISPs.

AOL has some odd server/proxy round-robin behaviour, which often causes the address of their "request" to change each time they click a link on a webpage. Thus, if PayPal (or even your store) was expecting them to come from a certain address in order to ensure they were in fact the same person who was logged in at a previous screen ... but they come from a different address (IP address from AOL for example), then PayPal will treat them as logged out and ask them to sign in again.

There's nothing Zen Cart can do about that with respect to PayPal transactions.

[thecomicbookshop]

I have 3 customer acounts in the database with aol email addresses. Only one of these has made a purchase (using the Paypal IPN). The other two have made no purchases which makes me think that they maybe had a problem with the checkout but did not say anything about it and simply left. of the people who have mentioned a problem, some of them have email addresses with domain names relating to other ISPs. There doesn't seem to be any correl######## there.

I have installed the patch and haven't had any reports of problems since then but its obviously impossible to say whether anything has been solved when I have always been unable to reproduce the problem on any of my computers.