Some orders did not change statuses despite payments being captured in Paypal

[txkeyboards]

Hi everyone,

I had a problem with some (about 1 in 20 orders) that did not change statuses even though the payment was captured. The problem is, I am an admin that fulfills orders in the US so I do not have visibility into who paid and when they paid to the owner's Paypal. I never caught it and it is only a 1-2 weeks after that the buyer would contact me to ask why they did not receive any shipping notifications.

My question is where should I start to investigate this problem?

VM: 3.4.2
Joomla: 3.6.2

Thank you!

[GJC Web Design]

start by checking the logging .. any problems with the IPN etc should be logged in  \administrator\logs\paypal.1.log.php etc or where ever your site logging is.

You can also switch on the logging in the paypal plugin but this file can get quite large on a busy site - it will log to the same path

Check also in the Paypal account that the IPNs are being sent and receive a 200 response etc

once your logged in to your account use this url  https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history&nav=0.3.5

Do the "failed" ones have any IPN stored against them in the order/DB?

#___virtuemart_payment_plg_paypal  -> paypal_fullresponse  field

[jenkinhill]

@txkeyboards you should also consider updating your Joomla to the current secure version, 3.9.10, as generally VM devs and testers will only use the latest Joomla version.

[txkeyboards]

start by checking the logging .. any problems with the IPN etc should be logged in  \administrator\logs\paypal.1.log.php etc or where ever your site logging is.

You can also switch on the logging in the paypal plugin but this file can get quite large on a busy site - it will log to the same path

Check also in the Paypal account that the IPNs are being sent and receive a 200 response etc

once your logged in to your account use this url  https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history&nav=0.3.5

Do the "failed" ones have any IPN stored against them in the order/DB?

#___virtuemart_payment_plg_paypal  -> paypal_fullresponse  field

So I saw that it said Invalid IPN validation: NO ANSWER FROM PAYPAL

What I don't understand is only SOME but not ALL has a problem. I cannot figure it out...is it my hosting problems because so many people tried to order at the same time?...

@jenkin: I have updated to the newest Joomla

[GJC Web Design]

So I saw that it said Invalid IPN validation: NO ANSWER FROM PAYPAL

It means what it says and I have seen this at times on various sites ...  but I bet you will never get paypal to admit it is a problem there side

If it continues to be problematic you can disable the IPN source validation in the paypal plugin

[txkeyboards]

So I saw that it said Invalid IPN validation: NO ANSWER FROM PAYPAL

It means what it says and I have seen this at times on various sites ...  but I bet you will never get paypal to admit it is a problem there side

If it continues to be problematic you can disable the IPN source validation in the paypal plugin

That is just annoying...it only happens when we have a big sale which is about every 2-3 months but we ALWAYS run into this problem. The reason I mentioned hosting problem because this only seems to be a problem for Virtuemart and Woocommerce but not Shopify.

[AH]

it only happens when we have a big sale which is about every 2-3 months

That is nothing to do with invalid IPN validation

You can disable IPN IP validation in the plugin - to see if that helps you

[GJC Web Design]

and as the error says ... paypal didn't answer.... that puts it straight back in PPals court

[txkeyboards]

it only happens when we have a big sale which is about every 2-3 months

That is nothing to do with invalid IPN validation

You can disable IPN IP validation in the plugin - to see if that helps you

How do I disable that? Also how will that affect the payment process?

Also I agree with that it shouldn't have anything to do with IPN but suspiciously, it always happens during the time the website has the most traffic.

[txkeyboards]

and as the error says ... paypal didn't answer.... that puts it straight back in PPals court

I already know that's gonna be a time-consuming conversation with them lol

[GJC Web Design]

Check IPN provider IP

[txkeyboards]

Check IPN provider IP

done. let's see if it's gonna happen again