[Done v1.3.9e] 1.3.9d duplicate orders

Hi, I am not 100% sure if I should post here. I searched "duplicate orders" and read through many of them and perhaps my situation is the same, that's because of the IPN and PDT? But I am new to ZC as a user(about 4 months) so please bear with me. Thanks.

Today is the first time my store got a duplicated order. I carefully checked them, they have everything the same including paypal transaction ID. The only differences are the order numbers (the 1st is 313, and the next is 314)and the time: 18 seconds apart. I checked paypal and only found one transaction to the second order.

My store was using 1.3.8a then upgraded to 1.3.9c and now to 1.3.9d for about 1 month. The DB is still 1.3.9c. All transactions after upgrading to 1.3.9d but prior to this order were fine.

Here are the other info about the server:
Linux 2.6.18-164.15.1.el5PAE
PHP Version: 5.2.8 (Zend: 2.2.0)
MySQL 5.0.91-log

It actually is not a big problem because I got the order and money but it may upset my accountant if it keeps happening and possibly scare my customers if they get duplicate order confirmation.

Thank you.

Justin

Is this your issue?
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=153892

The above fix is to be in the next release.

shrimp-gumbo-mmmhhh:

Is this your issue?
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=153892

The above fix is to be in the next release.

Thank you for your reply.

I read through that before I post. If I understand it right, here are my conclusion:
1)I am not alone -- thank God
2)Dr. Byte and his buddies are working hard on it.
3)But it seem even DrByte is(was?) not 100% sure how this happen(?) -- apologize if I am wrong.
4)It can't be fixed by just simply switching to PayPal Express? by the way, my store is having a summer sale and I can't really risk anything.
5) If there is no quick fix, all I can do is to cross my fingers and hope it won't happen tomorrow AND wait for the new zen-cart releases. When I was posting the customer already sent me email and asked what happen as she got 2 order confirmations.

Thank you

Justin

The fix will be in the v1.3.9e release. Stay tuned to the News & Announcements section of the forum for the announcement when it's posted.

justin2010:

Thank you for your reply.

I read through that before I post. If I understand it right, here are my conclusion:
1)I am not alone -- thank God
2)Dr. Byte and his buddies are working hard on it.
3)But it seem even DrByte is(was?) not 100% sure how this happen(?) -- apologize if I am wrong.
4)It can't be fixed by just simply switching to PayPal Express? by the way, my store is having a summer sale and I can't really risk anything.
5) If there is no quick fix, all I can do is to cross my fingers and hope it won't happen tomorrow AND wait for the new zen-cart releases. When I was posting the customer already sent me email and asked what happen as she got 2 order confirmations.

Thank you

Justin

It happens on again and off again type thing for me.... most people say nothing about it... I just refund as soon as I see it and try to leave a brief explanation. I think it happens when things slow down and the checkout doesn't process quickly... the customer refreshes or something like that.

shrimp-gumbo-mmmhhh:

It happens on again and off again type thing for me.... most people say nothing about it... I just refund as soon as I see it and try to leave a brief explanation. I think it happens when things slow down and the checkout doesn't process quickly... the customer refreshes or something like that.

It didn't happen today! So perhaps you are right about ..."when things slow down and the checkout doesn't process quickly"...

In my case, the two orders shared the same PayPal transaction id. I can imagine that after PayPal sent the first signal, and then who knows why and how that PayPal thought my store didn't get it and it sent again. Is that PDT and/or IPN or whoever fault, I don't know because I am NOT a programmer. However, I think Zen Cart should have some mechanism to detect and prevent that just seconds after an order confirmation, there comes another order with exactly the same customer name, product, amount of money and transaction id.

I am sure the Zen Cart developers also knew this and will fix it somehow in the next release.

Just for your info(a.k.a "off the topic") I know a true story that a customer found out 4 identical transactions on her VISA statement, and after the investigation, it turns out that 4 transactions were generated from a same checkout in a busy local big name store at the same time. Who knows how it happen!

justin2010:

I am sure the Zen Cart developers also knew this and will fix it somehow in the next release.
Yes, we do know. And the rather complicated fix is built-in to v1.3.9e.

Doctor,

Sorry to tell you it was not fixed yet. Last night one customer got 3 order confirmation notification with 3 different order numbers within a minute!!!

The "good" thing is (apparently I try to stay positive) , that's the same customer who got duplicated orders last time. So, it could be the client side's problem.

I am crossing my fingers this will not spread out.

Justin
:ohmy:

DrByte:

Yes, we do know. And the rather complicated fix is built-in to v1.3.9e.

So, one particular customer repeatedly creates duplicate orders in your system, and everyone else doesn't?
I'm inclined to think that the biggest part of the problem in that case is staring you in the face.

Additionally, I've already stated emphatically that the duplicate-order problem that you're complaining about disappears if you use Express Checkout instead of the IPN module (Website Payemnts Standard, which PayPal should have discontinued years ago IMO).

Actually, there are more than one customer. I just handled one more case 20 minutes ago.

