PayPal IPN: No order in Zen Cart

Hello,

I am not sure I am posting in the good forum, but I didn't see one dedicated to PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard.

I am using PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard, but it has not been working properly for a few weeks.

My paid orders do not show up in Zen Cart anymore.
I receive the confirmation email from Paypal, but when I log on to my admin, the order is not listed.

Also, it might be a different problem, but I have never received the confirmation order by email from my ZenCart. That has never been working.

I followed the instructions in the wiki (http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/PayPal) and here are my results:

1. Paypal was working at the time of the order (June 1st): http://www.pdncommunity.com/t5/blogs/blogpage/blog-id/mts_updates
2. my website was not down
3. my store is not password protected
4. my address matches CaSE-SenSItiVE exactly with my PRIMARY email address
5. my PayPal™ account is "verified"
6. my Paypal account is a French Premier account
7. I asked my host if the port 80 and 443 are open for bidirectional communication?
   And here is their answer:

1. port 80 - probably yes.
2. port 443 - definitely not.

HTTPS isn't enabled on free hosting at all.
fsockopen can only access content on our network.
cURL can only access port 80 (on outside networks as well).

8. no SSL
9. no PHP errors when trying to access http://your_site.com/ipn_main_handler.php
10. http://www..biz.st/ipncheck.php
    http://www..biz.st/extras/curltest.php
    http://www.***.biz.st/extras/curltest.php?paypal=1

Debug Error Logging Utility:
http://www.***.biz.st/includes/extra_configures/enable_error_logging.php
It seems that my host is preventing me from using it

11. http://www.***.biz.st/includes/modules/payment/paypal/logs/logs.zip
12. quite complicated for me, I will check it if you ask me too.
13. reinstalling the payment module didn't work
14. I am using my correct Paypal account
15. I checked my config on Paypal
16. ALL tax and shipping fees in my PayPal™ profile are turned off
17. could not find Error Log in my Vista Control Panel
18. I don't have SEFU or SEO contribution installed
19. does not apply
20. I am not using Payflow Pro

Also after performing a few tests with a $0.01 product and free shipping, with and without a Buyer Paypal Account, I have noticed that:

• when paying with a Paypal account, after validating my payment, Paypal redirects to my website, and the order is registered in my ZenCart. But If I close the Paypal page before it has time to redirect to my website, than the order is not registered in my ZenCart
• when paying without a Paypal account, after validating my payment, Paypal propose me to click on a button to go back to the merchant website. If I click on it, than the order is registered in my ZenCart. If I don't and close the window, the order is not registered in my ZenCart.

Thank you for your help.

CONFIG:
Zen Cart v1.38a
Template: Cherry Zen
Languages: English and French, more to come
Add on:

• admin_login_as_customer_v2-1
• fec
• improved_attributes_controller_1-1b2
• recover_cart_sales_300B

7. I asked my host if the port 80 and 443 are open for bidirectional communication?
   And here is their answer:

1. port 80 - probably yes.
2. port 443 - definitely not.

HTTPS isn't enabled on free hosting at all.
fsockopen can only access content on our network.
cURL can only access port 80 (on outside networks as well).8. no SSLYou will need to subscribe to a hosting service designed for doing ecommerce. Free hosting services are never suitable for ecommerce.
PayPal needs to be able to communicate over SSL, and you really need to protect your customer data with SSL. If your host won't offer that, you need to choose one that can.
You can find some good hosting options known to work well with Zen Cart by clicking the "Certified Hosts" link at the top of this page.

Correct me if I am wrong, but that does not explain why it does not work, since it worked before.
Can you explain please?
Thank you so much in advance.

Well, if it did work "before", and now it doesn't, then, well ... someone has changed something.
So, either that someone was you making changes to things on your site,
or that someone was PayPal changing the way they do business (unlikely),
or that someone was your hosting company. Maybe you should ask them what's changed?

As I have explained in my original post:

Also after performing a few tests with a $0.01 product and free shipping, with and without a Buyer Paypal Account, I have noticed that:

• when paying with a Paypal account, after validating my payment, Paypal redirects to my website, and the order is registered in my ZenCart. But If I close the Paypal page before it has time to redirect to my website, than the order is not registered in my ZenCart
• when paying without a Paypal account, after validating my payment, Paypal propose me to click on a button to go back to the merchant website. If I click on it, than the order is registered in my ZenCart. If I don't and close the window, the order is not registered in my ZenCart.
  So it still works sometimes.

Dr., I am really trying hard here, I have read a lot of posts, I followed all the wiki instructions, and detailed all the results.
I am just asking for an explanation.

I must apologize: I missed that part of your post:> etilyeti:

Also after performing a few tests with a $0.01 product and free shipping, with and without a Buyer Paypal Account, I have noticed that:

• when paying with a Paypal account, after validating my payment, Paypal redirects to my website, and the order is registered in my ZenCart. But If I close the Paypal page before it has time to redirect to my website, than the order is not registered in my ZenCart
• when paying without a Paypal account, after validating my payment, Paypal propose me to click on a button to go back to the merchant website. If I click on it, than the order is registered in my ZenCart. If I don't and close the window, the order is not registered in my ZenCart.
  So, notwithstanding that you're still definitely going to run into problems using free hosting services, and especially services that don't support SSL in any way, you are talking about yet another factor that does explain why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't ... or at least it gives you that impression.

If you're using the PayPal IPN (website payments standard) module for collecting payments, you are absolutely going to run into the problem you mentioned ... it's just a fact about PayPal's architecture for that product: The "IPN" communication that calls back to your store (in the background) to tell your store that the payment has been made ... does not get initiated unless/until the customer either has a PayPal account when making their payment or makes a choice to create (or not) a PayPal account at the end of the process. They are presented with the option. If they never choose the option, then the IPN is not sent to your store, and your store won't know about the transaction.

The simplest alternative is to turn off the Website Payments Standard module altogether, and use Express Checkout instead, since it is not hindered by the problem I just described, as the transactions happen in real time, and don't rely on the background communications to complete the order.

(You should still plan to use SSL to protect your customers' data while shopping though, but that's another topic.)

Thank you Dr.,
When installing Zen Cart, I think I remember reading that the "PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard" was the preferable solution for Paypal. Meanwhile, I might just have been influence by the word "Standard". Now, after going through the forums, I realised that Express Checkout was often recommended. I suggest to put a little star next the module in the admin panel saying "recommended".

Concerning my host, I am still in the process of testing Zen Cart, I may move to another host on the long run.

I would like to erase all the links to my website in my first post, but I cannot edit it anymore. Can someone do that for me please? I guess I have to talk to a moderator.