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Authorize.net SIM integration – post payment transaction timeout

Posted: August 11, 2012 at 12:34 pm


Colin Stearman

August 11, 2012 at 12:34 pm

I would have posted this to topic “Authorize.net SIM integration – post payment transaction timeout, HELP PLEASE!” but don’t seem to have the authority to do so.

The problem is authorize.net SIM declaring a timeout when waiting for the Relay Response (Thank You) page from Espresso.

I have communicated with Authorize.net on this and this is the thread so far:


ME: I am in integrator with several sites using SIM and Relay Response. I persistent problem is Authorize.net timing out when accessing the site’s relay response page. I have seen elsewhere that you say you want 10 seconds for a response. Our page reacts in 1 – 2 seconds, but times out. Paring it down to respond in less than that fixes the problem, but it not always a satisfactory solution. Please have your developers confirm that you’re not waiting long enough for a response, and fix accordingly. Searching the net indicates many others are having the same problem.


THEM: The timeout error can occur anytime during the 10 seconds our system waits for a response from the website. We are not able to change the waiting time our system takes.


ME: That makes no sense to me. Either you wait 10 seconds for a response or you don’t. A timeout would be if you got nothing back after 10 seconds. If you declare a timeout before 10 seconds then you’re not waiting 10 seconds. The proof of this is that you timed out after 1 to 2 seconds but not after 0 to 1 seconds (when I simplified the response page). Please have your developers confirm that you are waiting the full 10 seconds for a response before declaring a timeout. Please search the web to confirm that lots of people are having just the same problem. With PCI forcing more and more sites to use SIM, it’s important that you get it working right.


Their reply seems nonsensical to me. I’ll keep you posted.

  • This topic was modified 11 years, 8 months ago by  Seth Shoultes. Reason: Moving to correct forum


Seth Shoultes

  • Support Staff

August 11, 2012 at 1:36 pm

Thanks Colin! I sent you email about using the account you created originally that is linked to your support license.


Sidney Harrell

August 12, 2012 at 4:17 pm

Hey Colin,
I know it doesn’t solve the problem on authorize.net’s end, but you could probably speed up your site’s response time by using a custom theme template for the thank you page. Take an html snapshot of the standard generated page by viewing the source, and copy and pasting the html into a custom page template file. Just replace the section where the page content is displayed with “the loop” section of the standard page template and it should (in theory) load much faster.


Richard Stearman

August 13, 2012 at 1:20 pm

Continuing my dialog with authorize.net on this issue:

Them:Can you tell me when this issue occurred last, and how frequently it has occurred. We did discover an issue with Relay Response that we resolved last week, and the merchants we were working with confirmed that the issue was resolved for them.

Please note that the issue is that there are possible connection issues which would cause the “Unable to Send Notification” error to occur far faster than 10 seconds. If it appears we can connect to your server, but it takes 10 seconds or longer to complete the connection, then the connection would in fact time out. But if there is a connection issue–such as refused connections, DNS issues, or SSL issues–the Unable to Send Notification error would occur in less than 10 seconds.

To help you resolve this issue, we would like to know what specific troubleshooting you have done, and the results. If you have not done so yet, you may want to consider using our testing environment to help test your setup. You may sign up for a test account at https://developer.authorize.net/testaccount/.

Me:Thanks for a much better response. I can tell you that there are no public connectivity issues with the site. I can also tell you that, when I stripped down the response page to its minimum, you do not time out. Also, even with the unstripped-down version, when I instrumented the time between first seeing the request and delivering the page, the elapsed time was only 1-2 seconds. This, of course, does not take into account any delay in us getting the request or you receiving our output. I am not in a position to try this in your test environment, but I am confident that the code is OK because the site is not timing out with the stripped-down response page, which responds in less than 1 second. This testing was all done last week so would be post the change you mentioned. I would say that an overall 10 second timeout is too short, if that’s actually how long you’re waiting, when you take into account the potential latency just getting the request to the Relay Response server and you receiving the reply after it is sent. I have seen comments about sending at least something back to the caller (you) earlier in the Relay Response page. Although this might help, it complicates the site as usually the output is buffered and sent in at least 4096 byte chunks. It would require special handling of the Relay Response page. I would think a relaxing of the 10 seconds to more like 20 would be a reasonable fix.
I should also mentioned that the unstripped-down version ALWAYS times out, but the stripped-down version NEVER times out. So clearly the former is right on a threshold.
There is no SSL involved, and I have seen no DNS problems.


