PAYPAL Payment but no order !

But is there any way to recover the order data?

Paypal Sessions Viewer addon (versions 1 or 2) don't work - I get an error message so I guess they're not compatible with 1.3.8 running on PHP/MySQL5.

It would make life so much simpler if there was an order recovery facility for this problem, which seems to happen a lot :(

It's also worth noting that PayPal has been having system problems off and on all week.

i agree. If there is a log to record what is the item the customer order if they press complete the order. Even though they did not click the return button. There are still a way to for us to track back the payment amount and the order total. um.................. i am not a good php programmer, if any one willing to code the code, i think i can contribute the logic.

Here is my logic, if there is anything wrong, please let me know:

1. As soon as a customer click "Confirm", the order is sent to the list of orders as "pending"
2. Simultaneously, he is sent to PayPal for payment.
3. Idealy, a successful payment would trigger a handshake and change the order status from "pending" to "processing" (or any status)
4. If a handshake was unsuccessful and we know the order is paid (via email, etc.), we can manually update the order's status.

I will try to implement this. Please let me know if I'm missing something.

the issue with this is the number of orders dropped at paypal,
the change of many open unpaid invoices is more of a hassle than just remonding the customer to PUSH THE BUTTON to come back to the store to complete the order

Thanks for the reply.

Before PayPal IPN was used on my client's site, he would have to send an invoice manually via Email Payment Request. More than 90% customers who clicked "Confirm" would make the payment.

Somehow, I feel customer satisfaction is more important than worrying about deleting unpaid orders. In some cases (small percentage but still happen), customer would pay but somehow did not return to the site for completion. This results in his order getting "lost". This could be as simple as Internet connection problem.

My logic mentioned before is just a fail-safe solution. I really don't see how opening unpaid invoices with a "pending" status is going to confuse anyone. Plus, most customers would go through the transaction in my experience.

I have done more reading. I'm not sure if I understand this correctly.

If I use a PDT token, the transaction should be posted (and show up as an order) as soon as customer made the payment. It doesn't matter if the customer come back to the site or not. Is that correct?

Zen Cart relies on return url

the flow is
clisnt -Shopping cart -> checkout shipping-> payment -> confirm -> paypal -> ( auto return sends back to ) -> checkout_process -> ( paypal sends IPN info to site if its setup correct ) -> ipn_main_handler.php

alexexela:

Here is my logic, if there is anything wrong, please let me know:

1. As soon as a customer click "Confirm", the order is sent to the list of orders as "pending"
2. Simultaneously, he is sent to PayPal for payment.
3. Idealy, a successful payment would trigger a handshake and change the order status from "pending" to "processing" (or any status)
4. If a handshake was unsuccessful and we know the order is paid (via email, etc.), we can manually update the order's status.

I will try to implement this. Please let me know if I'm missing something.

Hi Alex,

Please keep me posted. I definately interest in this module as well. This is definately a problem to us. Since you cannot "force" the customer to hit the return button and as a "service" provider, we need to make sure the customer is well taking care and the software is easy to use. Honestly, to me as a developer (not PHP though) this is really a huge bug. I am also currently thinking how to solve this problem.

thanks for taking the initial effort.

regards,
TY

alexexela:

I have done more reading. I'm not sure if I understand this correctly.

If I use a PDT token, the transaction should be posted (and show up as an order) as soon as customer made the payment. It doesn't matter if the customer come back to the site or not. Is that correct?

I dun think this is correct, i already enable the PDT, but it did not solve the problem.

Is there a reason why you're not using Express Checkout? It records paid orders instantly and doesn't rely on the IPN to complete the order.

DrByte:

Is there a reason why you're not using Express Checkout? It records paid orders instantly and doesn't rely on the IPN to complete the order.

the problem with the express checkout is the customer need to have a paypal account but there are a lot of customer don't like paypal or wish to use only the credit card to make the payment. And this is exactly when the problem begin.
Seem to me until now the only solution is to use the paypal pro or other mechant gateway, the problem is when you just begin the business, you want to keep the overhead as low as possible. What i am currently doing is prepare some big red wording during checkout and hope the customer will see it. If the order did not complete properly become too often, then i have no other choice it seem.

I don't think the cause of the problem is particularly relevant. The fact of the matter is that the orders do get lost and there is no "official" way to recover them and update the payment status, despite all the data being there. I simply can't see why there can't be an "official" means to manually allow orders to be recovered. t would make life so much easier for the users, avoid those embarassing "cap in hand" emails to the customers and reduce the posts to this forum that relate to this ongoing and tiresome issue. Put simply, it happens, will continue to happen and it needs a workaround.

