Paypal/payment problem of sorts

not sure where to put this but I was just wondering if there is a setting that went amiss. It did not happen prior to our 1.3.9c update [[we are now at 1.3.9e]].

I have noticed that sometimes---not all orders---a customer will place their order and go to paypal to pay for it. The entire transactions goes through flawlessly, I get the notification from both the store and paypal of the money.

But then I go to the store to compare the orders with my log I keep to find that ---like tonight---several of those orders are the exact same order, repeated with a different order number and timestamp...same customer.

tonights he had 4 orders with the same things, the page says it is paypal paid but it has only been paid once thru paypal...the following ones just say so but are duplicates.

I deleted the orders from his account and was wondering what I need to do to stop this from occurring again. I have virtual orders so there is no actual stock to replenish nor get shipped out.

Which PayPal module are you using? Did you ever have this problem before your upgrade?

Kim:

Which PayPal module are you using? Did you ever have this problem before your upgrade?

nope not an issue before. It is not an ongoing thing and has only happened I think once before. It is not every customer either.

like this customer his orders were like minutes apart and so was the other one that it happened to, like the page stalled and they hit the pay button over and over...which is probably a good assumption. I have to yell at my host too cause I told them this slowness was causing trouble.

I have the free charger and papypal website payments standard ipn modules active.

DarkAngel:

I have the free charger and papypal website payments standard ipn modules active.
Is there a particular reason why you're using the archaic Website Payments Standard instead of the more reliable and contemporary Express Checkout module?

DrByte:

Is there a particular reason why you're using the archaic Website Payments Standard instead of the more reliable and contemporary Express Checkout module?

I am archaic too ya know...lol

seriously though with the express one we kept getting customers with theerror that they were not in the right zone or could not buy from their area...something like that, can't think right for telling you the correct error message.

i shall activate it again if it will help

The architecture of the IPN service makes it flakey ... Customer places an order, and then your server sits and waits for PayPal to try to contact your server to notify it of the order. And if there's a communication problem it will keep sending it repeatedly for a couple days until it gets an acknowledgement.
With Express, it receives acknowledgement immediately because it's a 2-way communication, thus making it far more efficient and reliable, and preventing the symptoms you describe in your first post.

ty will revert to express then