PayPal and Pending order status is confusing

[t68]

Just started using PayPal in our shop. And I'm not understanding how the order status is working when it's set to pending.

One payment is set to pending and I got the money transfer to our PayPal account ok. Then I got another order with status pending, but got no money on our PayPal. Problem here's that I sent the items to customer already. I thought the transfer was delayed. I mean I got the money on the other pending order. So maybe I'm screwed on this one.

But when I test a order paying from my personal PayPal the status is set to confirmed.

So what's going on here? How is PayPal and VM working together? What does the order statuses mean?
Running J2.5.17 and VM2.0.26d

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[zanardi]

I don't know if you still need the info, but basically it goes like this:
* when you select "PayPal" as payment method, the order is set as "Pending" (*see my note below)
* the user then goes to PayPal and complete the payment
* after a variable period of time, PayPal contacts back your VirtueMart site and says "Hey, order xyz has been paid". This process is called IPN (Instant Payment Notification)
* your VirtueMart checks that the IPN is valid and change the order status to "Confirmed" (*again, see my note below)

If this does not work, it means the IPN is not working; you should enable PayPal log and then look at the file

/logs/paypal.2.log.php

*ADDITIONAL NOTE: in "theory", you should be able to configure the PayPal payment method on your site so that it sets whatever status you want. For example, you may wish to have your order in "Confirmed by shopper" instead of "Pending" when the payment is not completed yet; or possibly another custom status. But in fact, this does not work and the order is always set in "Pending" status. I am investigating on it but this is another topic.

Please mark the thread as solved if my answer solves your problem.