ALERT: PayPal Direct Payment Error ( _!-- --_)

Hello,
My customer received an error saying that her address does not match the billing address and her transactions never went through or so it seemed. She used a Visa and was charged twice through Paypal but these transactions did not go into Zen Cart. I checked my logs and I didn't see the error in any of the files. I checked my E-mail Archive Manager and found this error twice. ALERT: PayPal Direct Payment Error ( !-- --) There is no description for the error. What can I do to fix this immediately? I don't want my customers to be charged multiple times especially when I can't see why. I have the setting for "confirmed address" set to off. What else do I need to do? Thanks!

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=593183#post593183

This will make sure that the transactions won't go through without letting my store know and it will stop the address error from happening? Thanks!

Using 1.3.8a

My store manager received the exact alert error today.
PayPal did process their payment and shows detail of this item being ordered in our PayPal merchant account.
This customer used Express Checkout Module by logging into their paypal account.

There is no record of the order in our Zen Cart admin area.
There is no such order in the database tables.

I bet the item is still sitting in their shopping cart.
We will process the customer's payment and order.
We will inform them that the order was received and instruct them to remove it from their cart if still there on next login.

Dr. Byte.
You link to a code fix.
I have the Curl logs and they show.
SetExpressCheckout, Elapsed: 1485ms -- Success
Do you think the code fix will correct this?
If so, the order will be processed and put in database?
Does the new version contain this fix?

Yes, the latest version contains that fix, and MANY more important fixes related to PayPal capability.

But, you will have to contact your customer directly to sort out the specific order that didn't complete properly. The system will NOT automatically insert that failed order. It's gone.

Dr Byte,
We will work things out with our buyer.
We have done so in the past.
My question is not how we can recover the failed order, I know it's gone.

My questions in the prior email are:

1. Do you think the code fix will correct this?
2. If so, the order will be processed and put in database?
3. Does the new version contain this fix?

I meant

1. Do you think the code fix will correct future problems such as this?
2. If so, after this fix is made, future orders will go in the database related to this fix?

You answered #3.
I need to download the update and compare to my current code base. I have modifications for the visually impaired. I desire more reliable PayPal functionality. I need to see how much differs.

As I don't know exactly what caused the problem for that order, I can't confirm anything about future orders.
But what I can tell you is that hundreds of hours have been spent on improving PayPal functionality and transaction reliability in the newer versions, and I'm not aware of people reporting any symptoms as you just did, when using the newest version.

Is the database structure in 1.3.9 the same as 1.3.8a?
Is there documentation summarizing the changes?
I am curious about the magnitude of changes since I made modifications to 1.3.8a to provide support for the visually impaired. I have made modifications mostly to my custom template directories to isolate them.
I don't see any contributions that improve PayPal Express reliability for 1.3.8a so I am assuming that 1.3.9 is the only resource that contains such improvements. Is this true?

PayPal support is in the core, not in addons.

As for upgrading, I suggest you read the upgrade instructions. One place to start on that is here: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=98. You'll see that there's an automated tool to upgrade the database portion, so don't concern yourself with that side. What you need to do is upgrade your PHP files to include all the updates from the new version.

And, since upgrading is an entirely different subject than this thread, your upgrade questions should be addressed in a thread appropriate to those topics.

Sorry I got off subject.
Although I believe my last question is appropriate here.

I don't see any contributions that improve PayPal Express reliability for 1.3.8a so I am assuming that 1.3.9 is the only resource that contains such improvements. Is this true?

That is correct. All the improvements were built in to the next version.

And, you cannot hack the 1.3.9 capabilities out of it and into 1.3.8 because there are numerous codependencies on other parts of the code that are shared with many other infrastructure pieces. To get the benefits, including security improvements and bugfixes, of v1.3.9, you need to upgrade to 1.3.9.

DrByte:

That is correct. All the improvements were built in to the next version.

And, you cannot hack the 1.3.9 capabilities out of it and into 1.3.8 because there are numerous codependencies on other parts of the code that are shared with many other infrastructure pieces. To get the benefits, including security improvements and bugfixes, of v1.3.9, you need to upgrade to 1.3.9.

Hello Dr Byte,

In relation to this answer are you saying that version 1.38a is no longer properly compatible with Pay Pal? i am still using this version and believe it to be still working fine, is there something i should know about? is upgrading critical now for all 1.38a users who use Pay Pal? I use a lot of modules with this version and upgrading would be a serious expense. If everything is working fine do i really need to go to the expense of upgrading? Your information on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

Ah, the ever popular "can I avoid upgrading?" question. :blush:

1. v1.3.8a is presently still compatible with PayPal, but there are hundreds of improvements and added features in v1.3.9 that make it a prudent choice to upgrade.
2. PayPal recently announced an "All New Checkout" which takes advantage of features added in v1.3.9. As such, if you don't upgrade, you'll find that some things in the "All New Checkout" displays will not appear with as much detail as you might prefer. Not all merchants have the "All New Checkout" enabled in their PayPal account yet. It's being rolled out over time. If you have questions about the "All New Checkout", as PayPal directly.
3. v1.3.9 contains a LOT of security improvements which v1.3.8a does not contain. There are some serious vulnerabilities in unpatched v1.3.8a code, which are fixed in v1.3.9.
4. When the next release after v1.3.9 is out, v1.3.8a will be officially no longer supported, just as v1.3.7 is no longer supported now that v1.3.9 is out.

Now that that's out of the way, was there something on-topic to this thread that you had a question about?

Thanks for the info Dr Byte, as always a great help in making the correct decision. Sorry that it was slightly off topic but i found it hard to find a section on if the upgrade was critical or not i do have the new pay pal setup but it still seems to work ok, the upgrade for my site is now being done, thanks once again for your great help. :flex: