PayPal problems - unable to process orders from the geographic region you selected

FOR THE SOLUTION, SEE: fix for "PayPal - unable to process orders from the geographic region you selected"

PayPal Website Payments Pro (UK) PayPal works fine, PayPal Express Checkout (Pro 2.0 Payflow Edition) (UK) is not.

"We are sorry for the inconvenience; however, at the present time we are unable to use PayPal to process orders from the geographic region you selected as your PayPal address. Please continue using normal checkout and select from the available payment methods to complete your order."

The countries codes are correct as are the zones.

I have modified the countries and the zones, but they worked exactly as they are in ZC 1.3.9

            [zone_id] => 467
            [country] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 222
                    [title] => GB
                    [iso_code_2] => GB
                    [iso_code_3] => GBR
                )

            [country_id] => 222
            [format_id] => 7

Please help, I can't figure out what is stopping it from working!

Just to expand, the modules are set as

Payment Zone
--none--

and the issue is the same in the default template and the custom one.

The issue happens even with default countries and zones

Fresh install, no mods, straight out the box.

We are sorry for the inconvenience; however, at the present time we are unable to use PayPal to process orders from the geographic region you selected as your PayPal address. Please continue using normal checkout and select from the available payment methods to complete your order.

Changing from payflow to paypal gave a different error

• (6) name lookup timed out

new error when going back to payflow

An error occurred when we tried to contact the payment processor. Please try again, select an alternate payment method, or contact the store owner for assistance. ( )

timeout issue solved, country problem when using payflow remians.

DigitalShadow:

Changing from payflow to paypal gave a different error

• (6) name lookup timed out
  That's an internet problem, where either your own hosting server can't do a proper lookup to find the name of PayPal's servers (that's the most likely cause), or the nameservers your hosting company is using are having problems. Maybe the server was under heavy traffic attack. You'd have to ask them.
  Usually such a thing is short-lived. But if it goes on longer than a few minutes, talk to your hosting company to resolve it.

Please read the whole thread, that is not the issue, the timeout has been fixed, the issue is

"We are sorry for the inconvenience; however, at the present time we are unable to use PayPal to process orders from the geographic region you selected as your PayPal address. Please continue using normal checkout and select from the available payment methods to complete your order."

Also, please edit the title back, it is NOT a timeout issue.

DigitalShadow:

"We are sorry for the inconvenience; however, at the present time we are unable to use PayPal to process orders from the geographic region you selected as your PayPal address. Please continue using normal checkout and select from the available payment methods to complete your order."
I used the forum search to look in the FAQ articles for that error message, and it returned this result which specifically addresses that situation:
http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?321-PayPal-error-Geographic-Region

It is nice to be treated like an idiot.

I searched extensively for an answer, as looking for an answer that already exists is quicker than waiting for a new answer.

I have applied no zone restrictions, this error happened with a new fresh unmodified install of zen cart 1.5.3

I can't trigger the error, but I have no way of knowing what exactly you're submitting to PayPal.

Please give me the exact step-by-step to recreate your symptoms.
I'll assume you're starting with:
a) download Zen Cart v1.5.3 zip
b) uncompress the zip and upload the files to the server
c) run zc_install, and go through all the steps (ideally with demo data, but if not, then give me the steps you took to create a test product, too)
.... but, which country/zone settings did you select in the Store Setup page there?
... then, what settings did you change in your Admin other than setting your PayPal user/sig/pwd credentials? What other settings did you set in your PayPal module? And, which module are you using?
... then what address did you test your checkout with? what currency? What purchase price?
... install anything else? language packs? plugins? anything?

Ok, firstly this is an error I just saw on my live site. payments are coming through, but just wondered if this error was related in anyway.

I have 21 of these errors in a 2 hour period

[ACK] => Failure
[VERSION] => 61.0
[BUILD] => 11881259
[L_ERRORCODE0] => 10004
[L_SHORTMESSAGE0] => Transaction refused because of an invalid argument. See additional error messages for details.
[L_LONGMESSAGE0] => The transaction id is not valid

Regarding your post above, let me get all the info and get back to you

I think those errors are caused by the admin looking up old orders, since upgrading/migrating the old orders don't show paypal data correctly.

DigitalShadow:

I think those errors are caused by the admin looking up old orders, since upgrading/migrating the old orders don't show paypal data correctly.
You're right: If you changed PayPal accounts then those old orders cannot be retrieved using a different PayPal account.
But, if the PayPal account hasn't changed, then there should be no problem pulling up old orders. My sites pull them up fine.

[31-Jul-2014 08:52:33 Europe/London] PHP Fatal error: 1267:Illegal mix of collations (latin1_swedish_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation '=' :: SELECT zone_id
FROM zones
WHERE zone_country_id = 73
AND zone_code = '�H AUTE VIENNE'
OR zone_name = '�H AUTE VIENNE'
LIMIT 1 ==> (as called by) /home/[removed]/public_html/includes/modules/payment/paypalwpp.php on line 1827 <== in /home/[removed]/public_html/includes/classes/db/mysql/query_factory.php on line 155

DigitalShadow:

[31-Jul-2014 08:52:33 Europe/London] PHP Fatal error: 1267:Illegal mix of collations (latin1_swedish_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation '=' :: SELECT zone_id
FROM zones
WHERE zone_country_id = 73
AND zone_code = '�H AUTE VIENNE'
OR zone_name = '�H AUTE VIENNE'
LIMIT 1 ==> (as called by) /home/[removed]/public_html/includes/modules/payment/paypalwpp.php on line 1827 <== in /home/[removed]/public_html/includes/classes/db/mysql/query_factory.php on line 155

You've got your store set up with latin1 data in your database and utf8 specified in your store. Run this utility to upgrade your database: http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?313-should-i-convert-my-store-from-iso-8859-1-to-utf8

I have completed that now, I will attempt to switch the paypal module back to Payflow-UK

Would this have caused the country errors with Payflow-UK?

I was having the exact same problem for weeks, went through everything with a fine tooth comb. Finally found the problem, it is in includes/modules/payment/paypalwpp.php lines 217-218 and 229-230, and the cause, wait for it, a curly bracket/brace being in the wrong place.

Use Winmerge to copy the curly bracket/brace layout on lines 218-219 and 229-230 from paypalwpp.php v1.5.1 to v1.5.3.

Works great now :smile:

Chris can you confirm?