IPN failure

[Lucy Fox]

Hello

 

As far as I was concerned my site was working perfectly with payments going through, but today received an email from PayPal saying:

 

Please check your server that handles PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN). Instant Payment Notifications sent to the following URL(s) are faili

ng: http://www.mysite.co.uk/checkout_process.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 abo ve information. If this problem continues, IPNs may be disabled for your account.

 

I checked the transation history within PayPal and all messages are either failing or resending. I know I am probably over-looking something very obvious but my questions are:

Do I need to have IPN enabled if everything seems to be working fine anyway?

I haven't installed any IPN modules/contributions..Should I?

I installed Paypal payments Pro from my admin panel

Is the checkout_process.php the right file to use for the IPN URL?

 

I'm using Ver 2.2 RC2a

 

Any help/advice would be great! Thanks :)

[Silvergren]

I got the same email from Paypal. Anyone have any idea what the problem is?

 

They link they gave me is a little different than the one above,

 

https: //www . mysite. com/catalog/ext/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php

 

 

I've had this site for the last 4 1/2 years, and all of a sudden I'm getting this message?

 

Whats weird is that i don't have a folder named /ext/ its in the /includes/ can someone tell me whats going on?

Edited February 4, 2010 by Silvergren

[mafadmin]

I also received this email. I've started a trouble ticket with PayPal to see if they can offer any insight. I'll post anything relevant if I get it.

[fxtra]

One of my customers who we've had on osCommerce/PayPal IPN for over three years has just encountered the same error and Email from PayPal. If you look at what is in the PayPal email for the IPN address, you'll probably find it is not where your ipn.php file is located. For some reason PayPal is adding/looking for the IPN at a directory level beyond the "payment" directory in a non-existent directory "../payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php".

 

Looking at the account holders PayPal account "History", "IPN History". The problem has been going on for a while. Dependant on the amount of sales you have, you may see "Retry" and "Failed"... All these transactions were actually successful though.

 

Dependant how long you keep your server error logs you should see the erroneous URL "paypal_ipn" redundantly in them. It appears that PayPal just keeps retrying for a while and quits and then tries again.... Even though Funds were already transferred and transaction was basically completed.

 

I don't know the answer to this one. I made a quick feeble stop-gap attempt to stop the errors (to soon to tell if the measure is totally successful - although none have appeared in the customers logs yet). I simply:

 

1. I simply created the directory ../payment/paypal_ipn

2. Copied the ipn.php into it.

3. Edit the ipn.php copy to reflect it's current location. [ chdir('../../../../'); changed to chdir('../../../../../'); ]

 

I don't recommend this as you will not be able to update the copy through the osCommerce Admin panel. Any updates would have to be done by creating another copy and making the changes in step 3 again.... An as I've send it hasn't been running long enough to see if it has really circumvented the problem.

 

:'(

[mafadmin]

Thanks fxtra.

 

You mentioned that the file wasn't located in the directory mentioned, but mine happens to be the correct path. Still waiting to hear from PayPal.

 

One of my customers who we've had on osCommerce/PayPal IPN for over three years has just encountered the same error and Email from PayPal. If you look at what is in the PayPal email for the IPN address, you'll probably find it is not where your ipn.php file is located. For some reason PayPal is adding/looking for the IPN at a directory level beyond the "payment" directory in a non-existent directory "../payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php".

 

Looking at the account holders PayPal account "History", "IPN History". The problem has been going on for a while. Dependant on the amount of sales you have, you may see "Retry" and "Failed"... All these transactions were actually successful though.

 

Dependant how long you keep your server error logs you should see the erroneous URL "paypal_ipn" redundantly in them. It appears that PayPal just keeps retrying for a while and quits and then tries again.... Even though Funds were already transferred and transaction was basically completed.

 

I don't know the answer to this one. I made a quick feeble stop-gap attempt to stop the errors (to soon to tell if the measure is totally successful - although none have appeared in the customers logs yet). I simply:

 

1. I simply created the directory ../payment/paypal_ipn

2. Copied the ipn.php into it.

3. Edit the ipn.php copy to reflect it's current location. [ chdir('../../../../'); changed to chdir('../../../../../'); ]

 

I don't recommend this as you will not be able to update the copy through the osCommerce Admin panel. Any updates would have to be done by creating another copy and making the changes in step 3 again.... An as I've send it hasn't been running long enough to see if it has really circumvented the problem.

 

:'(

[Lucy Fox]

yes thanks for your reply fixtra and it's interesting to hear of others with the same issues...

 

however, i don't even have an ipn.php file! - do I need to get one? If so, is this a contribution you need to add, or was it already in your files?

 

Let me know if you hear back from PayPal mafadmin...

