Paypal Add To Cart Buttons No Longer Working - Take Me To Paypal Login Page

[shawna75]

I'm hoping someone has a solution for this. I've been updating a website for a business for 4 years now. They're a theater, and every year I update their schedule and their Paypal buttons for buying tickets. They've always worked just fine, until this year. The buttons have code that I can edit to change the name of the performance, price, date, etc. The email address where payment is to go to is right inside the button code.

But now, it just takes me to the Paypal login page. I've tried logging in but it doesn't matter. I've been googling this for 2 days now but not really coming up with a solution. Many sites say to create hosted buttons through my Paypal account, but of course this isn't my Paypal account, so I can't do that!

The page is pontine . org , and if you go to the purchase tickets page you can see the buttons that are now not working. It wouldn't let me post the code here.

Thank you!!

[snowshoe · Accepted solution]

HTML Editors like Frontpage, 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:
1.   In Frontpage, 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 or Microsoft Expression, check your editor's help files or manually remove the added numbers from the variable names in the HTML source code.

For example, here's a snippet from your code:

<input type="hidden" name="add22" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd23" value="_cart">
<input type="hidden" name="business23" value="your email address">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name22" value="PERFORMANCE SERIES SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGE / FRIDAYS @7:30 pm" />
<input type="hidden" name="amount22" value="96.00">
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping22" value="1">

 Notice the numbers added to the end of the "names".

The code should look like this:

<input type="hidden" name="add" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="your email address">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="PERFORMANCE SERIES SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGE / FRIDAYS @7:30 pm" />
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="96.00">
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1">

Here's another tip:

After you have made your changes to your item button code, be sure to delete your web browser's cookies, temp files and history before testing the changes.   This ensures a clean start.   Delete the browser's cookies, temp files and history, then close the browser, reopen it and then test your code.

Last, if you want to insert example code in a post, there's an icon in the toolbar - looks like a small clipboard with a "c" on it.  You click that, a window opens and you can insert the code.

[shawna75]

THANK YOU!!! That fixed everything!!

Yes, I'm using Dreamweaver. SO relieved!!! 🙂