tell me what's been ordered!!

This is probably very basic..., shop has been up 2 weeks and it seems that when customers buy using pay pal, I get notification of their orders from paypal, but nothing from Zencart telling me what has been ordered!!! However when a friend placed a cheque order to test the "email configuration" options, the email from Zen cart came through. It's embarrassing having to email customers and say thanks for your order... but what was it??!" Please someone help!

1. What version of Zen Cart are you running?
2. What testing did you do to be sure paypal orders would work before going live?
3. What languages and currencies are you using?
4. What is your URL?
5. Who is your host?
6. What addons have you installed to your store?

take a look here
http://www.camelot-hosting.com/paypal/tutorial/WebHelp/Paypal_IPN.htm

besides the things here a few more things have been discovered,

1. in versions of zen cart 1.3 + using an includes/languages/english/TEMPLATE/meta_tags.php over ride can cause an issue

2. Make sure that you store is NOT in down for maint.

3. Make sure that your NOT using a re-direct ( IPN dosnt like it )

4. That IF you are using SEO Urls that you have the paypal patch

5. That your host has port 80 and port 443 enabled for incoming and out going

and the most important was discussed in the tutorial but will say it again

make sure that the email address that you are using in the paypal module is the one labeled as PRIMARY on paypal.com and that its case sensitive

Thanks. I have tried to follow the tutorial and found the IPN checkmark wasn't there andno link,so I checked it and put in the link plantswithpurpose.co.uk/store/index.php?main_page=checkout_process
which is at the bottom of the paypal module under payment module inzencart. (then I took it off again because it didn't look like the one in the tutorial, then I put it back because it seemed slightly more promising than the alternative). I have noconfidence this is the right thing to put in but there was nothing there before. Thins is it is exactly the same as the one that wasmeant to be in for return address in the website preferences module.
By the way I had support setting this up which is why I seem to know nothing about what I'm doing!
Is it possible I've solvedit?

Best way to know is to test it ...

Try out your PayPal checkout and see if:

1 you get a PayPal email

2 You get automatically sent to checkout_success

3 you get an order email from your Zen Cart shop

4 you get an order in the Admin ... Customers ... Orders

5 you get the Admin ... Customers ... PayPal IPN to match

Right, we tried it out. Zen cart is putting my husband down as a customer, but not recognising he has placed an order. Paypal have sent receipt etc for order by email, nothing from zen to say what has beenordered.But then they don't realise he has ordered anything. stumped!

Can I ask (though those here have far more experience than I do) - have you tried the obvious and uninstalled that payment module, cleared your cache, reinstalled the module and tried again ?

Believe it or not I have indeed fixed many a paypal don't work now problems lately by simply doing this:yes:

I'd also have to ask again could you answer DrByte's questions ...

DrByte:

1. What version of Zen Cart are you running?
2. What testing did you do to be sure paypal orders would work before going live?
3. What languages and currencies are you using?
4. What is your URL?
5. Who is your host?
6. What addons have you installed to your store?

Ok, may well try uninstall and reinstall though it sounds a bit scary to me! Answers to Dr Bytes questions - sorry - don't know what version zencartbut the date on it is 2003; currency sterling; language english; my url www.plantswithpurpose.co.uk; webhost Supanames.com; addons?what are they?,and initial testing was to see if it went through to the checkout, as previous post have tested again now. I'm untrained and inexperienced in all of this - just want it to work!

margaret lear:

Ok, may well try uninstall and reinstall though it sounds a bit scary to me! Answers to Dr Bytes questions - sorry - don't know what version zencartbut the date on it is 2003; currency sterling; language english; my url www.plantswithpurpose.co.uk; webhost Supanames.com; addons?what are they?,and initial testing was to see if it went through to the checkout, as previous post have tested again now. I'm untrained and inexperienced in all of this - just want it to work!
THERE is the problem - THE DATE is 2003 !

That is an extremely out dated version of zen and we are all assuming that you are using the latest.:no:

Oh. Does that mean its a hopeless case?

I would recommend upgrading the cart if possible as would almost everyone here.:shocking:

The settings you need to change MAY be on the PayPal site- You need to have the Instant Payment Notification turned on and the Auto-Return URL set to your_site/checkout_process as per the instructions.

OK, thanks to everyone, I'll attack the problem again tomorrow, I'm zenned out!:sleep:

You might also check out these setup and troubleshooting steps:
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Admin_-_Modules_-_Payment#How_Do_I_Set_Up_The_PayPal.E2.84.A2_Payment_Module.3F

Thanks for the setup and troubleshooting link Dr. Byte. It looks very useful.... one thing I do see straight away, the IPN url is NOT set to http://www.yoursite.com/ipn_main_handler.php
Before I change this, here is another heart-grindingly basic question: after my url, are those the EXACT words that go in, or does main_handler refer to something else I should know the name of (if so what?).
The person who set me up spent most of yesterday trying to find the problem without success talking of which he is adamant the return website url should end in -success not -process. (He uses same version zencart and it works for him). Did several tests yesterday, and zen cart is telling me about customers but not being told when they place an order.
Am also checking with webhost that the ports referred to aren't blocked, whatever ports are.......:blush:

The instructions are complete.

ipn_main_handler.php is the actual filename.

Right will try changing that. However nasty news from my webhost-
"We can open our Firewall to URLs of external accounts through Port 80 however we would not be able to open Port 443.

I think we have advised our customers in the past that a program like Zencart would need dedicated hosting to allow us to open such ports as 443, as we cannot open this on our shared server, as this requires SSL, and is not supported in any form on our shared hosting.

We would recommend the use of a script such as 'OScommerce' on our shared hosting packages:"

They say I can open port 80 to any url - is it worth doing this or am I going to have to start allover again with oscommerce!!??:cry:

LOL - your host clearly doesn't know much about Zen Cart, let alone OsC.

It sounds like you can't run your site in SSL mode in your current hosting environment anyway, so you don't need port 443 open in your case. It would only use port 443 if your site was in SSL mode when the customer made their purchase. Since you can't do this in your current hosting arrangement, you don't need to worry about it. Port 80 will be fine.

Well that's a relief! Now I'll try going into the mysite bit of the host site and see of I can make out what to do about enabling port 80..... thanks so far and I'll let you knowhow it goes.