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PayPal payments – payments incomplete (2)

Posted: January 30, 2013 at 10:16 am


Karen Strange

January 30, 2013 at 10:16 am

Hello,
I reviewed all the topics I could find on the incomplete payment issue.

I have a few questions:

> There should be a paypal.ipn log file in the
> wp-content/uploads/espresso/logs directory, which might help narrow
> this down further. If the ipn messages are being received from PayPal,
> but there are errors, there could be any one of these: 1) cURL isn’t
> enabled on this server or, 2) the connection is timing out or, 3)
> there’s an error setting certificate verify locations.

> Verify that WordPress has write permissions for
> /wp-content/uploads/espresso/logs.

I check the IPN log file and it’s noting when folks finalize their registration and are paying by check, but it’s not receiving payment messages from PayPal

> Verify that the transactions page is publicly visible on the web.

It is. Also, I downloaded/uploaded the suggested simplified transaction page, txnpage.php, and chose it as the page template. That didn’t change anything.

> Verify that the IPN is turned on in the PayPal account settings.

I see in PayPal IPN Settings that we can enable “Receive IPN messages”. Is this ‘enable’ the same thing as ‘turned on’? Also Paypal asks for a Notification URL. What URL should we use?

> Verify that cURL is set up on this server.

How do I do this?

> Verify that the CA certificate bundle on the site can be found. PayPal
> checks for this, and if it can’t find it, the IPN will fail.
> http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html

How do I do this?

> I found the solution to this problem for my own site. Not sure if it
> will work for others, but it might be somewhat universal. When I
> checked the espresso/log folder, I noticed that the only file in it
> was named “paypal.ipn_results.log” and dated from early May. No other
> files existed in the folder, even though I had multiple IPN return
> failures in the last couple of days. The folder permission was set to
> 755 — no group or public writing permission. When I reset the folder
> permission to 777 and attempted a test of the IPN return again, not
> only did a file appear in the folder (now named “espresso_log.txt”),
> but THE IPN RETURN WORKED AND THE EVENT REGISTRATION WAS CORRECTLY
> LOGGED IN THE EE EVENT! I have tested it several times since making
> the change, and it is working every time. So the solution for my site
> was simply to change the write permission on the “espresso/log” folder
> to 777. I did not make any other changes to the Event Espresso
> settings, nor did I deactivate any other plugins on the site.

My log file doesn’t say “paypal.ipn_results.log” so this is probably not it.

Thanks, I appreciate any help on resolving this
Dawn

  • This topic was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by  Garth.


Josh

  • Support Staff

January 30, 2013 at 10:37 am

Hi Dawn,

In a nutshell, if your PayPal account isn’t configured to send IPN messages, your Event Espresso powered will not have any IPN messages to receive. With that in mind, I’ll try to answer/clarify a few of your questions, the first one listed below should take care of the issue, but just in case, I’ll follow up with a few more of them:

I see in PayPal IPN Settings that we can enable “Receive IPN messages”. Is this ‘enable’ the same thing as ‘turned on’? Also Paypal asks for a Notification URL. What URL should we use?

Yes enabled means turned on. You can use the transactions page URL, which is also listed as the notify URL in the Event Espresso>General options>Page Settings.

Verify that cURL is set up on this server.
How do I do this?

You can check with your hosting company, or install the Event Espresso requirements plugin, which will check this for you:

https://eventespresso.com/requirements/

Verify that the CA certificate bundle on the site can be found. PayPal
checks for this, and if it can’t find it, the IPN will fail.
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html

How do I do this?

That’s something that you could ask the hosting company about. It’s only in very rare cases that the CA certificate bundle is missing. After you have the IPN enabled in your PayPal account settings, and you run a test transaction, if it fails there will be an error message in the IPN log file that will let you know if there’s a missing CA file.


Patrick Hohol

February 7, 2013 at 11:37 pm

Hi Josh Hoping to jump in on this thread because I’m having similar issues (payment goes through paypal but does not move status to complete) and have tried everything including:
* 1 – ensuring Paypal IPN is enabled and set to transactions page
* 2 – transactions page is public, published, contains correct shortcode
* 3 – transactions page is using simplified txnpage.php as template
* 4 – ran Event Expresso Requirements (cURL was found and passed but ‘Recommended Apache Modules’ were ‘Not Found!’)
* 5 – site is live, using live paypal Here is what my log is showing for each failure:

[02/07/2013 11:15 PM] - Errors from IPN Validation:

moderated


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 11, 2013 at 12:07 pm

A note for the Support staff:

Patrick’s issue was resolved here:

https://eventespresso.com/topic/reg-status-not-moving-to-complete-after-successful-paypal-payment/#post-34587


Scott Ficek

February 12, 2013 at 9:35 pm

I have tried all the tricks found in the forums:
Confirmed/tried:

  • IPN on
  • Business PayPal Account
  • Disabled all other plugins except EE
  • Transaction Page set up and available
  • Transaction Page template supplied by EE (simplified txnpage.php)
  • Account is verified
  • Log files directory is set to 777
  • Server running Curl
  • Was working for months on Free version, that stopped working, just upgraded to Personal/Paid version, same problem

Turned off Tax on PayPal and it worked.

