Am I right in thinking ...(rebilling and paypal)?

Discussion in 'Payments processing' started by sybaris, Feb 1, 2013.

  1. sybaris

    sybaris Member

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    I have a standard PayPal account. I have aMamber v4.
    I've set up an annual rebill for my users. They get the first year free and then billed once a year there after.

    I have not set up subscriptions on PayPal. I assume aMember just passes the payment request to PayPal when the rebill is due.

    If a user wishes to cancel their subscription to me, do they have to request it from me and I remove them from aMember? or do they have to do something in PayPal?

    I am writing some instructions for my users to follow, I am not sure my self which is correct.
  2. zenpig66

    zenpig66 aMember Pro Customer

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2009
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    The subscription itself is actually held in the users PayPal account and on it's renewal date PayPal transfers funds from their account to yours and then sends your aMember script via an IPN that it has been done and your script updates their info for you to view and for members to view at /amember/member.

    Normally within their member area at the payment history section there is a cancel button which if clicked on just takes them to their PayPal account to cancel it...they can simply just log into their PayPal account and do the same. You will have access to their subscription within your own PayPal account if your users can't figure it out on their own, too. I bolded "normally" because I am personally having issues with the actual cancel button showing up for members...sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't which I haven't figured out yet. May work perfectly for you.
  3. sybaris

    sybaris Member

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    Cool thanks.

    However I have received this message from PayPal now.

    Please check your server that handles PayPal Instant Payment Notification (IPN) messages. Messages sent to the following URL(s) are not being received:

    http://www.xxxxxxxx/payment/paypal/ipn (I have substituted xxxxxxx for the real path)

    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.

    Once you or your service provider fix this problem, you or your service provider can resend the failed messages from the IPN History page. If this problem continues, PayPal may disable the IPN feature for your account.

    Thank you for your prompt attention to this issue.

    Yours sincerely,

    PayPal

    I take it I need to log a ticket with my web hosting service?
  4. alexander

    alexander Administrator Staff Member

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    When you try to open that url from your browser, what do you see?
  5. sybaris

    sybaris Member

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    When I open the browser, I see a page from aMember and this message:

    An Error has occured. An internal error happened in the script, please contact webmaster for details



    Please contact webmaster:

    I did send a ticket to my web host and they told me this:

    Thank you for contacting UK2 support. I am sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your PayPal Instant Payment Notifications. Unfortunately this appears to be a configuration issue with the web application you are using on your site and falls under the category of website customization. We will not be able to investigate the issue without specific problems that you have found with our server or configuration. Please let us know if you need further assistance.
  6. alexander

    alexander Administrator Staff Member

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    This error message is expected.
    So here is the facts:
    1. IPN script is working when you open it from browser.
    2. Paypal is unable to send requests to IPN script. Paypal expects 200 HTTP response when send request and for some reason it doesn't receive it.

    First try to download server access_log and serach for "/paypal/ipn" inside it. Check wat response code was returned by server.
    Then if you have curl installed on your computer run this command:
    curl -A "" -D headers.txt http://www.xxxxxxxx/payment/paypal/ipn
    then check output, you should see the same internal error message, if not, the problem is hosting configuration.
    I have seen security systems which block requests if User Agent string which is sent by your browser is empty.
  7. sybaris

    sybaris Member

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    Thanks for responding,
    I have no idea what curl is and I don't think I have it on my computer. I looked a some of the logs and saw something in the invoices log \ postback\exception where it says <message>Wrong IPN received, paypal [_notify-validate] answers: INVALID=200</message>

    I have pasted the log and sent it back to my host for some answers
  8. alexander

    alexander Administrator Staff Member

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    Ok. Please contact us in helpdesk and provide access info, I will check what doesn't work exactly.
  9. sybaris

    sybaris Member

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    Thanks for helping out.

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