Order reference number not updating - PayPal IPN - v1.3.5

Hi - I have been having problems using Paypal IPN. Paypal is receiving money for orders fine but Admin is not showing any record of the order (checked database - not in orders table too).

I did a test transaction myself - again no order recorded in Admin/database - however I did notice that the order reference number on the checkout success page had reverted to my very first order reference number. I created another test transaction. Again, the order reference number remained the same as my very first order reference number. I reset the current order id in Store Manager in Admin and did yet another test transaction and now I get a blank order reference number on the checkout success page.

I am running 1.3.5. Without having to upgrade (which I plan to do soon) is there any way I can fix this problem?

Many thanks

Another update:
when i do a test order as a customer who has previously made an order from the site then the order id of the previous order appears on the checkout success page. When I place a test order as a brand new customer then i get no order id appearing on the checkout success page.

Those are all entirely normal symptoms of PayPal being unable to talk to your server in order to give it the details of the newly-placed order.
When you fix that problem, all those seemingly odd symptoms will disappear and order details and numbers will show properly.
Related FAQ: http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/PayPal

Dr Byte - I am going through the FAQ link you posted - but everything seems to be in order. I ran ipncheck.php:

IPNCHECK.PHP - Version 1.0

IPN TESTING - POSTING to PayPal via: ssl://www.paypal.com:443

IPN TESTING - Confirmation/Validation response: RESPONSE RECEIVED - Communications OKAY

Script finished.

I am at a loss as to what is going wrong. I've changed no code since yesterday, when it was working fine.

Okay, your server can talk to PayPal. That's good.
But that doesn't test whether PayPal can talk to you.

For PayPal to talk to you, it first needs to have IPN Notification enabled in your PayPal account profile, as well as all the other settings mentioned in the article I quoted earlier.
Then you need to do a transaction with debug logging enabled on your store's paypal module.
Then you need to review the logs it generates, if any.
If it doesn't generate any logs, then PayPal isn't getting to your server, or your server isn't receiving PayPal's connection attempts, perhaps due to firewall blocks or poorly-written SEO addons, or .htaccess redirect settings, etc.

Or maybe PayPal is having a problem with their systems today and just isn't sending notifications. Again, that's mentioned in the troubleshooting article.

Dr Byte,
Thanks for helping me out :)
I have the IPN module enabled and all other setting are set as per the article you mentioned.
I set debug mode to log file and carried out a transaction. I checked includes/modules/payment/paypal/logs (logs is set to 777). Contents as follows:

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::No POST data available

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::Could not find stored session in DB, cannot re-create session

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::No saved session data available

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN NOTICE::Got past language loads

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN INFO - POST VARS
cmd=_notify-validate

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN INFO - CURL INFO
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
,Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:20:52 GMT
,Server: Apache
,Set-Cookie: cwrClyrK4LoCV1fydGbAxiNL6iG=5ajAz5wJ0aw69hidkIZGEHbNaNG298njITj9sUy_00jwAGhp-zZHYyfeRMqxcs3YeOBGNDxdxUPFocfDOn9kD4qs5U92faz74clqqnltz1LnnoCHZN-Y9wHvZ5ezIQhk_2o2qW%7csY8SxasoFWBJyhnxDAELPpwbNtNZMvk9IFJFVjOBpJEXfX1jlXWdfZvxAu5_CvGxV-wXsG%7cFKLpcLexxNvwT8CdGCR9qCMxs0M0imwUxBb_hXXnp3QjI0u95I0LZz9_7l9B2IF9CXJ-fG%7c1233847252; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: cookie_check=yes; expires=Sun, 03-Feb-2019 15:20:52 GMT; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: navcmd=_notify-validate; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: navlns=0; expires=Wed, 31-Jan-2029 15:20:52 GMT; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Vary: Accept-Encoding
,Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
,Connection: Keep-Alive
,Transfer-Encoding: chunked
,Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
,
,7
,INVALID
,0
,

