Paypal IPN has stopped working
Paypal has stopped working!
Actually, that’s not quite true.
I just read about this on Frank Haywood’s blog and thought it’s worth sharing.
It seems Paypal have done what many of us do when we’re ‘tweaking’ things – they’ve broken what they were trying to tweak!
For anyone who doesn’t know, Paypal’s IPN is the method that lets your payment script know that money has been succesfully received from the customers. That’s pretty important if you’re selling downloadable products because you want to make sure you get paid – of course – but you also want the customer to have the product immediately after they’ve paid.
That’s basic good customer service.
So where’s the problem? Well, right now, for reason Paypal don’t even know, some transactions aren’t updating the IPN properly. So your customer pays, you get the money, but your script doesn’t deliver the goods.
Unhappy customer.
For busy sites it’s affecting thousands of transactions. I’m not quite that busy myself, but I’m seeing a lot of support calls asking why the customer didn’t get their download.
Right now the only thing you can do is be aware of it, apologize to your customers and make sure they know it’s a temporary glitch. You don’t want them to think it’ll happen every time they buy from you.
Oh, and look into alternative payment methods. That’s probably not a bad idea, under the circumstances. Everyone needs a backup – even a multi-billion dollar company like Paypal.
You can read Paypal’s responses to the problem here.
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Eddy,
I know what it's like to keep wanting changes - been there, done that, got the t-shirt :)
Amin 
G'Day Amin, you can call me Edward, Eddy, Ted or just Mr Bearly ;-)
Re handing over the project, I have ...
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Amin,
I know this is an old post but I was looking for specific support documentation on SmartDD and IPN. Your post was flagged as a possible source. I guess those long-tail keywords are snagging quite a few of your posts.
In any case, have used SmartDD before? If so, do you know what happens if an affiliate of yours sends a visitor to one of your sales buttons and the affiliate does not have IPN active in their Paypal account? It seems like what you mention in this post might occur. The affiliate gets paid (if it is his time to get the payment according to the percentage set in SmartDD) and yet the product remains undelivered as no IPN is generated.
This is one of my biggest concerns with using SmartDD as an affiliate payment processor. The affiliates might get paid but the customer doesn’t get the product if the affiliate IPN is not active.
Thanks.
Hi Michael
I still use SmartDD myself, although I only have it on personal stuff, so there are no affiliates on that stuff.
As far as I know, the affiliate does not have to have IPN activated within Paypal. SmartDD itself sends an IPN trigger to Paypal hidden within the payment button, so the payment information should hit SmartDD. Even if the affiliate had something else set up in IPN (many people have IPN pointing to their own scripts), SmartDD ‘overrides’ the setting by telling Paypal, “for this transaction, you have to send the information back to…..”.
Does that make sense?
In that regard it’s similar to the 7 Dollar Secrets scripts and many, many other sales/shopping cart scripts. Although Paypal only allow you to specify one IPN return location in your account settings, you can work with as many IPN locations as you like – as long as the url is specified within the payment button.
Now, the question I’m not 100% sure of is whether IPN has to be enabled in an affiliate’s account before any IPN call will work. I seem to recall that it isn’t necessary.
The 7DollarSecrets script, for example, works with affiliates who barely know how to login to Paypal (no disrespect intended to those affiliates) – so I think that setting up IPN in your Paypal is not an essential step.
However, the affiliates do need a business or premier Paypal account for any of this to work.
Hope that helps.
If you are still stuck, you can contact me on my support desk and I’ll be happy to run through a test with you to answer the question definitively.
Amin
Thanks Amin,
I have been looking for this answer for several weeks now. After your quick reply I was encouraged to go looking just one last time. I found https://www.x.com/message/137559 – a forum, it seems, by Paypal developers for Paypal developers.
The post referenced above seems to indicate that even personal accounts will work with IPN if it is sent as part of the notify_url string via the “Buy” button. As that is the case with SmartDD, then I am about to test it with a friend who has a personal account, with no IPN activated.
I am guessing that if it works with a personal account the only limitation will be he cannot accept CC payments, only Paypal account payments.
Thanks again for your very fast reply.
Michael.
Amin,
I have tested the IPN with a friend’s personal Paypal account. I set up a dummy product with affiliate payments enabled at 50%. I bought the product with my friend’s Paypal affiliate email. I got the first payment, confirmation email and product download link.
I bought the same product again with the same link. This time he got the full payment and I got the confirmation email and a different, but valid download link.
It works, even on personal Paypal accounts with no IPN set up.
Michael.
Michael, that’s new to me! How cool that it works with Paypal Personal accounts as well.
I know a few years ago the $7 Secrets Script didn’t work with Paypal Personal accounts so I guess Paypal have changed something in their API – whatever has happened it’s a very welcome improvement.
Great news and well done on finding that information – I’m sure this thread will help other people who may have the same kind of question.
Amin