 

FYI The one thing i did just change is the IPN URL - as I have a secure site, i changed it to https://my...site...co.uk. Now waiting to see if any messages are successful from within Paypal.. I dont see anything to do with this in my admin panel though and not sure if i should or not.

[mafadmin]

I was directed to this page on PayPal's tech support forums: https://ppmts.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ppdts.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=875&p_sid=cNKbXNTj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_li=&p_pv=&p_cv=&p_prods=&p_cats=&p_sp=cF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1vc2NvbW1lcmNlJnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9zb3J0X2J5PQ**&p_topview=1

 

Here's what that page says:

 

As of 2/3/2009 some merchants may be receiving emails with the subject of "PayPal Instant Payment Notification Warning".

 

The purpose of this email is to notify you that PayPal is having trouble delivering IPNs to the URL(s) in the email. If you are receiving these emails you should check your IPN settings to ensure that the URL is set correctly and also that the IPN script on your server is in the location specified in the IPN settings on your PayPal account or as specified in your payment processing software that is integrated with PayPal.

 

You can see which IPNs are failing by checking your PayPal account IPN history. To see this please follow these steps:

 

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

 

- In the drop down menu click "IPN history" (See screenshot below)

 

- Within the IPN history page, look for IPNs that are in a retrying or failed state to find which IPN script is failing

 

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

 

[mafadmin]

This didn't really help me too much since I didn't change any settings and it doesn't say anything about what the settings should be. Does anyone know where good documentation for the Website Payments Standard contribution for OSCommerce can be found? From what I can see, it hasn't been updated in a long time, which is probably good because it just works. I'll keep checking this forum for more info.

[Silvergren]

This didn't really help me too much since I didn't change any settings and it doesn't say anything about what the settings should be. Does anyone know where good documentation for the Website Payments Standard contribution for OSCommerce can be found? From what I can see, it hasn't been updated in a long time, which is probably good because it just works. I'll keep checking this forum for more info.

 

 

What should be the correct url for the ipn.php???

 

Paypal states my IPN is located at: https:// www. mysite .com/catalog/ext/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php

 

yet when I go through my folders located on the server I have no folder with the catalog/ext/ but I do have the folder in catalog/includes/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php .

 

Even though the PayPal IPN history shows that all the ipns have failed, I've received an email confirmation for every order placed so far... Yet Paypal states they failed... ?

[fxtra]

What should be the correct url for the ipn.php???

 

Paypal states my IPN is located at: https:// www. mysite .com/catalog/ext/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php

 

yet when I go through my folders located on the server I have no folder with the catalog/ext/ but I do have the folder in catalog/includes/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php .

 

Even though the PayPal IPN history shows that all the ipns have failed, I've received an email confirmation for every order placed so far... Yet Paypal states they failed... ?

 

Silvergrn - PayPal's got us chasing our tails for the most part. If you look in your PayPal history, they've probably already shut off the return. I hate to give advice on this as I'm not exactly running plain-vanilla and I'm not sure that the changes I made were really necessary as the "send" from PayPal was failing for some time (at least the 28 days PayPal holds the history) with no negative effect with the cart or the actual PayPal transaction. At any rate PayPal (for me) has been reporting "sent" even on the ones that were showing "retry" yesterday... I didn't bother to attempt to retry the "fails", I just don't find any need/reason. I suspect that the ones that were hung in "retry" finally being "sent" successfully was due to my putting a copy of the ipn.php where they were looking... Other than that I don't think there's any need to take any further action.

 

Bottom line - If you're no longer getting any 404's in you error logs for the ipn.php and everything is working as you need it to (I'll bet a penny it is), grab a beer and chill.

 

"My experice extends to everything I've spent at least 29 seconds researching".

[Troi]

Hi Guys,

I got the same e-mail response from paypal after two years of the site working fine.

I e-mailed paypal and this is how they replyed.

 

 

This is a PHISHING E-MAIL!!

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

>

> Thanks for taking an active role by reporting suspicious-looking emails.

> The email you forwarded to us is a phishing email, and our security team

> is working to disable it.

>

> What is a phishing email?

>

> Phishing emails attempt to steal your identity and will often ask you to

> reveal your password or other personal or financial information. PayPal

> will never ask you for your password over the phone or in an email and

> will always address you by your first and last name.

>

> Here's how you can take our Fight Phishing Challenge.

>

> 1. Go to the PayPal website.

> 2. Click "Security Center" at the bottom of the page.

> 3. Click "Take the Fight Phishing Challenge!" Under What's New

>

> You've made a difference.

>

> Every email counts. By forwarding a suspicious-looking email to

> [email protected], you've helped keep yourself and others safe from

> identity theft.

