IPN Still Not Working

[noodles57]

Gosh it's been so long. I would say 3 years this month that your IPN system stopped sending data back to my website.

Back then I had countless calls and emails with your tech support and no one could figure it out. It's obvious something changed on PAYPAL's end during that time that caused this problem. If you have some fresh blood on hand who might have better insight and can look back 3 years to see what changed at your end, I'd be willing to reopen this discussion.
 

Something in their String changed years back but they couldn't figure it out and insisted I needed to change something.

Here's a typical string sent back and apparently my database doesn't accept it. For the last 3 years I've had to MANUALLY upgrade players which has been a pain.

transaction_subject=Victors+United%3A+Annual+Premium+Membership&payment_date=22%3A29%3A17+Feb+02%2C+2023+PST&txn_type=subscr_payment&subscr_id=I-00BTF0WNGP5X&last_name=Shexxxx&residence_country=US&item_name=Victors+United%3A+Annual+Premium+Membership&payment_gross=23.95&mc_currency=USD&business=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&payment_type=instant&protection_eligibility=Eligible&verify_sign=Ao1t4QCpQj7y9q0AKssYzx7E7xQQAkDSHlZESHMoivBkfRuodNDgGpvY&payer_status=verified&payer_email=shexxxxx%40xxxxxtx.edu&txn_id=0HR77812ED994315S&receiver_email=xxxxxxxxxxxxx&first_name=Stephen&payer_id=xxxxxxxxxx&receiver_id=X8K726LGXBJBY&item_number=vu2023yearly&payment_status=Completed&payment_fee=1.33&mc_fee=1.33&btn_id=237168392&mc_gross=23.95&custom=QtwqRLEIUQ1JTSIT0YS8Khvk%2BcVnls7WrzgUyUZV4KefXZX4MosAv3nrPZp4f5wP&charset=windows-1252&notify_version=3.9&ipn_track_id=0869218a9140a

-- Thank you, Rick [removed] Noodleware Software LLC

[MTS_Jennifer · Accepted solution]

Hello @noodles57 ,

Thank you for posting to the PayPal Community. This experience sounds very frustrating, and I do apologize.

You are correct there was a change three years ago in the way that IPNs are sent and received. This change may be impacting your ability to receive IPNs.

https://developer.paypal.com/api/nvp-soap/ipn/IPNIntro/#link-ipnprotocolandarchitecture

PayPal HTTPS POSTs an IPN message to your listener that notifies it of an event. If your listener is not setup to send and receive TLS 1.2 compliant requests, the IPN will fail. PayPal also requires HTTP/1.1 for all connections. What this means is that you need a valid SSL Certificate that uses TLS 1.2 protocol for your IPN listener.

Here is some additional important information from the PayPal Developer site:

Every IPN message you receive from PayPal includes a User-Agent HTTPS request header whose value is PayPal IPN ( https://www.paypal.com/ipn ). Do not use this header to verify that an IPN really came from PayPal and has not been tampered with. Rather, to verify these things, you must use the IPN authentication protocol outlined above.
PayPal expects to receive a response to an IPN message within 30 seconds. Consequently, your listener must not perform time-consuming operations (such as updating a database) before responding to an IPN.

Here are some details on all of the Security Updates that took place starting three years ago:

https://developer.paypal.com/api/rest/reference/info-security-guidelines/#link-usetlsversionorhigher

Also, we rotate our SSL Certificates and IP addresses regularly. Here are the updated PayPal SSL Certificates:

https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/where-can-i-find-paypal-ssl-server-certificates-ts1510

If you have hard coded the PayPal IP addresses into your firewall, please be aware we change them regularly:

https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/what-are-the-ip-addresses-for-paypal-nvp-soap-servers-ts...

To get an idea of the architecture changes you can also test with https://webhook.site this URL creates a unique listener for testing.

Thank you,

Jennifer

MTS

PayPal

[noodles57]

Thank you, Jennifer.

I wish you were around 3 years ago as tech back then insisted nothing had changed on Paypal's end. I will review my TLS settings the site does have a secure SSL cert, but I am asking my hosting techs to review everything you've stated.

Thank you,

Rick [removed]

[kim029]

Hi  Jennifer, 

We have the same issue using Magento platform, we have transactions in the IPN that is not updating or still for review in paypal. Can I email you directly to check the transaction IDs why it's been halted since last years?

[cosmoracing]

Hello Jennifer,

I have the IPN issue since 18-Sep,2023 (it was working fine for years) and so far still not working; there is no HTTP response, and no longer received the IPN. Big trouble and issue, please help!

Thanks,

Paul

[trakesh]

Hi,

I am too having same issue, IPN is sent soemtime but mostly fails from long time. See attachment :