In some cases, it appears that PayPal sends back a success and error in the same thread. The results are an appoved transaction on the PayPal side and a return to payment page on the Zen Cart side. :yuck: Server log and Zen Cart log data are with Tad of the PayPal Merchant Technical Support.

When I get feedback I will post it here.

Thanks stagebrace for staying up on this. It is much appreciated. I just have been too busy with in house work to look in this error on our cart.

I have also received this error when using an American Express card. Not sure it's related to the specific card type though. I was able to complete an order using a different card and username without receiving the error on the site.
If I can assist with testing/debugging, please let me know.

I have been speaking to my customers about this issue. The information they have given me and I do not see it as a brand of card issue, Credit or Debit issue, or even a webtv issue. Its in PayPals hands at the moment. Its current status with Merchant Technical Support is "Researching". I provided them with Zen Cart logs and server logs.

I am sorry to report PayPal's finds in there favor and directs the issue to Zen Cart.

Response (Mike) 01/22/2008 05:35 AM
Hello Dennis,

This is Michael with PayPal Merchant Technical Support. I've reviewed the issue that you're describing, and it appears that the problem is in the Zen Cart software, because the PayPal Direct Payment process is working properly. We're returning the information to the webserver, as can be seen from the Transaction ID that is generated. The Zen Cart software is receiving that transaction ID, but apparently not creating an order from it.

You'll need to contact Zen Cart support for further assistance; unfortunately we're not able to troubleshoot their software. If you need any further assistance, you can reply to this message any time in the next 48 hours and this ticket will be re-opened. After that, if you reply to this message, a new ticket reference number will be generated, but it will be linked to this ticket.

Thank you!

Michael
PayPal, an eBay company

Hello all,

I think we are having a similar problem. The strange thing is that it has only started happening in the last 24 hours. PayPal is charging the customers' credit card, but returning an error to Zen.

Stagebrace, is this the same error you contacted PayPal for?

Here is a snippet of the log, with customer and product info removed:

2008-01-26 08:34:01

(live transaction) --> https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp
Request Headers:
Array
(
[0] => Content-Type: text/namevalue
[1] => X-VPS-Timeout: 45
[2] => X-VPS-VIT-Client-Type: PHP/cURL
[3] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Product: PHP::Zen Cart - WPP-NVP
[4] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Version: 1.3.8a
)

Request Parameters: {DoDirectPayment}
Array
(
-- INFO SCRUBBED --
)

Response:
Array
(
[<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"><HTML><HEAD><TITLE>500 Internal Server Error</TITLE></HEAD><BODY><H1>Internal Server Error</H1>The server encountered an internal error ormisconfiguration and was unable to completeyour request.<P>Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred,and anything you might have done that may havecaused the error.<P>More information about this error may be availablein the server error log.<P><P>Additionally, a 404 Not Founderror was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.<HR><ADDRESS>Apache/1.3.33 Server at <A HREF] => "mailto:[email protected]">api-3t.paypal.com</A> Port 443</ADDRESS></BODY></HTML>
[CURL_ERRORS] =>
)

DoDirectPayment, Elapsed: 2923ms -- Failed

The result for the issues is the same.
I dont know what to due but continue to apologize to my customers?

• Is the Dr in? -
  PayPal sais this "The Zen Cart software is receiving that transaction ID, but apparently not creating an order from it." Can you prove them wrong?

Dennis

stagebrace:

PayPal sais this "The Zen Cart software is receiving that transaction ID, but apparently not creating an order from it." Can you prove them wrong?

We may be having different errors. In my case, the PayPal tech would be incorrect. No transaction ID is being returned. Their Apache server is returning a 500 error. There is no way Zen would be able to generate a transaction from it.

Plus, it has been working fine for months and just started acting up less than 24 hours ago. I haven't changed any of the code in the checkout system, so that leaves something changing on their end.

Stagebrace, have you looked in the PayPal log file to see what response they sent to your cart? Does it have a transaction ID in it?

I have PayPal Payments Pro and I had a similar issue tonight.

My friend placed an order. On his end he was getting messages saying the payment did not go through due to a discrepancy in his address (street name St. vs Saint). He checked out three times before figuring out the problem and getting a payment confirmation from my cart on the fourth try.

On my end, I received 3 "Alert: PayPal Direct Payment Error" emails from my cart and 4 "Payment received" emails from PayPal. They processed his payment 4 times! I had to do three refunds.

Luckily he is a friend and understood, but I am not going to be happy if this happens to a complete stranger. I cannot understand why PayPal said it was rejecting his payment and at the same time, accepted it.

