XF 2.2 PayPal issue

Faust

Well-known member
Hello. I do receive some PayPal emails regarding Some issues on my site.

Hi,

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


https://site.com/payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal


If you don't recognise 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 helping resolve this issue.



Any ideas why I have this issue and how can I fix ?

Thanks.
 
Solution
If nothing is showing up in XF's payment logs, then you need to check the PayPal IPN settings.

First, ensure that it shows up as being enabled. That should be here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify Note that the URL entered doesn't hugely matter as we override it explicitly, but the .../payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal URL is good.

Assuming it's enabled, you need to look at the IPN history here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history Note that it may only show the last day by default so you need to expand that to a larger date range.

If nothing shows up in the IPN history, that means that PayPal isn't sending IPNs and that's the problem...
If nothing is showing up in XF's payment logs, then you need to check the PayPal IPN settings.

First, ensure that it shows up as being enabled. That should be here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify Note that the URL entered doesn't hugely matter as we override it explicitly, but the .../payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal URL is good.

Assuming it's enabled, you need to look at the IPN history here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history Note that it may only show the last day by default so you need to expand that to a larger date range.

If nothing shows up in the IPN history, that means that PayPal isn't sending IPNs and that's the problem. Make sure they're enabled in PayPal. If they are, then that might require PayPal to investigate.

If IPNs are showing, click the "Message ID" on them to get more details on what was sent. Notably, look at the "HTTP response code" and the delivery status/number of retries. What is reported there?
 
Solution
Thank you, @Mike!

Problem solved for us. The actual PayPal account and the settings for that account are managed by another employee of the company that owns the forum in question. It turns out that in trying to solve another issue not related to the forum, she had disabled IPN messages. This happened around the time the forum stopped getting notifications and has now been fixed/reverted/enabled.

We'll know for sure the next time a member purchases an upgrade but that was almost certainly the problem for us.
 
Last edited:
If nothing is showing up in XF's payment logs, then you need to check the PayPal IPN settings.

First, ensure that it shows up as being enabled. That should be here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify Note that the URL entered doesn't hugely matter as we override it explicitly, but the .../payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal URL is good.

Assuming it's enabled, you need to look at the IPN history here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history Note that it may only show the last day by default so you need to expand that to a larger date range.

If nothing shows up in the IPN history, that means that PayPal isn't sending IPNs and that's the problem. Make sure they're enabled in PayPal. If they are, then that might require PayPal to investigate.

If IPNs are showing, click the "Message ID" on them to get more details on what was sent. Notably, look at the "HTTP response code" and the delivery status/number of retries. What is reported there?
All sorted. Thanks.
 
If nothing is showing up in XF's payment logs, then you need to check the PayPal IPN settings.

First, ensure that it shows up as being enabled. That should be here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify Note that the URL entered doesn't hugely matter as we override it explicitly, but the .../payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal URL is good.

Assuming it's enabled, you need to look at the IPN history here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history Note that it may only show the last day by default so you need to expand that to a larger date range.

If nothing shows up in the IPN history, that means that PayPal isn't sending IPNs and that's the problem. Make sure they're enabled in PayPal. If they are, then that might require PayPal to investigate.

If IPNs are showing, click the "Message ID" on them to get more details on what was sent. Notably, look at the "HTTP response code" and the delivery status/number of retries. What is reported there?

Hi,

I also got today that email from PayPal. I checked in my PayPal account and the notification-URL was mydomainname.com/forum/payment_callback.php

IPN is activated.

Strangely, I can see donations still coming through, although PayPal sent me that email.

Shall I change (=add the text) nevertheless the notification URL in my PayPal account to "mydomainname.com/forum/payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal"?
 
The URL shouldn't matter as XF overrides it.

However, site.com/payment_callback.php?_xfProvider=paypal is the actual URL.

If upgrades are still working then ...
 
Have you tried contacting PayPal regarding it?

If IPNs are still working and upgrades are completing successfully then it seems like an issue at their end.
 
I switched from vB to XF back around the end of 2018. Since then, I have had constant problems with Paypal, user upgrades, and recurring payments working sporadically or not at all. I have gone to my PP account and verified that the IPN is set to enabled,

TWT PAYPAL IPN ON.webp

However, I was just looking at the history and there were many failed deliveries and my user's upgrades are not being renewed. In many cases, PayPal has disabled the subscriptions! So I clicked on one of the failed message IDs, and see this,

TWT IPN WRONG URL.webp

The Notification URL in my settings on PayPal is correct, but for some reason the one in the transaction that failed is not. That looks like the old URL from vB, but I cannot figure out how that is getting in there. This is even happening for subscriptions that were created from within XF and are not old carry overs from accounts where the subscription was created in vB. I don't even have vB on the server anymore, at all.

I am not a programmer, developer, or anything else IT related. So my trouble shooting skills for this kind of stuff are pretty much zero and I need things explained at a pretty basic level. It is driving me crazy and annoying my users when their upgrades don't go through. I would appreciate any help. Thank you.
 
When switching from a previous software to XF, members must cancel any recurring subscriptions they had previously set up.
Otherwise payments will continue to be taken and callbacks attempted to the original URL.

I've never heard of upgrades set up in XF triggering callbacks to a VB URL.
 
I requested that all users with pre XF subscriptions cancel and start new ones. I don't think there are any pre-XF subscriptions still trying to renew, but I will double check again to see if the ones with issues are pre XF only. Some of them may have forgotten to do it.

Thanks.
 
So it looks like I have 25 users that failed to cancel and then restart their subscriptions after the upgrade to XF. I will contact each of them and see if I can get them to cancel and renew. Hopefully that will lay this to rest.

Thanks.
 
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