Instant Payment and Automatic Account Creation

Using Paypal Payments pro for the embedded credit card processing. To use that, paypal also requires Instant payments to be activated ... okay...

When the user checks out via the instant, an account is automatically created.

A few things I've noticed
1-They are never asked to create an account password
2-They do not get an new customer e-mail
3-They do not have the choice to join the mailing list.

Is there a way to change the options for at least #2 or #3? The mailing list is the most important to me; that's my direct line of communication to my customers.

You'll need to ask PayPal those questions, The TOS for Express checkout stipulates that you NOT require account creation.

I have a similar issue- I would like to fix the automatic account creation so it works on my website. However, Ive been having a hell of a time locating the point where the automatic account creation stuff actually happens. If I can locate that, I intend to fix 2 things: First, the account is not set with a gender, has no Date of Birth, and no password gets set. For the first two, I will be editing the code to insert "unspecified" gender, and a default D.O.B. , then I will generate a randomized password , and all of this information, along with their order receipt and order status can be sent in an email, and that way, if they want to login and correct their information, they can do so. and secondly, The problem is, as it currently stands, a customer can checkout with express, it sets up an account for them, when they get back to my site they are logged in. However, if they do not update their information from that point, and they return later, they are unable to login, and the password reset DOES NOT WORK. I have had 8 customers all contact me in various stages of "MAD" because they cannot log in to their account, no matter what they try, and non of them ever got an email with account details..

I want to FIX this on my cart - I have not bothered filing it as a bug report (it IS a bug) because I noticed a couple bug reports while google searching the issue. It appears to me that the devs have little to no interest in fixing this issue, however, it severely affects my business image when things do not work the way they are supposed to. So, I will be fixing it, and I'll gladly post the fixes back to this thread (or wherever devs may request it) . however, if someone can point me to what file, and better yet what lines of code, actually do the account creation based on data posted back by paypal, it would be very helpful.

Are you using PayPal Express Checkout? If so, you are missing the whole point of EC - it is made so that your customers don't create an account during checkout.

Right, I understand the point of EC , however , so far , 8 out of 11 customers that have used EC have complained to me about the account login problems (one threatened to file a fraud report because they could not login to their account, and Zen Cart said "this account does not exist" - which is another issue I planned to fix, but realized it was because the account creation process is bugged!)

In any case, I want to fix this issue because so far, I have had nothing but grief from customers that used it and then tried to log in a few days later to check on order status, and could not.

The fact remains that automatic account creation is BUGGED , and I want to fix it so it at least has some semblence of working right. (and I already tried turning off automatic account creation in options, before you ask, and got tired of constantly having to log in to paypal to update tha status, insert tracking numbers, etc.) - If there were an option to use DP alone (but that's an issue with paypal policy, not zen cart) , I would not even USE EC in the first place - I hate it, but it is a necessary evil. the majority of my customers do not even have a paypal account (My Zen-cart store is merely supporting a brick-n-mortar store), and the few people that used EC to check out did so because they had some money in their paypal account, and chose to use it spur of the moment - if it had not been there, I would not have lost the sale (but did lose one of the customers, due to the aforementioned issue) - They would simply have used the DP with credit card.

The problem will be eventually solved once I can get a merchant account set up with my local bank, however, the problem right now is, my gross sales by credit card are not sufficient that they will set me up with an account - soon enough, however, with the web store's sales added to that figure, I can finally get my merchant account, but that does not solve my immediate problem, which is the fact that some customers may choose to use paypal EC , and then the "account" that they have does not work, because the automatic account creation is bugged

All I am asking is simply this: What file would I find the automatic account creation routine that is called when EC is used? Simple question, should be a simple answer.

flatlanderoutfitters:

I have a similar issue- I would like to fix the automatic account creation so it works on my website. However, Ive been having a hell of a time locating the point where the automatic account creation stuff actually happens. If I can locate that, I intend to fix 2 things: First, the account is not set with a gender, has no Date of Birth, and no password gets set. For the first two, I will be editing the code to insert "unspecified" gender, and a default D.O.B. , then I will generate a randomized password , and all of this information, along with their order receipt and order status can be sent in an email, and that way, if they want to login and correct their information, they can do so. and secondly, The problem is, as it currently stands, a customer can checkout with express, it sets up an account for them, when they get back to my site they are logged in. However, if they do not update their information from that point, and they return later, they are unable to login, and the password reset DOES NOT WORK. I have had 8 customers all contact me in various stages of "MAD" because they cannot log in to their account, no matter what they try, and non of them ever got an email with account details..