Watch for more follow-up later.


vchatham

August 16, 2012 at 12:57 pm

is there any update on this issue?


Richard Stearman

August 16, 2012 at 1:40 pm

Nothing yet. They’ve got progressively less responsive the harder I press them. Let’s hope they’re really addressing the problem this time.
I’ll post as soon as I get the next response.


Richard Stearman

August 20, 2012 at 8:48 am

Well, this is their latest, and somewhat high-handed, response to fixing their bug:


Them: A request has been made to increase the timeout timeframe, however it was not approved. It’s probably best if you use a pared-down script to collect the Relay Response variables, and then have a redirect to a script that handles post-transaction processing of those variables as well as for displaying any receipt page to the customer.


Their response suggests that they recognize they have a problem. Probably the only way to get them to respond is to bombard them with support requests.
I will them tell them I don’t want it extended, I just want it to wait the 10 seconds like they say it should.
It might be a worthwhile thing for the Espresso developers to do as they suggest and make an end-run around the problem. Thoughts?


Seth Shoultes

  • Support Staff

August 20, 2012 at 11:41 am

Hi Colin,

Thanks for posting all of this. We do have a stripped down transactions page template that can be downloaded from this page:
https://eventespresso.com/topic/problems-with-incomplete-payments-download/

Hope that helps.


Richard Stearman

August 21, 2012 at 2:39 pm

Well, we’ve now come full circle, in a fitting Kafkaesque way.


Me: A disappointing response. I don’t really want to have the timeout extended, I just want it to wait for the 10 seconds like you say it’s supposed to. I’m not asking for a new feature.


Them:We are not able to force the system to wait the full 10 seconds. As explained in a previous response, the timeout error can occur anytime during those 10 seconds. Here is the information that was provided earlier.

“Please note that the issue is that there are possible connection issues which would cause the “Unable to Send Notification” error to occur far faster than 10 seconds. If it appears we can connect to your server, but it takes 10 seconds or longer to complete the connection, then the connection would in fact time out. But if there is a connection issue–such as refused connections, DNS issues, or SSL issues–the Unable to Send Notification error would occur in less than 10 seconds.”


What more can I say? I’ll give it one more try, but now I am answers questions I have answered already, right at the beginning. I’m sure they hope I’ll go away!


Richard Stearman

August 21, 2012 at 2:55 pm

Here’s my response:


Me: And as I said before, when you made that statement originally, there are no SSL or DNS issues that cause the connection to be refused, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t wait the full 10 seconds for the page to respond. I fully understand that, if a connectivity issue occurs, you would not wait the full 10 seconds. The problem is that you are not waiting the full 10 seconds when there isn’t such an issue.

I sense that we’ve now gone around a complete loop and are back at the beginning. Of course I can implement the work-around you previously suggested, but your affirmation that you wait 10 seconds for a response (in the event of no other connectivity issues) is just not happening and your specification ought to be changed to 1-2 seconds, or fixed to really wait 10 seconds.

If I was your development engineer I would set up a test situation, to a page where I can change its response time, and measure what the typical overall turn-around time is. If your 10 seconds includes the time for your to transmit the request, the time the page takes to be generated, and the time it takes you to receive and digest it, then that might well only leave 1-2 seconds for the page response part.


Watch for more …..


Josh

  • Support Staff

August 21, 2012 at 9:18 pm

Have you considered using a more modern gateway like Stripe.com?

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