PayPal IPN again... No e-mails or Items on Orders

Hi All…

I’m still having trouble with the PayPal IPN on a friends site, I’ve installed on my server. I’ve been following the forum but to no avail. The cart 1.3.7 has been running with no problems until the 10/03/07 (approximately), then started with no apparent reason, to mess up the orders. Since this fault has started I’m convinced that it is my server, as it now does it with a fresh install of zen-cart. Other payment methods are working without problems. What I have done to date to try and resolve this issue:

Read and checked the site with the wiki document.
Checked the admin for correct setup in PayPal IPN.
Cart is 1.3.7 with the latest patch PPEC-137-patches-March21-2007 installed.
Checked the ports are open for connection with the server.

The results from a live purchase are:

PayPal sends an e-mail of purchase.
Auto returns to site shows an order number.
Under user account it shows your orders with numbers, items and totals. When view is clicked it only shows order number with totals but no items.
Site does not send e-mail.
In admin the order is there but the invoice shows everything except items purchased.

Log file shows a couple of errors and can be found **here**.

The server is SBS2003 and IIS6. The PHP properties can be viewed **here**.

I hope someone maybe able to help resolve this problem.

Regards

Greg

What addons, mods, contributions do you have installed on your site?
What language packs are installed?

Something is trying to intercept the order-generation process, and thus you're ending up with incomplete information stored. Have you added something that does some extra or special handling of order data during the process of saving an order?

thank you for your reply DrByte, but it is the time of day in the land down under where I have to go to work.

I will have to add to this reply when I return. I hope this is not an inconvenience.

Regards

Greg

Hi DrByte,

The modules are, Where did you hear about us and Sales report. The language pack is English.

I started looking at, and testing these modules while waiting, and the sales report module when run gave an error. The error text can be found **here**. I removed the module and run a live test with the same result as before and no change to the PayPal log.
It looks like I have a problem with the database or mysql.

Regards

Greg

While that's an unpleasant admin error, it's not the cause of orders not being created on the store side.
To deal with your admin error, run this SQL statement on your database:

ALTER TABLE admin_activity_log CHANGE page_parameters page_parameters varchar(254) default NULL;

But, I'm surprised all your other orders are going thru properly, given the nature of the PayPal problem you describe.

Yes I’m surprised as well. I applied your change to the database through phpmyadmin and I’ve applied another live purchase but still the same.

A customer has made a purchase with direct deposit since my test last night, and everything has come through without problems. I did notice one thing with this morning’s test, the order number it came back with was the number from my test last night. In the customer account and admin areas though, the new order is there but with the same results as before.

Regards

Greg

Something else that may help. I've just installed the Sales Report module again but has the same error as before even after the table was altered.

There is a strange character here "payment_method=¤", where all the other entries have a "&" character.

The Sales Report mod should have nothing to do with anything IPN-related.

If I were you I'd start by following through the order process step by step and checking every related file to make sure nothing's corrupted etc. But, since I doubt you have that intimate knowledge of Zen Cart code, I recommend the following approach instead:

a) re-install a fresh copy of Zen Cart in another folder + database and test IPN to see that it can in fact work. Use the demo products as a test base.
If you want to get creative, you could load a copy of your live database into this test database as a secondary test, and see if your own products can be made to work in this fresh set of ZC files.

b) once you know that's working, then analyze your own site's files one by one, using something like WinMerge to point out differences between originals and your own active files.
Here's an overview of how to do that:
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Troubleshoot_-_Diagnosing_Obscure_Issues

No, it's not fun, but you need a way to identify what's busting the otherwise-working process. I suspect it's some customization or contribution file that's been changed or added but not being handled properly for some peculiar reason.

Oh, and as an aside, does this happen regardless whether the order contains products with attributes vs without attributes? Are the products all physical or virtual?

Hi DrByte,

Sorry about delay, haven’t had internet connection for about 16 hours.

The day just gets worse, part a) of your previous post failed. I was running the install of ZC and it showed the server was running MySQL 5. I proceeded with the new install anyway, with the patch and new database, but a purchase of demo products returned the same result as the live shop. The log was identical as well.

I feel there is no reason to go any further as this definitely isn’t good and if you’re still interested in this thread then I’m dreading your next post!

Regards

Greg

I suspect the problem has something to do with your host, given that two sites -- one of them a fresh clean install -- are exhibiting identical problems, and that the problems only suddenly started happening since 03/10 unprecipitated by any changes of your own.

If you need hosting recommendations, may I suggest the link at the top of this page named "hosting" ?

Thanks DrByte.

Your time and effort is greatly appreciated. :thumbsup:
A definite cup of coffee is coming your way through a paypal that does work.

Regards

Greg

Hi DrByte,

Just a follow up that may be of use to other users.
I saved the database structure and then the data, then uninstalled MySQL 5 and replaced it with MySQL 4.1.18. I then made a database with the same name, imported the structure and then the data.
Without configuring anything in the shop at all, I made a live purchase and everything is working, including the site sending e-mails again.

Thanks again for the great help and I hope you enjoyed your coffee.

Regards

Greg

Greg,
Thanks for the coffee. :smile:

So ... it appears to be a MySQL 5 thing ... hmmm .... I'll have to fiddle with my test server's settings and try to tighten down the mysql5 configuration to make it as inflexible as possible and see what's busting it.

Thanks for the update.