Severe issue: Some transactions suddenly don't generate IPN numbers

aand
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, I've been running my Woocommerce shop with a Paypal integration for years without any major problems, but out of the blue, some completed purchases do not get a IPN number and are left hanging as Pending (result: the customers end up paying but the products aren't delivered). This started happening yesterday (the first transaction I noticed the issue for was the following ID: 2PM01810PK075623V ).

 

The majority of orders complete without problems (ie an IPN number is sent), and I've changed nothing at my end, so there looks to be an issue at your end somewhere.

 

Example of transaction IDs that didn't generate an IPN:

282806220W6081539
3M8597867L000441L
2PM01810PK075623V

 

Example of a transaction that generated an IPN:

1XX402712H454315U


This is causing major frustration with my customers and uncertainty for me as a store owner, so could you please investigate and let me know how this can be resolved?

 

Thanks,

- Asbjoern

 

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8 REPLIES 8

angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

Have you checked the IPN History in your PayPal account to see if the expected IPNs are showing up there and what the status of the is?  It would either show 200 (which means the IPN was sent successfully) or a 500 error of some sort, meaning your IPN script failed.

 

You can also check your web server logs to see if any failures are happening when your IPN URL gets hit.  For more details on troubleshooting IPN take a look at this article I wrote awhile back on testing PayPal IPN.  If you follow those procedures you should be able to find the root of your problem.

 

Since you say the majority of the orders are working fine, I would say it sounds like there's an issue in your IPN script (which could be confirmed by looking at the things mentioned above.)  For example, you could have a problem in the script with handling special characters in name (ie. O'Reily) often cause problems with IPNs, but most orders don't have such a name so those would go through just fine.

 

Again, reviewing IPN History, server logs, and running specific tests will help you find the problem.  

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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EventClinics
Contributor
Contributor

We are having similiar issue, just started a few days ago.  We run Adaptive Payments in Paraelle.  
We store all the IPN messages for each transaction. Transactions are processing but we don't get the IPN notification required to process the transaction.
When we reviewed the web server logs, it's as if the IPN message was never sent.  The message format that normally shows for a successful Adaptive Payment transaction is completely absent.  We don't receive Transaction IDs, reciever email addresses, etc. Yet both receivers are paid and the transaction processes.
AngelEye- In our PayPal IPN history, the status for affected transaction shows as 200.  Example: 2PU08274D5321053Y

We tried resending the IPNs for some of the affected transactions and it was unsuccessful.

Other ideas?  Did PayPal make an update?

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angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

If PayPal IPN History shows the IPN you expected to see and it has a 200 result that means it sent the IPN to your server and your server responded with a 200 OK response, which means the script completed successfully.  If you aren't seeing the things happen that should be happening when your IPN script runs then you need to troubleshoot the script itself.  All PayPal does is send data, and the IPN History log with a 200 result would prove it was sent and got a good response.

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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EventClinics
Contributor
Contributor

Actually the PayPal History IPN logs do NOT show the message or data we are expecting to see. That's why we are concerned.  The message format is totally different for the affected transactions.  We can resend the Message Format #1 IPNs all day long, but without the correct data sent we;'re concerned script troubleshooting on our end will not be productive. Am i missing something?

Format #1 –sent for the affected transactions- does not contain IPN Data we need

Starts with payer_id=xxxxxxx_

 

Format #2- sent for the successful transactions-what we expect to see

starts with transaction[0].is_primary_receiver=false&transaction[0].id_for_sender_txn=xxxx....status=COMPLETED&transaction[1].status=Completed&payment_request_date=Tue May 16 10:49:01 PDT 2017

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angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

I'm confused.  When I asked about it originally you saida this:

 

AngelEye- In our PayPal IPN history, the status for affected transaction shows as 200.

 

Then you said it's not showing up in IPN History at all, but you are getting IPNs...they just don't include the data you're expecting them to have..??

 

Can you provide full copies of the IPNs  you're getting (with bogus data instead of live customer data)?

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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EventClinics
Contributor
Contributor

Update on this-we had filed an MTS ticket.  Determined there was a server failure on PayPay's end.  It caused intermittment delivery of the Adapative Payment IPN. (Hence why some transactions were successful and sporadically others were not.)
What we were receiving, and showed the 200 message I referenced previously, was a "Web Accept" IPN.  That type of IPN did not contain the data we needed to process the transaction.  PayPal worked the issue on their end and reissued the Adaptive Payment IPN for the affected transactions related to May 18.
We have a couple affected transactions prior to the 18th that we are still working, but ongoing problem appears to be resolved. 
Kudos is owed to PayPal Support- they did an outstanding job troubleshooting and updating.

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aand
Contributor
Contributor

Great to hear it's been resolved - and thanks, good work helping with the troubleshooting too! I've personally been extremely disappointed in PayPal support's complete lack of response or acknowledgement of the issue. Given how vital their services are, it's worrying that they don't even care to respond to a support ticket.

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EventClinics
Contributor
Contributor

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