PayPal works fine... but doesn't update Cart/Order to 'complete'

[Guy Scharf]

We are running PrestaShop 1.4.8.2 and have installed PayPalUSA v1.3.8 because of the SSL issue.

 

I have uninstalled, reinstalled and reconfigured the PayPal module.  The module is configured as Standard mode (Express is not enabled).  All API settings are set and "save settings" reports that the settings were successfully saved.

 

From the Front office, I can create an order, select Paypal for payment, and pay for the order.  PayPal processes the payment correctly (charges my credit card) and says that the payment has been processed correctly.  Upon return to PrestaShop, the order history is displayed and the cart is not emptied. 

 

However, in the Back Office, no order exists.  Looking at the database, I can see the cart is present but no order record exists.

 

I've read some of the other threads but did not find a solution there.  I did try the suggestion to uninstall and reinstall with no change in behavior.

 

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to get this working correctly.

 

[Guest]

In my opinion there is no solution

 

Here I will make some assumptions

 

1) PayPal used to work

2) You are using a pro account 

This is what I think happens - if it works though of course your particular issue might be different

 

Customer clicks PayPal to make payment

Payment is taken successfully

PayPal tries to report back to prestashop that everything is ok

that return URL (IPN) is not available for some reason, perhaps the site is a bit slow, or in maintenance mode, or down for some other reason so notification cannot be served

paypal tries again, if all works then everything is back to normal

if when PayPal tries again the IPN is still unavailable it tries again and again until eventually it gives up. At this point it will no longer ever try and switches off the attempts

eventually Paypal decides to try again, switches the IPN back on and tries. If all ok then back to normal. if not OK, then swithces off again

 

From what I can tell, there is no way to persuade PayPal to try again until it is ready

 

So all you can do is sit back and wait - it will start again

[Guy Scharf]

Yes, PayPal used to work, but that was with an older version of the module which used SSL.  As far as I can determine, v1.3.8 has never worked properly for us.

 

In my opinion there is no solution

 

Here I will make some assumptions

 

1) PayPal used to work

2) You are using a pro account 

This is what I think happens - if it works though of course your particular issue might be different

 

Customer clicks PayPal to make payment

Payment is taken successfully....

Edited May 19, 2015 by Guy Scharf (see edit history)

[Guest]

I would imagine it is the same problem though. It may be that during the update process PayPal was unable to contact your site and therfore 2closed down" for a while, I have tried and tried with prestashop and Paypal to determine what casues this all to no avail, hence my conclusions about PayPal stopping for a while.

 

For us this happens periodically. PayPal just stops working for a day, or even up to a fortnight, then magically starts again. In the meantime all you can do is manually convert the shopping cart to an order in the back office

 

For us (UK) I switched Pro off, and just used standard for a week or so. that way the customer saw no issues, and the order was created in Prestashop. then every few days switch back to pro to see if it works. Eventually it does

[Guy Scharf]

I double checked and we are using a PayPal Standard account (the free kind).  So if switching to PayPal Standard fixed your problem, it must be a different one that we are having.

 

Guy

[Guest]

Hmm, not sure then. Perhaps post in the forge.http://forge.prestashop.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa

[Guy Scharf]

After discovering that PayPal was getting 404 errors in the IPN log, I found the problem, as described at https://www.prestashop.com/forums/topic/424458-get-paid-but-no-bo-notification-get-301-in-logs-paypal-usa-canada-v138/?p=1996141.

 

I applied that fix and PayPal is now working ok.