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN WARNING::Transaction was not marked as VERIFIED. IPN Info = HTTP/1.1 200 OK
,Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:20:52 GMT
,Server: Apache
,Set-Cookie: cwrClyrK4LoCV1fydGbAxiNL6iG=5ajAz5wJ0aw69hidkIZGEHbNaNG298njITj9sUy_00jwAGhp-zZHYyfeRMqxcs3YeOBGNDxdxUPFocfDOn9kD4qs5U92faz74clqqnltz1LnnoCHZN-Y9wHvZ5ezIQhk_2o2qW%7csY8SxasoFWBJyhnxDAELPpwbNtNZMvk9IFJFVjOBpJEXfX1jlXWdfZvxAu5_CvGxV-wXsG%7cFKLpcLexxNvwT8CdGCR9qCMxs0M0imwUxBb_hXXnp3QjI0u95I0LZz9_7l9B2IF9CXJ-fG%7c1233847252; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: cookie_check=yes; expires=Sun, 03-Feb-2019 15:20:52 GMT; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: navcmd=_notify-validate; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: navlns=0; expires=Wed, 31-Jan-2029 15:20:52 GMT; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Vary: Accept-Encoding
,Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
,Connection: Keep-Alive
,Transfer-Encoding: chunked
,Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
,
,7
,INVALID
,0
,

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::Transaction did not validate

Not sure how to interpret this ...

sparklefish:

I checked includes/modules/payment/paypal/logs (logs is set to 777). Contents as follows:

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::No POST data availableThat's the first problem: whatever triggered the ipn_main_handler.php when this log was created, didn't have any data coming from PayPal. This suggests that this log file was created by you surfing to the ipn_main_handler.php file via your browser.
sparklefish:

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::Could not find stored session in DB, cannot re-create session

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::No saved session data availableDirectly related to previous comment.
sparklefish:

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN NOTICE::Got past language loadsn/a
sparklefish:

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN INFO - POST VARS
cmd=_notify-validateNormally this would list more than just the "cmd=" line ... it should include all the details of the transaction being shared by PayPal
sparklefish:

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN INFO - CURL INFO
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
,Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:20:52 GMT
,Server: Apache
,Set-Cookie: cwrClyrK4LoCV1fydGbAxiNL6iG=5ajAz5wJ0aw69hidkIZGEHbNaNG298njITj9sUy_00jwAGhp-zZHYyfeRMqxcs3YeOBGNDxdxUPFocfDOn9kD4qs5U92faz74clqqnltz1LnnoCHZN-Y9wHvZ5ezIQhk_2o2qW%7csY8SxasoFWBJyhnxDAELPpwbNtNZMvk9IFJFVjOBpJEXfX1jlXWdfZvxAu5_CvGxV-wXsG%7cFKLpcLexxNvwT8CdGCR9qCMxs0M0imwUxBb_hXXnp3QjI0u95I0LZz9_7l9B2IF9CXJ-fG%7c1233847252; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: cookie_check=yes; expires=Sun, 03-Feb-2019 15:20:52 GMT; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: navcmd=_notify-validate; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Set-Cookie: navlns=0; expires=Wed, 31-Jan-2029 15:20:52 GMT; domain=.paypal.com; path=/
,Vary: Accept-Encoding
,Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
,Connection: Keep-Alive
,Transfer-Encoding: chunked
,Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
,
,7
,INVALID
,0
,

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN WARNING::Transaction was not marked as VERIFIED.

Thu Feb 2009 15:20 -- IPN FATAL ERROR::Transaction did not validateThat's showing that when your server contacted PayPal to attempt to validate the data submitted to ipn_main_handler.php, PayPal said it didn't recognize it ... in this case that's exactly as expected since no valid data was submitted to it in the first place.

I recommend deleting existing log files and do a new transaction.

Ok - that makes sense.
I deleted the log file and carried out another transaction. No log file has appeared in the logs folder.
Does this seem to suggest that something is wrong at the Paypal side ... I checked with my host and all is Ok and ports 80 and 443 are open.