XF 2.1 New PayPal IPN Issue?

Sal Collaziano

Well-known member
Hey. I haven't received one of these emails in a while. I upgraded from the latest version of 2.0 to 2.1 a day or two ago and I received this warning this morning:

Please check your server that handles PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN). IPNs sent to the following URL(s) are failing:

http://www.website.com/forums/payment_gateway.php?method=paypal

If you do not recognize this URL, you may be using a service provider that is using IPN on your behalf. Please contact your service provider with the above information. If this problem continues, IPNs may be disabled for your account.

Does anything need to be changed in either configuration (PayPal or XenForo)?
 
I wrote something up and then just deleted it because I missed the obvious. 🤦‍♂️ The URL listed (payment_gateway.php) isn't the URL XenForo uses; we use payment_callback.php. This presumably means that the message relates to IPN callbacks for software other than XF or potentially a third-party XF add-on.
 
I wrote something up and then just deleted it because I missed the obvious. 🤦‍♂️ The URL listed (payment_gateway.php) isn't the URL XenForo uses; we use payment_callback.php. This presumably means that the message relates to IPN callbacks for software other than XF or potentially a third-party XF add-on.
Thank you very much!
 
Yes. I converted from vB 3.8.1 back in mid December. However, I have been getting paypal donations from my members without any problems since then. I usually get 5-6 payments a day.
 
Hmmm... I never had a URL in the PayPal IPN page at all. Yet it has been working great.

I did recently have a "crash" and had to use a recent backup to do a restore of my server. I am thinking this might have been a blip because of that (at least that is what I am hoping!). I have added the correct XF URL and enabled IPN just to be sure though.
 
Hmmm... I never had a URL in the PayPal IPN page at all. Yet it has been working great.

I did recently have a "crash" and had to use a recent backup to do a restore of my server. I am thinking this might have been a blip because of that (at least that is what I am hoping!). I have added the correct XF URL and enabled IPN just to be sure though.
You should be okay now. Give it a try with a test purchase...
 
I have had several users make payments sine I enabled the IPN and added the new link.

I had to go back through the IPN history and look at all the transactions in the last week or so, then compare them to user accounts on my forum to see if the upgrades went through. Many did not and I had to manually add the upgrades.

So I think all is good for now... ** fingers and toes crossed **
 
I have had several users make payments sine I enabled the IPN and added the new link.

I had to go back through the IPN history and look at all the transactions in the last week or so, then compare them to user accounts on my forum to see if the upgrades went through. Many did not and I had to manually add the upgrades.

So I think all is good for now... ** fingers and toes crossed **
To note, my automatic upgrades aren't working either. They never have since upgrading my sites to XenForo2. Not sure what the deal is there - but I do have a ticket in...
 
I started with XF 2, coming from vB 3.8.1. All the account upgrades imported from vB into XF 2 without any issues. Existing upgrades continued as expected. I then had to create the new upgrade options in XF2, but they have worked flawlessly until a few days ago. That was most likely my fault though as I had to do a complete server restore from a backup and lost about 2 days worth of content and user upgrade data. Now that I got that sorted, and I've added the URL and enabled the IPN on PayPal, I am hoping not to see any more problems.

I really don't know squat about how PayPal and XF interact to make all that stuff happen automagically :unsure:
 
I started with XF 2, coming from vB 3.8.1. All the account upgrades imported from vB into XF 2 without any issues. Existing upgrades continued as expected. I then had to create the new upgrade options in XF2, but they have worked flawlessly until a few days ago. That was most likely my fault though as I had to do a complete server restore from a backup and lost about 2 days worth of content and user upgrade data. Now that I got that sorted, and I've added the URL and enabled the IPN on PayPal, I am hoping not to see any more problems.

I really don't know squat about how PayPal and XF interact to make all that stuff happen automagically :unsure:
It sounds like you did everything right. I forgot to mention that it's my upgrades done with Stripe that aren't working...
 
I wrote something up and then just deleted it because I missed the obvious. 🤦‍♂️ The URL listed (payment_gateway.php) isn't the URL XenForo uses; we use payment_callback.php. This presumably means that the message relates to IPN callbacks for software other than XF or potentially a third-party XF add-on.

So in XF2, if we use an IPN for PayPal, it should be http://www.website.com/payment_callback.php?method=paypal?

Even though everything is working properly, we're getting emails from PayPal saying our IPN is failing, and they won't let us remove the IPN once it's set. Our current IPN is set to https://www.website.com/ipn/paypal.
 
Part of enabling IPNs in PayPal requires you to set a URL, though we don't actually use that URL -- we override whatever has been set within PP during the request, so that it points to the correct URL. So in terms of XF, the URL within PP shouldn't matter, but in the absence of anything else to point it at, I would point it at the payment_callback.php URL you mentioned just in case.
 
We disabled IPNs a while back, but recently we've been getting this email from PayPal each day.

Hello Joe Link ,

Please check your server that handles PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN). IPNs sent to the following URL(s) are failing:

https://www.domain.com/payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal

If you do not recognize this URL, you may be using a service provider that is using IPN on your behalf. Please contact your service provider with the above information. If this problem continues, IPNs may be disabled for your account.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this issue.

Thanks,
PayPal
 
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