I want to FIX this on my cart - I have not bothered filing it as a bug report (it IS a bug) because I noticed a couple bug reports while google searching the issue. It appears to me that the devs have little to no interest in fixing this issue, however, it severely affects my business image when things do not work the way they are supposed to. So, I will be fixing it, and I'll gladly post the fixes back to this thread (or wherever devs may request it) . however, if someone can point me to what file, and better yet what lines of code, actually do the account creation based on data posted back by paypal, it would be very helpful.

flatlanderoutfitters:

Right, I understand the point of EC , however , so far , 8 out of 11 customers that have used EC have complained to me about the account login problems (one threatened to file a fraud report because they could not login to their account, and Zen Cart said "this account does not exist" - which is another issue I planned to fix, but realized it was because the account creation process is bugged!)

In any case, I want to fix this issue because so far, I have had nothing but grief from customers that used it and then tried to log in a few days later to check on order status, and could not.

The fact remains that automatic account creation is BUGGED , and I want to fix it so it at least has some semblence of working right. (and I already tried turning off automatic account creation in options, before you ask, and got tired of constantly having to log in to paypal to update tha status, insert tracking numbers, etc.) - If there were an option to use DP alone (but that's an issue with paypal policy, not zen cart) , I would not even USE EC in the first place - I hate it, but it is a necessary evil. the majority of my customers do not even have a paypal account (My Zen-cart store is merely supporting a brick-n-mortar store), and the few people that used EC to check out did so because they had some money in their paypal account, and chose to use it spur of the moment - if it had not been there, I would not have lost the sale (but did lose one of the customers, due to the aforementioned issue) - They would simply have used the DP with credit card.

The problem will be eventually solved once I can get a merchant account set up with my local bank, however, the problem right now is, my gross sales by credit card are not sufficient that they will set me up with an account - soon enough, however, with the web store's sales added to that figure, I can finally get my merchant account, but that does not solve my immediate problem, which is the fact that some customers may choose to use paypal EC , and then the "account" that they have does not work, because the automatic account creation is bugged

All I am asking is simply this: What file would I find the automatic account creation routine that is called when EC is used? Simple question, should be a simple answer.

1. What version of Zen Cart are you using?
2. Evidently you're not using the latest version, else you'd probably have already switched off the Express Checkout button on the shopping cart page.
3. When you have your PayPal EC settings set to auto-create a customer account, an email IS sent to that customer immediately upon account creation INCLUDING a randomly-generated password for their account.
   If those emails are not arriving, then you have an email problem.
4. Inserting an "unspecified" gender option is more than a mere code change. It's an architectural schema change ... and is probably not worth the effort. If your customers don't wish to provide gender info, then simply turn off that option in Admin->Configuration->Customer Details
5. Further, if Date of Birth is not relevant for your customers to provide, simply turn it off too. Admin->Configuration->Customer Details.

As far as I can tell, the "bugs" you're talking about are merely configuration errors on your part.

All the things you're saying you want to change code for ... already work just fine on a brand new clean install of Zen Cart. I just tested them all while sorting through your tirade of anger. :blush:

OK. strange.... Well first off, it wasnt a tirade of anger.. yes, I was a little pi$$y there , but again.. I asked a simple question, and have people telling me things completely irrelevant to the question .

Secondly, I am a rather well accomplished php programmer in my own right, so I am aware that the gender question is not a trivial change.. for most people.. for me, it won't be an issue to manage that..

Finally, as you evidently didn't guess yet, I did, indeed test fully, and, while I was testing the EC checkout (in paypal sandbox) , and I had 4 terminal windows open, tailing log files (apache, mail, syslog, error.log) - including tailing the mail log. - Emails work properly when sending order notifications and debug messages to the administrator, but at no time did any of the zen cart scripting send an email to the customer , or even attempt to. Nothing is wrong with mail delivery, I verified that. the customer emails do not get handed off to postfix , while all the other emails do, indeed get sent.

As for version . it is latest version (just upgraded to 1.3.9g, skipped 1.3.9h, had 1.3.9b) I am asking now, because I re-tested payments and checkout - because of the updated file for ipn main handler - and still have the same issue as before (I'd hoped it would be fixed) :censored:

As for switching off EC , where is this mysterious "switch" ? if it's in configuration settings somewhere, that's news to me - since it would seem to be against the paypal TOS for DP.. I'm actually considering simply commenting out the templates where the EC button gets shown, and take the chance of paypal revoking my merchant account before I get mine set up with local bank... :frusty:

Regarding the email with password following an EC checkout with automatic account creation:
No email gets generated for the customer account creation, as far as I can tell.. It might get generated, but nothing gets handed off or sent to postfix, the mail queue, mail logs, or sendmail that shows as being sent to the customer email address (and no bounces either) - when checking in the database , the last 3 tests I ran on it, the password is actually blank (I did an md5() on the :xx salt, and it gave me the exact string that matches the password, so password must have been blank) :oops:

Because it works on YOUR server, does not mean much to me- the fact is, it is not working on my installation, and I would like to know , again which file is it that I should be digging into and beginning my debugging work, where automatic account creation (or, simply tell me the function name or class it is located in, I can grep it.. BTW I run a dedicated server, do everything on commandline, don't have cpanel or any other control panel, have full root, and DO know what I'm doing :smartalec:, after spending the past 8 years doing the exact same work full-time - including writing extensive web-based apps and API's - in php, perl, and python - in a nice salaried job before the economy finally put me on the unemployment line, after which I simply hired myself and hung out a shingle)

and finally - whether DOB and gender are relevant or not to my customers, my question still is not answered :) :shocking:

So... here it goes again....

All I am asking is simply this: What file would I find the automatic account creation routine that is called when EC is used? Simple question, should be a simple answer.

flatlanderoutfitters:

As for version . it is latest version (just upgraded to 1.3.9g, skipped 1.3.9h, had 1.3.9b) I am asking now, because I re-tested payments and checkout - because of the updated file for ipn main handler - and still have the same issue as before (I'd hoped it would be fixed)

As for switching off EC , where is this mysterious "switch" ? if it's in configuration settings somewhere, that's news to me - since it would seem to be against the paypal TOS for DP.. I'm actually considering simply commenting out the templates where the EC button gets shown, and take the chance of paypal revoking my merchant account ...
You've answered your own question. You skipped v1.3.9h, thus you've not benefitted from the new switch added.
And, as discussed elsewhere on the forum, yes, after much long discussion with the higher-ups at PayPal, we're now allowed to switch the button off if desired after install.

flatlanderoutfitters:

while I was testing the EC checkout (in paypal sandbox) , and I had 4 terminal windows open, tailing log files (apache, mail, syslog, error.log) - including tailing the mail log. - Emails work properly when sending order notifications and debug messages to the administrator, but at no time did any of the zen cart scripting send an email to the customer , or even attempt to.
As I said, if the option to create accounts automatically is turned off in your module settings, those emails won't be sent (and no passwords generated, since the account is flagged as temporary, and thus not usable for login after-the-fact). Your earlier post said you'd turned that option off, so I'm not surprised at the results you're reporting.

DrByte:

As I said, if the option to create accounts automatically is turned off in your module settings, those emails won't be sent (and no passwords generated, since the account is flagged as temporary, and thus not usable for login after-the-fact). Your earlier post said you'd turned that option off, so I'm not surprised at the results you're reporting.

flatlanderoutfitters:

and I already tried turning off automatic account creation in options, before you ask, and got tired of constantly having to log in to paypal to update tha status, insert tracking numbers, etc.)

"Already tried it" , and the followup "got tired of having to go to paypal..blah blah" to imply I had turned it BACK ON

It is currently turned on while testing, and has been ever since 1.3.9b , because I got tired of having to go to Paypal to post UPS tracking info, etc which could just as easily be posted to the customer's account instead, from the same admin panel where I updated order status.. (if the customer had an account, that is..)

DrByte:

You've answered your own question. You skipped v1.3.9h, thus you've not benefitted from the new switch added.
And, as discussed elsewhere on the forum, yes, after much long discussion with the higher-ups at PayPal, we're now allowed to switch the button off if desired after install.

Thus implying that someone getting 1.3.9g will not have that option?

Upgrade was a full upgrade - simply copied and overwrote everything from 1.3.9g full fileset - skipped version h because of the previous reports as to the problems with htmlspecialcharacters() stuff being displayed publicly (I.E. showing > , &AMP, etc within the content that visitors saw due to editing from the admin area) So, you're saying that if I wanted the turn-off button in my cart admin, I'd have to first install 1.3.9h and then upgrade to 1.3.9g ??

OK.. half hour later: Found a 1.3.9h package , installed in test area.. set up, no "turn off EC" option that I can find.. upgraded to 1.3.9g , still no turn-off option.. so perhaps Im not looking in the right place .. where should it be?

Again .. all I asked was a very simple question, for the umpteenth time, can anyone simply just tell me where the freakin' file is or am I just going to have to forget about coming to the forums for a simple technical question since it seems every time I post a reply and repeat my question, someone comes by and tells me what I'm doing wrong..