My skills only run to being able to "read" PHP and debugging logic, I wouldn't even be able to begin to know where to start on PHP5 syntax, otherwise I'd do it myself. Is it terribly complicated to do this? There was a View Stuck Orders module from Dr Byte which someone modified to update the orders, so it can't be beyond the skills of the techie gurus here. So how about it?

Gwiazda:

My skills only run to being able to "read" PHP and debugging logic, I wouldn't even be able to begin to know where to start on PHP5 syntax, otherwise I'd do it myself. Is it terribly complicated to do this? There was a View Stuck Orders module from Dr Byte which someone modified to update the orders, so it can't be beyond the skills of the techie gurus here. So how about it?

I don't understand what exactly you are looking for. As you mentioned, there is already a module out there that can move "stuck" PayPal orders to the order list. I found the module isn't totally complete because it doesn't send the confirmation email to the customer and it doesn't have any PayPal payment record whatsoever. Are those the only problems you would like to overcome? If not, what is?

Many of us cannot use Website Payment Pro because it's only offered to US residents.

I also agree this is a bug or bad design. I don't believe it's a good idea to rely on a customer to do certain thing that is not "necessary" to them. Mistakes will always be made by a few and we need a solution to overcome any error potential all together.

not a bug not bad design,

contact paypal and complain that their IPN system is crap and broken again,
Zen Cart has NO control over paypals systems and if auo return and IPN are not working rather than complain about a bug call them and get them to fix their issue

alexexela:

Here is my logic, if there is anything wrong, please let me know:

1. As soon as a customer click "Confirm", the order is sent to the list of orders as "pending"
   A disadvantage is that if the customer cancels the payment, or due to a problem at paypal is returned to your site without paying, and decides to pay the order in another way, he/she can't. The cart is empty (and any coupons are already booked on the unpaid order). They will have an unpaid order and will probably not know how to pay for it.

Also some customers will not like it that the order appears to be completed if they cancel the payment.

Another issue is stock. Will you lower the stock for unpaid orders? Or will you delay that until the payment has been confirmed?

It's possible to complete the payed orders though, and without creating any premature orders. If the session data is saved just before the customer is sent to the paypal site (I am not sure if the paypal module currently does this or not) you can use this data to complete the order. After you have checked the payment was successful of course.

alexexela:

I don't understand what exactly you are looking for. As you mentioned, there is already a module out there that can move "stuck" PayPal orders to the order list.

My problem is that the module doesn't work on my shop. I am running 1.3.8 on PHP5 and something in there has an issue with the module giving me an error message, so I can neither see or move the orders.
Catchable fatal error: Object of class shoppingCart could not be converted to string in /home/aniamuk/public_html/shop/admin/view_stuck_paypal_orders.php on line 88

It could be my data, of course, and I will look into that, but either way, since so many people seem to have this problem it would make sense to have a mean for dealing with it in the main program.

Gwiazda:

My problem is that the module doesn't work on my shop. I am running 1.3.8 on PHP5 and something in there has an issue with the module giving me an error message, so I can neither see or move the orders.
Catchable fatal error: Object of class shoppingCart could not be converted to string in /home/aniamuk/public_html/shop/admin/view_stuck_paypal_orders.php on line 88Hi Gwiazda,

I looked at the code and decided to update it. Most changes are done for my own needs, but I think the issue you mention here is fixed too by this update. If you are willing to test it you can PM me and I will mail you the zip.

paulm:

Hi Gwiazda,

I looked at the code and decided to update it. Most changes are done for my own needs, but I think the issue you mention here is fixed too by this update. If you are willing to test it you can PM me and I will mail you the zip.

Hi,

I am interest to test it as well. Can you please send it to me also? thanks.

Does this conversation basically mean that we are going to have to put up with Paypal (IPN) frequently dropping orders and the store owners trying to pick up the pieces one way or another? (Or switch payment method)

We have had several clients complain over the past week or so that their orders are not completing at ZenCart and yet these sites have been running smoothly for quite some time. Dr Byte made comment that Paypal had been having problems a couple of weeks ago; the only thing I've seen from Paypal themselves was a reply posted by someone else saying that they knew there was a problem and were looking into it.

Paulm - I'd be interested to try that out as well.