Every time my customers got this problem, I tried it with my own credit card and my paypal account, but I had never experienced this for myself. However, I noticed those customers were all using their paypal accounts. That means they are more experienced online shoppers and unlikely make mistakes. One of them told me that she experienced this problem only in my store.

Hopefully this info helps. Also this morning, the customer stuck at the page of "receipt" after she came back from paypal.

Anyway, thank you for your reply. I will upgrade to 1.3.9f this weekend and switch to express checkout.

have a good weekend. cheers

Justin

:frusty:

Now I upgraded to 1.3.9f, everything fine.

then I removed the paypal standard and installed express checkout, following this instruction, http://www.zen-cart.com/getpaypal,

now when I tested it, just using my credit card(not personal paypal account), after I made the payment, I can't go back to my store. It took several minutes then gave me a HTTP 500 error.

Paypal sent notification to me, to the store, but no [NEW ORDER] notification from store to me. It seems it stuck at the check-out page.

I am still trying, hope to get your reply very soon, or I will have to switch back to IPN(paypal standard).

Justin

I've seen 500 errors happen in various places, but not after coming back from PayPal. That's weird.
Was the 500 error on your site, or on PayPal's site?

What's the server's error_log saying about the cause of the 500 error? (You'll have to access that from your hosting control panel, or ask your hosting company.)

Also, were there any myDebug logs generated? https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=82

And were there any PayPal logs generated? http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61199

I tried a couple more times. Here is the new thing:(I am testing my credit card, not my personal paypal account yet)

After I click the "Pay Now" button on Paypal's site, it stuck there and then show this error messege:

2006 MySQL server has gone away
in:
[select customers_email_format from zen_customers where customers_email_address= '[email protected]']
2006 MySQL server has gone away
in:
[select count(*) as total from zen_sessions where sesskey = 'bncs524alktu258vkpbli3lhe4']

Now if I hit "enter" on the IE's address bar, it goes back to here:

Step 1 of 3 - Delivery Information

It appears that your order was submitted twice. Please check the My Account area to see the actual order details. Please use the Contact Us form if your order does not appear here but is already paid from your PayPal account so that we may check our records and reconcile this with you. (Transaction refused because of an invalid argument. See additional error messages for details.)

Meanwhile, I searched the forum and found these tools (ipncheck139 and curltester.php) and tested them on my site. They show ok. If you need their results, I can send to you.

CURL Test Page
This page is intended for testing CURL behaviour. You should be accessing this page via CURLTESTER.PHP running on YOUR server.

You submitted the following fields and data:
Array
(
[field1] => This is a test
[statuskey] => ready
)
Data validation
Good
Other Info
Your server IP address is: .... ( I modified it to protect my privacy)Your system identifies itself as: Zen Cart(tm) - CURL TEST

IPNCHECK.PHP - Version 1.3.9
IPN TESTING - Response Received via CURL -- COMMUNICATIONS OKAY

IPN TESTING - Confirmation/Validation response with fsockopen(): FSOCKOPEN() RESPONSE RECEIVED - Communications OKAY

Default method likely to be used for communications is: CURL, with the fallback method being FSOCKOPEN if possible.

Script finished

I got emails from paypal to me and to store, I also got email from store to me (as customer), but no email from store to owner. And the invetory works ok, however, I login as customer again, those items are still in my shopping cart.

If you need the logs, I can do it now, give me some minutes.

Thank you very much.

Justin

All of that sounds normal, except for this part:> justin2010:

After I click the "Pay Now" button on Paypal's site, it stuck there and then show this error messege:

---

2006 MySQL server has gone away
in:
[select customers_email_format from zen_customers where customers_email_address= '[email protected]']

What I'm not understanding is the reason for the delay when returning to your store.

I tested again, same problem, it tried to leave Paypal and go back to:

https://MYSTORE.COM/store/index.php?main_page=checkout_process

But stuck and get the

2006 MySQL server has gone away
in:
[select customers_email_format from zen_customers where customers_email_address= '[email protected]']

2006 MySQL server has gone away
in:
[select count(*) as total from zen_sessions where sesskey = 'vbp1i4fqm157nd6lmo2p0ajdd6']

I got the Paypal log files, how to show you? There are 20 of them.
There is no new /cache/myDEBUG-xxxxxxx.log though.

Thank you.

Justin

I didn't hit "enter" on the IE address bar, then about 1 minute later it shows the 500 error,

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Apache Server at MYSTORE.COM Port 443

I am checking the hosting server log

For the Paypal log files, please zip them up, then upload the zip to someplace on your server and PM me with a link where I can download it for review.

I found the access log but not the error log. They are big, can you please tell me where I should look or what key word I should use to search?

Thank you for your time, and I know it's almost 11pm Friday night there so if you are already left, that's ok. I really appreciate your help.

But for now, I am going to switch back to IPN.

Justin

The access log isn't useful in this situation. No need to inspect it.

Just read your reply, I am uploading. Thank you very very much.

Justin