The simple fact is, whether I am doing something wrong or not is beside the point- my question is simply - where is the correct file, or function name, so I can go through it myself and take care of the issue as it pertains to my particular installation - it could be one of my add-ons causing a problem - who knows? I won't know until I can do some debugging, and I am at the point I am just going to give up with bothering with support forum since it appears no one can answer my question, so they feel the need to tell me I'm just doing something wrong, or I am mis-understanding the functionality , etc.

In any case, I've just gone ahead and hacked out the display of the EC buttons, but I still want to get it working right.

So, for the last time,

All I am asking is simply this: What file would I find the automatic account creation routine that is called when EC is used? Simple question, should be a simple answer.

I'm not dissing ZC , matter of fact I love it - better than magento (excessively bloated code) , better than OSCommerce.. and better than X-Cart.. and indeed, better than any other cart I can think of that I have ever tried out, evaluated, installed for clients, etc.. and it is still the shopping cart I recommend to everyone that asks me about it .. Although, after this long, drawn-out discussion that could have simply been resolved by someone saying "Oh, the file you need is in /includes/classes/whatever.php and the function is called this_function_creates_customer_accounts_automatically() " and have done with it, I'm tempted to NOT recommend the forums as a source of support... so far, all I have gotten is several people telling me what I am doing wrong, or expecting the wrong functionality, or don't have my settings set properly, or that customer data is irrelevant to me or my business (as if they would know?)

So.. unless a post comes up with info where I can find the file and function(s) I have been asking for the whole time, this is my last post here. Ive already spent enough time replying to this stuff that I could have probably just found the file myself by now..

To repeat myself:

So, for the last time,

All I am asking is simply this: What file would I find the automatic account creation routine that is called when EC is used? Simple question, should be a simple answer.

flatlanderoutfitters:

Thus implying that someone getting 1.3.9g will not have that option?Correct. It was added later in the v1.3.9h release.
flatlanderoutfitters:

Upgrade was a full upgrade - simply copied and overwrote everything from 1.3.9g full fileset - skipped version h because of the previous reports as to the problems with htmlspecialcharacters() stuff being displayed publicly (I.E. showing > , &AMP, etc within the content that visitors saw due to editing from the admin area)That problem was in v1.3.9g, and fixed with 1.3.9h.
flatlanderoutfitters:

So, you're saying that if I wanted the turn-off button in my cart admin, I'd have to first install 1.3.9h and then upgrade to 1.3.9g ??No, you'd first have to upgrade to v1.3.9h. No point going backwards to and older version like 1.3.9g.
Not sure why you think "1.3.9g" is an "upgrade" from the newer "v1.3.9h" :blink:
flatlanderoutfitters:

OK.. half hour later: Found a 1.3.9h package , installed in test area.. set up, no "turn off EC" option that I can find..Admin->Modules->Payment->PayPal Express Checkout->Edit->Express Checkout Shortcut Button.
Pretty straightforward, but only works with v1.3.9h or newer installed.

flatlanderoutfitters:

I could have probably just found the file myself by now..
Likely. I found it by doing a quick grep for "express checkout": :blush:```

• paypalwpp.php payment module class for PayPal Express Checkout payment method

DrByte:

Correct. It was added later in the v1.3.9h release.
That problem was in v1.3.9g, and fixed with 1.3.9h.
No, you'd first have to upgrade to v1.3.9h. No point going backwards to and older version like 1.3.9g.
Not sure why you think "1.3.9g" is an "upgrade" from the newer "v1.3.9h" :blink:

Oy Vey!. Massive DUHH on my part , I got version letters mixed up while posting, without even thinking about it.. :frusty:

I should have copy/pasted from my admin panel.. here's what I show in top right :

Your version of Zen Cart™ appears to be current.
(You are presently using: v1.3.9h)

and once it was noted : Admin->Modules->Payment->PayPal Express Checkout->Edit->Express Checkout Shortcut Button

I found it.. it was sitting there right in front of my face the whole time, and I never even saw it.. bleh! :blush: :jawdrop: (Insert smiley here with :dunce: )

Likely. I found it by doing a quick grep for "express checkout":
yup... you'd think someone with 10+ yrs experience as a web professional/tech support/programmer analyst/sysadmin would think to do a grep for "express checkout"... I looked for everything else BUT that.. go figure..

Boyyyyy.. do I feel stupid.. haha :oops:

In any case, after a good nights sleep, and finishing up work in the shop tomorrow (Today.. it's 1:30 AM here haha) , will get busy on that and figure out the issue finally, and see if I can come up with solution to it.. will post results back here so at least maybe someone else with same/similar issue will have the info to resolve it. (I'm just kinda anal that way - even though not showing the EC button solves my main issues, I just hate having something that appears to not work properly... so I'll see if I can come up with test cases to duplicate/proof the bug(s) and come up with solutions.. )