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Paypal standard – intermittent payments not going through

Posted: February 12, 2013 at 9:35 am

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Rob Slowen

February 12, 2013 at 9:35 am

Hi

We are using EE Version 3.1.28.5.P at the moment and are accepting payments and registration using Paypal standard on the event itself. We have had people dropping out of the payment process at a high rate and have been called by a couple of customers to let us know that they were unable to pay.

I have done a test registration and payment and it worked for me aswell as it working for 10 out of 30 customers going through the process.

I have also contacted Paypal who have said (v unhelpfully) that the fact that it is working for some people means that it cannot be a problem at their end.

Is there anything that can be done to check if there are any communication issues between Paypal and EE?

The last customer I spoke to said that everything looked as though they had paid but then an error/cancellation message came up at Paypal with a link back to our site to check if the booking had gone through.

When following the link back a message came up on our site stating that their registration was cancelled.

Clearly very frustrated as we may be missing 2/3 of people paying and booking onto our events …

Any suggestions on how to investigate – bar calling everyone up (which we are doing)?

Thanks Rob

  • This topic was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by Rob Slowen.


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 12, 2013 at 10:08 am

Hi Rob,

To answer your question:

Is there anything that can be done to check if there are any communication issues between Paypal and EE?

The answer is yes. There is a paypal ipn log file /wp-content/uploads/espresso/logs which may have some errors. That’s one place to look.

Another thing to check is whether or not the return payment page setting is set to force SSL. I checked and your site does not have an SSL certificate, so this option should not be checked.

There are also plugins that can be used to block incoming traffic, a popular one being Bad Behavior. This is a useful plugin, but if used in on a WordPress site where you’re accepting payments via PayPal, you’ll need to whitelist PayPal’s IP address so that PayPal’s instant payment notifications make it back to your site.

The last customer I spoke to said that everything looked as though they had paid but then an error/cancellation message came up at Paypal with a link back to our site to check if the booking had gone through.
When following the link back a message came up on our site stating that their registration was cancelled.

When you’re on the PayPal site, there is a cancel link on their page that will take people back to the page set as the cancellation page, which clears the session. The registration itself isn’t cancelled though, just the PayPal payment process.


Rob Slowen

February 13, 2013 at 4:42 am

Hi Josh,

I checked the log files but not sure what to be looking at. They all seem to display: Errors resulting from the execution of curl transfer: [02/12/2013 10:51 AM] – SUCCESS!

But does this mean success – there IS an error or success – there is NO error? I can send a log file to you to clarify but I’m not sure what an error would look like in this text.

Force SSL is unchecked in settings.

No plugins we can see which block anything incoming.

Any other ideas?


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 13, 2013 at 9:21 am

Hi Rob,

Here are some questions that you can answer that may help narrow down what’s causing the issue:

Are you running any caching plugins?

Are there any files in /wp-content/uploads/espresso/templates or /wp-content/uploads/espresso/gateways? If so what files are copied over to those locations?

Is there a reason why you haven’t updated to Event Espresso 3.1.30?

Which Event Espresso add-ons are installed and which version numbers are they?

Is the PayPal account set to charge taxes?


Rob Slowen

February 13, 2013 at 10:05 am

Hey Josh, thanks again for the swift reply – support for this plugin is great from personal experience.

To answer your queries:

Are you running any caching plugins?
None.

Are there any files in /wp-content/uploads/espresso/templates or /wp-content/uploads/espresso/gateways? If so what files are copied over to those locations?
/gateways is empty. /templates/ has the custom file templates we downloaded from you guys. Only one was edited to add a new column to a table (location/venue).

Is there a reason why you haven’t updated to Event Espresso 3.1.30?
After last issues we had where you guys went into the site to fix broken dashboard, we know you hacked the plugin to get it working so we didn’t want to update and risk undoing something.

Which Event Espresso add-ons are installed and which version numbers are they?
Just the Mailchimp Integration only.

Is the PayPal account set to charge taxes?
Not to my knowledge, but I’ll double-check.


Rob Slowen

February 13, 2013 at 10:49 am

Update: Paypal is not set to charge taxes


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 13, 2013 at 1:59 pm

Hi Rob,

I remember disabling the widget from the plugin conflict. This can be done for the current version as well. It involves commenting out the following line of code in /includes/functions/admin.php:

//@wp_widget_rss_output('https://eventespresso.com/feed/', array('show_date' => 0, 'items' => 5));

From your reports, it sounds to me like the problems are happening on the PayPal side of things, since the customer made it to PayPal, paid, then got an error message and a link to the cancellation page.

If you send us a copy of the IPN log, we can take a look at it and check for any clues on why some of these transactions are not completing.


Rob Slowen

February 14, 2013 at 3:12 am

Hi Josh
Will send the IPN log to your email address …


Josh

  • Support Staff

February 14, 2013 at 2:14 pm

Hi Rob,

All the IPN log entries in the log file were successful. What you can look at is whether you’re actually getting paid for any of the other registrations. You can look up the transaction history in your PayPal account.

I did notice one of the completed registrations was from someone who had earlier registered. They may have registered, made it to PayPal and abandoned the process.

One thing that may help is there’s a setting in PayPal where you can set it to allow people who don’t have a PayPal account to pay with a credit card.

You’ll find this option in your PayPal account by going to the Profile subtab, clicking on Website Payment Preferences under the Selling Preferences column, and then checking the yes/no box under PayPal Account Optional.


Rob Slowen

February 15, 2013 at 3:27 am

Thanks Josh
This is all set correctly as far as I can see (although the ‘website payment preferences’ menu you are suggesting doesn’t exist in Paypal in the UK).

When I click through to Paypal as a test registration I can see the option to pay without a Paypal account.

We will monitor it and are contacting anyone who has been through to payment page and cancelled before paying.

I think you’re right and it’s possibly a combination of people not seeing the option to pay without Paypal, dropping out at the point of commitment to buy, and in at least one case we’ve followed up, an issue with their Paypal account.

It just scared us when someone called and said they couldn’t pay (the last customer mentioned above, which we now have an explanation for) – and then we saw all the other non-payments int he attendee list.

I think once we add another payment gateway/process this should help improve this.

Thanks again for the help – i know our developer has recommended your plugin to other clients on the back of the functionality and support!

Rob

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