Now, I need taxes because that same PayPal account is my shopping cart account, which I sell products from. Any options?


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 13, 2013 at 9:36 am

Hi Scott,

When taxes or shipping are calculated and added on PayPal’s end, payment gateway gets a different amount sent back from PayPal. Since Event Espresso is not aware of why there is a discrepancy the amounts do not match and the payment does not get marked as complete.

I can put in a feature request that would add an option to PayPal gateway where Event Espresso could factor this in, but it will likely take some time before we can add this.

In the meantime, I can suggest using a separate account for selling event tickets. You may even want to try one of the better gateways like Stripe.


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm

Update for Scott:

We’ve made an adjustment to the PayPal IPN gateway and you can have the taxes calculated and added now. The update is in version 3.1.30.7.P.


Aladin Alaily

February 27, 2013 at 12:17 pm

Hi Josh, this conversation is of interest to me, too. Is there documentation on the new tax handling functionality? Also, I seem to be having problems with IPN communicating and have gone through most of the tricks listed on previous questions. If I send you my log is there a way for you to see what the problem is?


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 27, 2013 at 12:38 pm

Hi Aladin,

The new tax handling isn’t really new, we just we’re not checking for it. It’s actually a PayPal account setting:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/shipping/EasyCalculateShipAndTax-outside

If you find a log file in /wp-content/uploads/espresso/logs, and there are entries in there, it will either say “Success” or “Failed”. If it says Failed, it will display an error message with it.

I’d recommend reviewing our PayPal IPN documentation here instead of looking through the forums to make sure the Paypal gateway and IPN are set up correctly:

https://eventespresso.com/wiki/how-to-set-up-paypal-ipn/


Aladin Alaily

February 27, 2013 at 1:21 pm

Thanks Josh — That document looks good, I’ll go through that and see if I can get it working.


Aladin Alaily

February 27, 2013 at 1:51 pm

In the docs for IPN that you provided you say this:

> Check to see if you have outdated or incorrectly modified gateway
> files in wp-content/uploads/espresso/gateways directory. If so,
> temporarily rename that directory to force Event Espresso to use the
> default gateway files.

I don’t have any gateway files in that directory — is that a problem?


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 28, 2013 at 7:59 am

Hi Aladin,

There shouldn’t be any gateway files in the /uploads/espresso directory by default. This location is for adding custom gateways.


Aladin Alaily

February 28, 2013 at 9:56 am

I, too, am having problems getting EE to play well with PayPal. The main problem being “incomplete” on EE causing problems.

Here’s what I’ve verified so far:

*IPN on
*Business PayPal Account
*Disabled all other plugins except EE
*Transaction Page set up and available
*Transaction Page template supplied by EE (simplified txnpage.php)
*Account is verified
*Log files directory is set to 777
*Server running Curl

I don’t seem to have an IPN log, just “espresso_log.txt” Is that OK?


Chris Reynolds

  • Support Staff

February 28, 2013 at 10:35 am

@aladin — the IPN log is on PayPal’s side. I’d recommend taking a look at what that says so you can tell for sure whether PayPal is hitting your transactions page. This will also happen if the site has a maintenance mode plugin active or if you are testing on a local server that is not connected to the internet.


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 28, 2013 at 10:57 am

I should add that there should be an IPN log file in /wp-content/uploads/espresso/logs. If it’s not there, then it’s likely that PayPal isn’t able to communicate with your site. So you can check the logs on PayPal’s end as Chris suggests for errors on PayPal’s side.

It’s possible that your server’s IP address is blocked from PayPal or vice versa. This happened recently to another customer and the host ended up moving their WP installation to another server with a different IP address to resolve it. There are also plugins that will block requests (a popular one is Bad Behavior, which has a log where you can find the PayPal IP address and whitelist it in the BB settings).


Aladin Alaily

February 28, 2013 at 2:15 pm

Chris — I’m looking at the IPN history on PayPal now and it has sent some IPNs out, but there are no failures. They just say ‘sent’ (no errors).

We have no plugins (except yours).


Aladin Alaily

February 28, 2013 at 2:31 pm

I also now have a paypal.inp_result.log file now on my server. Is there a way for you guys to make sense of it? Can I send it somehow? Thanks!


Aladin Alaily

February 28, 2013 at 2:41 pm

Here’s something that looks like something 🙂

> Errors resulting from the execution of curl transfer: SSL certificate
> problem: unable to get local issuer certificate[02/27/2013 9:02 PM] –
> FAIL: IPN Validation Failed . /cgi-bin/webscr : http://www.paypal.com IPN
> POST Vars from gateway:


jdeblase

February 28, 2013 at 2:57 pm

I have a client with the following issue:

… People can sign up for events and they are marked as paid, even though they never complete the paypal payment. I have to go into the attendees list, notice that paypal is not listed as their form of payment and then manually go in there and change them to “pending” and send them an email asking for payment. Is there any way we can set it up so that they do not show as paid when they’re not and that an email could be generated reminding them to complete their payment?

