IPN always returns INVALID status with foreign characters in buyers name...why?

Lidiya55
Contributor
Contributor

 

Hi,

 

I have noticed that IPN always returns "INVALID" status with "foreign" characters in buyers name.

By "foreign" I mean characters like Ó or á for example.

 

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

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4 REPLIES 4

Lidiya55
Contributor
Contributor

Anybody had similar issues? All IPN responces keep getting back as INVALID if buyer name contains any of those funky characters...

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Wombat
Contributor
Contributor

Have you included in your WPS pay button form...

 

<input type="hidden" name="charset" value="UTF-8">

 

Check how your IPN processor reacts to that.

 

(ps note for testing careful copying of the character from your PP email can assist and re-pasting the char somewhere in a Sandbox pay button form ie a hidden "custom" value" too as well as a ccard name can help sort it - here's an old favorite from the pre PP "x" forums I use all the time... C�u Azul)

 

 

Regards,

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Lidiya55
Contributor
Contributor

Yes, I do have it, the only difference is that UTF-8 is lin lower case: utf-8, like below

 

<input type="hidden" name="charset" value="utf-8">

 

Can this be a problem?

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Wombat
Contributor
Contributor

u/l case should not be a problem but try it anyway.

 

Also go to seller account Profile -> Language Encoding -> [BUTTON: More Options] -> More Encoding Options where you can set the default as UTF-8 and the second option as "Yes" (or select UTF-8 if not chosen in the first option) .

 

...plus...

charset...  Optional

Sets the character encoding for the billing information/log-in page, for the information you send to PayPal in your HTML button code, and for the information that PayPal returns to you as a result of checkout processes initiated by the payment button. The default is based on the character encoding settings in your account profile.

For allowable values, see Setting the Character Set – charset.

 

IPN


Of course one must carefully check the logic paths in your IPN code to see if it's the logic that determines the INVALID and not the actual match to data received (ie too often the INVALID is just output as an if / else statement result not matching the first 'if' but not an explicit check of the alternate PP return).

 

Also, is the rebuilt return string of the received POST data stream correctly URI encoding the NVP values correctly? Also worth a double check.

 

Last but not least, proper debug by simply saving to a text file the captured RAW "POST" data followed by the built Q string before it is sent back to PP. Do some tests as previously mentioned and view the text file contents. Also if using a pre processing language like PHP compare the RAW data stream BEFORE the RAW POST data.

 

Regards,

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...bug free, my programs do occasionally include undisclosed FREE random features.

 

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