Requesting payment ID returns 500 Internal Server Error

[EhabSherif]

Hello how do you do,

I'm trying to setup PayPal payments but I got stuck in an 500 internal server error when posting a curl request to:

https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/payment

Here's the data I'm sending

{"intent":"sale","redirect_urls":{"return_url":"https://www.excellent-way.com/payment-return/","cancel_url":"https://www.excellent-way.com/payment-return/"},"payer":{"payment_method":"paypal"},"transactions":[{"amount":{"total":"7.47","currency":"USD"},"description":"This is the payment transaction description."}]}

Here's the full curl log:

* Hostname was found in DNS cache
*   Trying 173.0.82.78...
* Connected to api.sandbox.paypal.com (173.0.82.78) port 443 (#80)
* SSL connection using TLSv1.2 / AES256-SHA256
* Server certificate:
* 	 subject: C=US; ST=California; L=San Jose; O=PayPal, Inc.; OU=PayPal Production; CN=api.sandbox.paypal.com
* 	 start date: 2016-01-13 00:00:00 GMT
* 	 expire date: 2018-01-13 23:59:59 GMT
* 	 issuer: C=US; O=Symantec Corporation; OU=Symantec Trust Network; CN=Symantec Class 3 Secure Server CA - G4
* 	 SSL certificate verify result: unable to get local issuer certificate (20), continuing anyway.
> POST /v1/payments/payment HTTP/1.1
Host: api.sandbox.paypal.com
Accept: application/json
Accept-Language: en_US
content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Authorization: Bearer XXXXXXXX
Content-Length: 540

* upload completely sent off: 540 out of 540 bytes
< HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
< Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2017 10:51:41 GMT
* Server Apache is not blacklisted
< Server: Apache
< paypal-debug-id: a442e2f24ee14
< Connection: close
< HTTP_X_PP_AZ_LOCATOR: sandbox.slc
< Paypal-Debug-Id: a442e2f24ee14
< Set-Cookie: X-PP-SILOVER=name%3DSANDBOX3.API.1%26silo_version%3D1880%26app%3Dapiplatformproxyserv%26TIME%3D3179618906%26HTTP_X_PP_AZ_LOCATOR%3Dsandbox.slc; Expires=Sat, 02 Dec 2017 11:21:41 GMT; domain=.paypal.com; path=/; Secure; HttpOnly
< Set-Cookie: X-PP-SILOVER=; Expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT
< Vary: Authorization
< Content-Length: 0
< Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
< 
* Closing connection 80

I've tried live as well as sandbox, both return same error..

I checked the server status and it's working, what could be the issue?

Thank You,

[MTS_Justin]

Hi @EhabSherif

Here is how the request should look.

Submit with this request and it should work ok.

{
"intent":"sale",
"redirect_urls":{
"return_url":"https://www.excellent-way.com/payment-return",
"cancel_url":"https://www.excellent-way.com/payment-return"
},
"payer":{
"payment_method":"paypal"
},
"transactions":[
{
"amount":{
"total":"7.47",
"currency":"USD"
},
"description":"This is the payment transaction description."
}
]
}

[EhabSherif]

Same problem I'm afraid..

Here's my PHP curl request if it helps..

function makePayment($accessToken){
	$data = '{
	"intent":"sale",
	"redirect_urls":{
	"return_url":"https://www.excellent-way.com/payment-return",
	"cancel_url":"https://www.excellent-way.com/payment-return"
	},
	"payer":{
	"payment_method":"paypal"
	},
	"transactions":[
	{
	"amount":{
	"total":"7.47",
	"currency":"USD"
	},
	"description":"This is the payment transaction description."
	}
	]
	}';

	$verbose = fopen('php://temp', 'w+');
	$curl = curl_init();
	curl_setopt_array($curl, array(
		CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => 1,
		CURLOPT_VERBOSE => true,
		CURLOPT_STDERR => $verbose,
		CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => false,
		CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST => false,
		CURLOPT_URL => "https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/payment",
		CURLOPT_POST => 1,
		CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => array(
		'Accept: application/json',
		'Accept-Language: en_US',
		'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
		'Authorization: Bearer ' . $accessToken
		),
		CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $data,
	));

	$response = curl_exec($curl);
	if ($response === FALSE) {
		printf("cUrl error (#%d): %s<br>\n", curl_errno($curl),
			   htmlspecialchars(curl_error($curl)));
	}
	rewind($verbose);
	$verboseLog = stream_get_contents($verbose);
	echo "<pre>", htmlspecialchars($verboseLog), "</pre>\n";
	curl_close($curl);
	return json_decode($response,true);
}

Thanks

[MTS_Justin]

Hello,

Can you share the paypal-debug-id returned for this attempt ?

[EhabSherif]

Paypal-Debug-Id: e7d0755746156

[MTS_Justin · Accepted solution]

Hello,

You appear to be passing "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" for the "content-type", when it should be "application/json".

You appear to be sending it in some of your requests, but not in the ones where the failures occur.

Let me know the outcome !

[EhabSherif]

That was the problem indeed 🙂 Thanks