Customer gets order but not sent to paypal first (using both group discounts+coupons)

I am having an intermittent problem. I am using the latest zencart with all updates. the site is here.
The issue is that we got orders but no payment through paypal. We only use Payments standard. It does not happen on every order but has happened once on three separate days in the past 2 weeks. each time the customer has made an earlier order that was successful. I cannot duplicate the error.
I have now been told by one of the customers that she went confirm order and instead of being sent to paypal to pay was just sent to the confirmation page with her order and the download links.
We get a copy of the customer order and they do as well.
The order still shows as processed and the only difference is that it does not have any paypal order confirmation information.
So far they have been small orders but as our products are all downloadable it is potentially a big problem.
Any suggestions on where I could start to look would be greatly appreciated.

On those particular orders, what payment module does your admin say was used to complete the order? (It's listed in column 2 beside the order number when looking at a list of all your orders)

They are all the same - says paypal free. [except for free products which are freecharger free. So no difference there with the orders that worked.
I have taken over as an admin support on this site a couple of months ago. I went and had a look around and changed 2 things yesterday. The only 2 payment modules used are PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard and the Zencart free charge card.
They were both set at sort order 0 so I have changed that.
Also there was no PDT token under the paypal module so I have added one. I thought at first it was a paypal issue but the customer was not sent to paypal.We have had several orders since and all good so crossing my fingers but of course what to try and ensure it doesn't happen again.

Well that didn't help - it happened again. Orders before and after were ok.

Anyone ???? any ideas where to start looking :blink:

I would uninstall the PayPal module, make sure you have the most current one then re-install it; with all the required & correct information.

There are times when an update requires Payment & Shipping modules to be re-installed. As you mentioned you just came into the management of this site a few months ago, you may not know what was done or how. This way you'll know for sure. :smile:

Thanks Rob. I appreciate your input. That is the way I was heading. I just wasn't sure as the customers say they don't get sent to paypal if it would be the paypal module or the checkout that was the issue. I will start there and see what happens.

I compared the files in the latest zencart download for all the payment modules and they are all good and uncorrupted. :wacko:

I have managed to recreate the issue. It still is random though.
The customers who had the problem all were
a: in a pricing group [not the same one with all]
b: using a coupon [not the same coupon]

The common factor is that they all had both of these discounts on their total. The bad news is not every customer who had the same [2 discounts] got the error.

I logged in and recreated an order using pricing group and coupon and with same products and when I went confirm on checkout page 3 of 3 - I went straight to thank you for your order and the download links instead of being diverted to paypal.

I have tried this several times with a different coupon and a different pricing group. The majority went through like this and a few times I went to paypal. There seems no common denominator.

Would it be possible that the combination of pricing group and coupon causes 'confusion' resulting in a random error. Or am I just the one with the confusion lol :smile:

UPDATE

after playing testing for ages I went to another store I own.
Made myself a discount pricing groupand put myself in it
made myself a coupon

went through checkout using the coupon

Exact same thing happened
Instead of being sent to paypal I was sent straight to the order successs page with the downloads

So does anyone know if there is a known issue?????
Could someone else test on their site doing same thing and see if they get same problem.
It does seeem to be random although it happened to me on the first go

UPDATE

Tried it at my third store and same thing happened.
Can anyone point me to info if it is a known issue or there is a workaround.

Click Reply below and answer all the questions asked in the Posting Tips section.

The problem started at this store A. This is the one I have problem with.
I have since tested doing the same things at these 2 stores -B-dsn, C-afs

They are all using the latest version of zencart. A and B are updated with security update. C is not.

I checked files from the payment module against the latest version in zencart downloads and they are the same.

All updates addons etc were installed before the issue started which was in late december.Store A has the export email adresses mod and login as customer as mentioned below.

2 stores A and B hosted at lunarservers and C at godaddy

Now that I have tracked down what makes the error happen I can see it only started when we put many customers into a discount pricing group. {50% off products] They were also given a coupon [$5 to spend]
It has happened 6 times. Each time the person was in a pricing group and used a coupon.
We have several pricing groups and customers with errors were not all in the same one.
We have several coupons and customers who errored did not all use the same one.
There have been many other customers during this period with no error but none of them were in both a pricing group and coupon user.
There have been a few customers who did use coupon and were in a group who went through to paypal so the error does not happen every time.
When I tested at store A I was not sent to paypal on 6 out of 8 checkout attempts using various combinations of group and coupons.
I then tested at store B and C who had never previously used both a group and a coupon. I made a pricing group, made a coupon and went through checkout and in both instances on my first checkout I was not sent to paypal but straight to Thank you here is your order page.

Store A is a clean install approx October 2009. I installed the Login as customer mod but after the issues started [so I could see what was happening]

Have you tested it with Express Checkout instead?

No the owner is only using Website Payments Standard. This is a small home business store.

Express Checkout is suitable for "small home business" merchants too.
What happens if you try it? http://www.zen-cart.com/getpaypal

OK looked at it but the owner does not have a business account and doesn't wnat to upgrade. Sorry.
If anyone reads this and has express checkout I would love you to test it for me.

The fault means a customer is not sent to paypal at all. I can provide a login and coupon if you wish to test and see what happens at the store.

hi,

The common factor is that they all had both of these discounts on their total. The bad news is not every customer who had the same [2 discounts] got the error.

Can you post the actual totals shown for the order here, this woul help us in trying to reproduce th problem.

I can do that but all I did to test on the second and third site was make a discount oricing group [50% ] and a coupon for $5. I placed myself in the discount group. used the coupon and went to checkout . All goes fine unitl the last confirm order page when i am directed straight to the page that says Thank you for your order.

Ok
All of these failed

Sub-Total: $9.75
Discount Coupon: Subscribergift : -$5.00
Group Discount: -$2.38
Total: $2.37

Sub-Total: $23.73
Discount Coupon: StaRtFeb10 : -$13.01
Group Discount: -$5.36
Total: $5.37

Sub-Total: $39.51
Discount Coupon: Actthreejan2010 : -$33.66
Group Discount: -$2.93
Total: $2.92

This one during same time frame worked ok

Sub-Total: $5.36
Discount Coupon: Subscribergift : -$5.00
Group Discount: -$0.02
Total: $0.34

It doesn't seem related to which coupon or which pricing group a customer is in. Nor somehting like order totals under a price fail.

I just had 2 more orders come through and no payment so I have turned of all pricing groups and sent them all coupons to use instead [yes that took me ages lol]

If anyone has website payments standard just test it for me pretty please. I would like to know its not just my stores but a glitch that could perhaps then be fixed.

demiurgia:

OK looked at it but the owner does not have a business account and doesn't wnat to upgrade. Sorry.
Express Checkout will work with either a Premier or a Business account. So there's no need for your client to upgrade to Business just to use Express Checkout.