CODEWITHSUNDEEP
paypalpaypal-ipnpaypal-sandboxpayment
Antoine Dionne
Antoine Dionne

Reputation: 1

Paypal IPN not firing?

I have a question about Paypal IPN, I was wondering when does the IPN activate and send it's message to my website.

I currently have my website that has a buy button. When the client buy the service, he is directed to paypal. Once he pay the service, nothing happen. In order for me to receive the IPN notification, the user has to click "Return to merchant website" or whatever the link is, then I receive the IPN notification.

Is it normal, does it work like that for everyone? Cause right now, most people when they are done with the payment, just close the website and I don't receive any notification.

Thanks for any help !

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1607

Answers (1)

Martin
Martin

Reputation: 22770

Your question leaves a lot of missing information so I will go through each option for you:

  • Read here about how to setup a sandbox account if you don't already have one: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/lifecycle/sb_create-accounts/

  • Bare in mind that your sandbox account is entirely separate in every way from your live paypal account. All settings will need to be checked and customised as needed.

  • Set up your IPN URL on your sandbox account Here: https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify

  • Once set up, you then need to download and set your code (PHP or something else) to the listener (referenced in the above sandbox profile link). You can find IPN code examples here: https://github.com/paypal/ipn-code-samples

  • When that's all set you need to set your listener to using the sandbox mode and then log in to your live account and then run the IPN simulator from here: https://developer.paypal.com/developer/ipnSimulator/

  • Paypal will send messages to your IPN listener and you need to do something with the messages, typically output them into some sort of log file. Any issues, you can read Paypals feedback and IPN data/delivery information here https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history&nav=0.3.4 [Found from History->ipnHistory on the Paypal menu] and it should list them out. You can resend any failed or queued or undelivered messages.

  • Paypal is a terribly documented and terribly structured system for coding with. I hate it. Use Stripe.

  • I love bullet points.

  • Paypal claims they will try and resend failed/queued IPNs 16 times over 5 days. I have yet to see this, you need to resend them manually (at least, sandbox ones)

  • Please remember all the settings and changes you have made to your Sandbox account will need to be also made to your live account before you make your payment system live!

Solution

My return_URL is the location of my IPN.php file which take care of the data sent and received. My problem is that the IPN is only firing when I click the "Return to merchant website" and not when the payment is actually completed

What you have done, from reading your comments, is set your IPN page to being your return from paypal page, this is NOT the way IPN is supposed to work, the IPN page should never be visited by the customer, only ever by Paypal.

Read through my anwser (points 2,3,4) and set up your IPN web link as I have described above, your return_url value should be a basic page to say to the customer "transaction complete". The IPN page is defined on your paypal accounts (sandbox and live) as I stated above.

This will fix your problem.

Upvotes: 3

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