I think this thread might be the right one to share my client’s question. Hoping to be pointed in the right direction. I renewed my subscription just to be able to see this thread. Other than the client’s one issue the plugin runs great…


Aladin Alaily

February 28, 2013 at 3:07 pm

Hi jdelblase:
I’m no expert (just a user) but there is a setting to set the default status in the general settings of EE. I set mine to be ‘incomplete’ until it payment is verified. You may have already tried that but just in case… cheers.


Josh

  • Support Staff

March 1, 2013 at 4:45 am

@aladin Alaily

The error you’re pointing to is likely caused by a misconfiguration on the server. I recommend contacting your host’s server admin/support and let them know that you are getting this error:

SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

They may need to update or install the CA certificate on the server.


lhammond

March 1, 2013 at 7:45 am

Our site went live last night, and some PayPal payments are getting through, but LOTS of people are having trouble and I can’t figure out why. We are getting duplicate registrations and incomplete payments left and right. I disabled all social media plugins since somebody said that was causing the duplicate registrations, so we’ll see if that helps. But I think mainly people are trying to register, failing, and trying again.

1) I don’t see the IPN log file on my server. How do I enable the logging for this?

2) Some users got a message from PayPal that simply said “This payment cannot be completed and your account has not been charged. Please contact your merchant for more information.” A google search for that error showed only that people have had better luck trying a different web browser, or clearing cache/cookies and trying again, or sometimes just trying again later. Any ideas if there could be anything in this problem that is caused by something my EE site is sending to PayPal?

3) How can we set up a link for someone who started to register to go back in and try just the PayPal payment portion again?

Thanks!
Laura
http://www.iewwritingteacher.com


Josh

  • Support Staff

March 1, 2013 at 8:36 am

Hi Laura,

In the future, can you please start a new topic? When more than one person gets on to a support topic, it can become difficult to help the original poster and keep track of what’s going on.

So, with your questions:

1) I don’t see the IPN log file on my server. How do I enable the logging for this?

This is on by default. The log file will be saved in /wp-content/uploads/espresso/logs. If you do not see anything there, it’s either the file permissions on your server are not allowing the file to be saved there -or- your server isn’t receiving IPN’s from PayPal.

2) Some users got a message from PayPal that simply said “This payment cannot be completed and your account has not been charged. Please contact your merchant for more information.” A google search for that error showed only that people have had better luck trying a different web browser, or clearing cache/cookies and trying again, or sometimes just trying again later. Any ideas if there could be anything in this problem that is caused by something my EE site is sending to PayPal?

I ran a test registration and checked what was being sent to PayPal, and it all looked good to me. I have found sometimes when checking out with PayPal on one browser, if I’m logged into an account or have cleared my cookies, I’ll end up having to go back again. This is with general PayPal things like eBay (not Event Espresso). One thing that you might consider is switching to an onsite payment option like Stripe so people do not have to leave your site to pay (and deal with PayPal).

3) How can we set up a link for someone who started to register to go back in and try just the PayPal payment portion again?

In Event Espresso>General Settings and under advanced settings there is an option labeled “Show payment options for “Pending Payments” on the Payment Overview page?”. You can set this to Yes. If the payment fails and they return from PayPal, they will see the PayPal button again. Also, if you send them an email notification that includes the [payment_URL] shortcode, they can go to that link and pay for their registration.


Aladin Alaily

March 6, 2013 at 1:44 pm

The site is for a university and they manage their own servers. The staff are willing to help but they haven’t been able to get to the bottom of the IPN/Paypal CA-cert SSL handshake thing yet. I’d like to get it resolved because I want to ask for my final payment 🙂 Do you think this is something that might be possible for you guys to look into with a support token? Or do you think it’s best left to the university admins?


Josh

  • Support Staff

March 6, 2013 at 1:50 pm

Hi Aladin,

This is a server issue, and we are not server admins, so this is something that a server admin should handle.


Aladin Alaily

March 11, 2013 at 12:55 pm

Hi Josh, ok thanks… the thing is, I just want to be confident that it is a server thing, and not something that I/we can fix before I push back to their organization. How confident are you that it is a server thing and not something else? Cheers, S


Sidney Harrell

March 12, 2013 at 8:41 am

If you have shell access to the server, then you can verify that it is a server problem from the command line, similar to the command found here, you can do:
curl –ssl https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
That should return the same error that you are seeing in the logs, that the server does not have the CA certs installed.


Aladin Alaily

March 12, 2013 at 9:38 am

Hi Sidney, thanks for that — I’ll ask the server admin to test that out.


Aladin Alaily

March 12, 2013 at 2:07 pm

Hi Guys — this seems to be resolved now. Here’s the note from the admin team:

> I was able to reproduce the problem using a test PHP script that also attempted an SSL connection (similar to what Sean suggested with
> the ‘curl’ command); it gave the same error about the CAs. I’ve
> installed a bundle of CA certs and configured PHP to use them
> accordingly, and the test script now succeeds. (FYI, I got the CA
> certs used by Firefox – more info here.)

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