Problem with drop down list and donation buttons

mcdr_a
Contributor
Contributor

Problem #1:  My drop down list for memebrships used to work great, now it says "PayPal cannot process this transaction because of a problem with the seller's website. Please contact the seller directly to resolve this problem."

 

Problem #2:  I haven't been able to create a working Donate button, I want customers to determine the amount they want to give.  For that I have gotten an error message each time.

 

I do have one other section on my Shopping page that works fine, for signing up for classes.  I have used the PayPal online button creator and I work in Dreamweaver.  Here's the URL:  http://www.mcdr.org/ and choose ShopMCDR.

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1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

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skier
Advisor
Advisor

The item button is failing because of a little mistake in your coding and your HTML Editor is appending numbers to ends of some of the variables in the item buttons.   First  look for this line of code:

<SELECT name=os> 

 

The line should look like this:

 

<SELECT name=os0> 

 

Next: 

 

HTML Editors like Frontpage 2003, Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression will automatically enumerate form variables in your HTML code. The variables names will have numbers appended to them (examples - cmd0, business0, item_name0, cmd1, business1, item_name1, hosted_button_id1, cmd2, business2, item_name2, hosted_button_id2, etc).

Since PayPal does not recognize the modified variables, the buttons fail. To fix the problem, you need to remove the numeral after each variable.

Something to check for Frontpage 2003:
1. In Frontpage 2003, go to the top and click on 'Tools'
2. Click 'Page Options'
3. Select the 'General' tab, if not already selected
4. Clear the checkbox next to 'Make ID Unique on Paste'
5. Click the 'OK' button to save your changes

Something to check for Dreamweaver:
1. Open your website in Dreamweaver
2. Click "Edit"
3. Click "Preferences"
4. Under "General", deselect "Rename Form Items When Pasting" - for Dreamweaver MX, this option is located under "Code Rewriting".

Something to check for Microsoft Expression:
1. In MS Expression, Go to Tools
2. Select Page Editor Options
3. Under General, disable Make ID Unique on Paste.

Note: Not sure if this works Dreamweaver versions earlier than 4.

If you are not using Dreamweaver or FrontPage 2003 or Microsoft Expression, check your editor's help files or manually remove the added numbers from the variable names in the HTML source code.

 

 

 

One other small thing.   The first Add to Cart item button - the MCDR $75 appears to be missing the "Item Name".  When you add that item to the Shopping Cart, there is no Item Name, only an Amount.

 

 

Regards,

 

skier

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5 REPLIES 5
Solved

skier
Advisor
Advisor

The item button is failing because of a little mistake in your coding and your HTML Editor is appending numbers to ends of some of the variables in the item buttons.   First  look for this line of code:

<SELECT name=os> 

 

The line should look like this:

 

<SELECT name=os0> 

 

Next: 

 

HTML Editors like Frontpage 2003, Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression will automatically enumerate form variables in your HTML code. The variables names will have numbers appended to them (examples - cmd0, business0, item_name0, cmd1, business1, item_name1, hosted_button_id1, cmd2, business2, item_name2, hosted_button_id2, etc).

Since PayPal does not recognize the modified variables, the buttons fail. To fix the problem, you need to remove the numeral after each variable.

Something to check for Frontpage 2003:
1. In Frontpage 2003, go to the top and click on 'Tools'
2. Click 'Page Options'
3. Select the 'General' tab, if not already selected
4. Clear the checkbox next to 'Make ID Unique on Paste'
5. Click the 'OK' button to save your changes

Something to check for Dreamweaver:
1. Open your website in Dreamweaver
2. Click "Edit"
3. Click "Preferences"
4. Under "General", deselect "Rename Form Items When Pasting" - for Dreamweaver MX, this option is located under "Code Rewriting".

Something to check for Microsoft Expression:
1. In MS Expression, Go to Tools
2. Select Page Editor Options
3. Under General, disable Make ID Unique on Paste.

Note: Not sure if this works Dreamweaver versions earlier than 4.

If you are not using Dreamweaver or FrontPage 2003 or Microsoft Expression, check your editor's help files or manually remove the added numbers from the variable names in the HTML source code.

 

 

 

One other small thing.   The first Add to Cart item button - the MCDR $75 appears to be missing the "Item Name".  When you add that item to the Shopping Cart, there is no Item Name, only an Amount.

 

 

Regards,

 

skier

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mcdr_a
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you!!!!!  My Membership buttons are working now.

 

Another question.....I can't get my Donate button to work when i want to let the customer decide what amount they want to put in.  I temporarily made a drop down list for the MCDR General Fund.  But for the next Donate button (for Sarah Grebe Scholarship Fund), I get a fatal error when I click on the button.  Any suggestions?

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skier
Advisor
Advisor

You're using Frames in your web site design. For security reasons, PayPal does not allow the use of their payment pages to be displayed inside of a Frame. When a PayPal page is displayed in a Frame, it is unsecure causing it to time out and/or be blocked.

You can fix this by simply adding target="paypal" in the <form action> tag of the HTML code. This will prevent the PayPal payment page from being displayed in a Frame.   You need to modify your code to look like the example below.

<form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">

 

 

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

 

skier

 

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mcdr_a
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you so much, I'm learning a lot.  This is all new to me.  I noticed that the Donate choice lead me to a PayPal screen to choose the amount.  Is there any way to get the donation money to show in the Cart instead of a separate page?  People usually donate at the same time that they pay membership.  Just wondering.

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skier
Advisor
Advisor

Donation item button code is unique.  If you want to include a Donation in the Shopping Cart, you have to take a different approach.   You cannot actually use the Donation item button code.   You would have to use Add to Cart item button code behind the scenes.  

 

 

And just to confuse you even more, here's another approach, this example uses the "upload" method to send values to the PayPal Screens.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

skier

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