I know it is not my cart. As soon as we realized something was wrong we tested it, real time, using a credit card and everything went as it should.

For the issue I posted on the 17th there were transaction id's in the log files and at my PayPal account.

Yesterday I also got the "address incorrect" message along with the 500 Internal Server Error message in the log file. But in fact the address was correct. The order went through properly on the third try. Also refunding payment. A note on refunding the payment. If you have the payment set to authorize only, be sure to capture the payment and then refund it. Other wise PayPal will dock you 30 cents.

Ah. I just viewed the logs. I also got the 500 Internal Server Error.

Am I correct in thinking this is a PayPal problem and not a Zen problem?

I am not smart enough to determine who or what needs repaired. I do recommended creating an issue at PayPal Merchant Technical Support, https://ppmts.custhelp.com
As this what what I have done. I hope Tick has done the same.

stagebrace

Linked our original message: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83784 on the issue

Chad

After looking through the logs posted by Stagebrace, it appears we two issues (three, if you take into account the 1 normal failure in his logs).

1. The normal failure was generated by a "Gateway Decline" message, which should not have been processed on PayPal's end. In this case Zen responded appropriately by taking the customer back to checkout_payment.
2. The other error was PayPal returning a success, but no transaction id being given (at least not showing up in the logs). Zen failed to generate an order because it did not have a transaction id to associate with it.
   That could be considered a bug in Zen, as the cart did not properly validate the response returned from PayPal. (In Zen's defense, that situation should never occur.) There is also a possibility that PayPal did return a transaction ID and Zen didn't parse it correctly and therefore ignored it. The logs don't contain enough information to say.
3. The last issue is the one I was experiencing. Paypal returning a HTTP error, but processing the payment. That has stopped for the time being [knock wood].I can't comment on issue #2. I've never experienced it, so I can't say whether it's on the Zen side or PayPal side. On an optimistic note (well, kinda) it doesn't appear to be the same issue discussed in the PayPal forum. In the forum, PayPal was declining the authorizations but still placing a hold on the funds. Presumably, PayPal was returning an error number to those other people so their carts acted appropriately.

Issue #3 is most certainly a PayPal problem and they should fix it.

I realize that was of no practical help :smile:, but hopefully provides some clarification.

Is anyone still getting 500 errors from PayPal?

Is anyone else getting blank transaction ID's returned from PayPal?

We received a response from our PayPal support ticket which was submitted Saturday evening (1-26):

We have been experiencing issues with Internal Server Error when
attempting to process payments using PayPal endpoints containing
"3t". Although this error is being thrown, the actual payments are
being processed accordingly on the backend.

I do apologize for the inconvenience and we are in the process of
resolving this issue.

Please visit http://www.pdncommunity.com/blog?blog.id=mts_updates
for details on this issues resolution.

You can also expect a notification from us when this issue is resolved.

I appreciate your patience.

The customer has notified me that as of 7:30 pm tonight (Jan 28) he has not yet received the refunds. I have submitted a response to the support ticket to ask for clarification on the status of the refunds.

I can see no reason why the card was charged automatically but it takes days for a refund to go through. This is total b.s.

I got an update on my question,
"Why would PayPal send a Transaction ID and Error in the same response?"

Answer:
It is theoretically possible to receive an error code and a transaction ID, if the value of ACK is "SuccessWithWarning". Basically, in this case, a non-fatal error has occurred and the transaction has processed; however, we still want to make sure that your software receives notification of the error.

Michael
PayPal, an eBay company

Has anyone found a solution (or hack) to fix this issue? We are getting these all the time. I'd say every other order is being billed to paypal -- often multiple times, but no record in our ZenCart.

Is there something we could modify in the form being filled out? Include a javascript form checker to make sure everything is correct?

Really annoying! Would love ideas here of what anyone has been able to do! Please follow up if you fix your issue so others can learn!

I had the same problem and decided to remove the PayPal Website Payments Pro module. Complete disaster in my book. Not sure where the problem lies, but it doesn't work well enough for production IMHO.

Thought the problem was completely gone until last week, but I had the same error message without the new module installed. This is the email error notification I received from PayPal (even though transaction was approved):
ALERT: PayPal Express Checkout Error (10415)
10415 Transaction refused because of an invalid argument. See additional
error messages for details. - A successful transaction has already been
completed for this token.
In this case, my customer thought the transaction was declined and used an alternate payment method.

I would like to begin using the new PayPal module, but at this point it doesn't seem to work 100% of the time. If it would help resolve the issue, I think I can dig up the details of the log.