Paypal IPN Issue

[easyhosting]

in the payment gateway ares for paypal in the 4.4.2 it states to set the paypal IPN as below

 

(You need to enable IPN in your account and set the URL to http://niceday-hosting.co.uk/*****)

 

so set it up as so when i upgraded to 4.4.2 on its release date and all worked fines until this week when i am getting emails from paypal as

 

From: service@paypal.co.uk

Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 6:11 AM

To: Terry Robertson

Subject: PayPal Instant Payment Notification Warning

Dear Terry Robertson,

Please check your server that handles PayPal Instant Payment

Notifications (IPN). Instant Payment Notifications sent to the following

URL(s) are failing:

 

https://niceday-hosting.co.uk/modules/gateways/callback/paypal.php

 

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.

Yours sincerely,

PayPal

 

so naturally i checked my IPN settings and these are set as http://niceday-hosting.co.uk/*******.

 

contact paypal and their reply was

 

Dear Terry Robertson,

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

I know that your current IPN URL is:

 

http://niceday-hosting.co.uk/*******

 

but, as advised in my previous email:

 

"The IPN URL for a subscription payment won't change during the subscription lifetime"

 

This means that if, when a buyer subscribed originally to your account, the IPN URL was different, it will stay the same for the subscription lifetime.

 

Please check your IPN History as I advised you to do before:

 

- Login to PayPal account and hover the mouse over "History"

- In the drop down menu click "IPN history"

- Here you will be able to see which IPN script is failing

- Clicking on the "Message ID" will show the message that was sent the number of retries and the URL it was sent to

 

Take as an example your latest IPN, sent on the 2nd of May.

 

The Message ID for this message is 16N31765TC639984E . If you click on the ID, you will see that the notification was sent to:

 

https://niceday-hosting.co.uk/modules/gateways/callback/paypal.php

 

Why was it sent to the above URL, if your IPN URL currently is a different one?

 

This message was triggered by a Subscription cancellation (Subscription ID S-17L80455PB672103B )

 

This subscription was created on the 1st of November 2010.

 

When this subscription was created, your website used the URL https://niceday-hosting.co.uk/modules/gateways/callback/paypal.php as the IPN URL.

 

This means that this particular subscription will be linked to the IPN URL https://niceday-hosting.co.uk/modules/gateways/callback/paypal.php FOREVER, even if you change it later in your IPN Profile.

 

Any actions regarding this particular subscription (payment received, cancellation of the subscription, subscription End Of Date) will trigger and IPN that, again, will be send to your old IPN URL, and not the one in your Profile now.

 

There is NO way to change the IPN URL of an active subscription that has been created using the old IPN URL.

 

(*) Also, I just want to mention that there is another way to override the IPN in your Profile.

 

When your website redirects the buyers to PayPal, so that he can pay, your own website is also sending some transaction variables, like the "item_name", "amount", etcetera.

 

There is a certain variable called "notify_url" that, if your website send it, it will override the IPN URL in your Profile. You can view the description of this variable here:

 

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_html_Appx_websitestandard_htmlvariables

 

"The URL to which PayPal posts information about the transaction, in the form of Instant Payment Notification messages. "

 

 

So, for example, if your own website is sending the following variable to PayPal:

<input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="https://www.anotherURL.com/IPN.php">

 

PayPal will send the IPN to the above URL and NOT the one in your Profile.

 

 

Resuming:

 

- For existing subscriptions that are linked to an OLD IPN URL, PayPal will keep sending the IPN messages to the OLD URL, even if your Profile IPN URL contains a different URL.

 

- There is no way to change the IPN URL of an existing subscription.

 

- Also, the IPN URL for new subscriptions or new payments doesn't necessarily have to be the one in your own IPN Profile. If your website it's sending to PayPal the variable "notify_url" with a different value, this URL will apply instead of the one in your Profile. Please double check with your website developers if your website is sending this variable for new subscriptions/payments.

 

- At the moment, the quickest way to stop receiving warning emails from PayPal, it's to Disable IPN in your account from:

 

Profile -> IPN Preferences -> Edit IPN Options -> Select "Do not receive IPN Notifications (Disabled)" -> Save your changes.

 

- If you can't understand any of this, please forward it to your developers as well. I tried to explain how our product works (specially from an IPN point of view), but I reckon that you may not have the appropriate technical background to understand it.

 

 

Kind Regards,

 

Ignacio.

Merchant Technical Services

PayPal, an eBay Company

 

which is fine for explaining this with old subscriptions, but this is happening to new subscriptions when the IPN is set as instructed to http://niceday-hosting.co.uk/*******

[WHMCS John]

WHMCS sends the callback URL automatically when creating new subscriptions. If your Setup > General Settings > WHMCS System URL correct?

[easyhosting]

WHMCS sends the callback URL automatically when creating new subscriptions. If your Setup > General Settings > WHMCS System URL correct?

 

Hi John

 

thanks for your reply yes my WHMCS System URL is correct and all subscriptions to paypal were working fine until this week when i started getting emails saying it failed to the IPN https://niceday-hosting.co.uk/module...ack/paypal.php

 

which i have it set in paypal as http://niceday-hosting.co.uk/***** which i am told to set as (You need to enable IPN in your account and set the URL to http://niceday-hosting.co.uk/*****)

 

so it does look like a paypal issue that they refuse to take onboard