>

> Sincerely,

> PayPal, an eBay Company

>

> Copyright © 1999-2010 PayPal. All rights reserved.

> PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. & Cie, S.C.A.

> Société en Commandite par Actions

> Registered Office: 5th Floor 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg

> RCS Luxembourg B 118 349

[Lucy Fox]

Still no further forward with this issue - I've found a standard_ipn.php in my files but no ipn.php. I'm using PayPal Payments Pro and OsCommerce 2.2 RC2a

 

I don't know what URL to even put in the PayPal IPN URL? Also not sure if I should be adding a payment IPN module of some sort to get a ipn.php file?

 

I'm really lost with this and although I know it wont stop transactions going through, when I turn IPN's off the stock doesn't get updated correctly in my admin panel (am using QTPro) so I was forced to turn it back on.

 

Any advise please?

[celshader]

I have this problem as well.

 

This is the address the email says is failing

 

my domain address /ext/modules/payment/paypal/ipn.php

 

The location of my ipn.php file is similar to this but not the same

 

my domain address /ext/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php

 

Whatever this is it seems to be effecting Paypal IPN users across the board. Not just oscommerce users.

Here is a similar thread for vbulletin.

 

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?340311-PayPal-Instant-Payment-Notification-Warning

[Guest]

Hi all,

I'm having this problem as well and like Lucy I don't have ipn at all.

I'm using paypal standard and the site has been up and running fine for a couple of years. As far as I can see everything is still working fine but I keep getting the emails.

Has anyone else reported this back to paypal as Troi has?

I think I'll mail it back to them to see what response I get, it does look a bit like scam email.

Anyone with more info out there?

Cheers

Jon

[Guest]

Hi,

Wondering if anyone has got anywhere with this yet?

As I mentioned I don't have the file ipn.php but do have standard_ipn.php I guess because I'm using website payments standard.

I tried going into my paypal account and changing my ipn settings to point to the standard_ipn.php file and then resending the failed ipn's but to no effect.

Would love to hear from someone who's got anywhere with this, I'm sure it's something paypal have changed but were not going to get any joy out of them, can only hope someone on here nows whats going on.

Cheers

Jon

[Guest]

Hi again,

May have been a bit premature earlier.

After changing my ipn settings within paypal to point to the standard_ipn.php file I resent the failed ipn messages and that went no where, it did'nt update the existing orders with problems.

However I've just put a test purchase through myself and it worked fine.

I haven't yet had an email to say that the one I resent has failed but it hasn't updated within Osc.

I'll wait and see what happens and then post back tomorrow with any messages that show up.

Cheers

Jon

[Lucy Fox]

I'll put my reply here also incase this can help anyone.... :thumbsup:

 

 

Hi Jon

 

Just to let you know what I did - I pointed the PayPal IPN URL to the standard_ipn.php file (which it looks like you did in your forum post) Since I did this, I have had no further failures or emails from PayPal. I didn't think this would work because I use Payments Pro but it seems to have done the trick!? for now anyway....

The only issue I'm having now, is the stock doesn't get updated automatically in the admin panel. I thought the IPN issue would solve this for me but it didn't so still working on a fix. Let me know if you have any similar issues.

 

good luck!

 

Lucy

[Chez_Bert]

I developed an OsCommerce site for a client and implemented PayPal IPN. It was working fine and twice now has had the problem that is plaguing a lot of folks. The first time, it was an error on my part having left some development URL information in the PayPal account. That fixed it for a while but it came back again yesterday.

 

After more study, I think I have found it and it may be the problem for a lot of us. A common thread to a lot of these posts is that the PayPal warning email references a URL that does not exist and was never entered into the PayPal site. I believe that the source of this bogus URL is inside the paypal_ipn.php file itself.

 

My paypal_ipn.php had an entry at line 330 that was:

 

$parameters['notify_url'] = tep_href_link('ext/modules/payment/paypal/ipn.php', '', 'SSL', false, false);

 

That seems to be the source of the non-existent URL. I have changed it to:

 

$parameters['notify_url'] = tep_href_link('includes/modules/payment/paypal_ipn.php', '', 'SSL', false, false);

 

which is the actual path to the PayPal IPN file. Only time will tell if this really fixes it, but I thought I would share it in case it works for you.

[kieran_mullen]

I have no such folder (paypal) in the modules folder nor did I have a ipn.php but I had an order placed today in which the status was posted back?

 

 

I developed an OsCommerce site for a client and implemented PayPal IPN. It was working fine and twice now has had the problem that is plaguing a lot of folks. The first time, it was an error on my part having left some development URL information in the PayPal account. That fixed it for a while but it came back again yesterday.

 

After more study, I think I have found it and it may be the problem for a lot of us. A common thread to a lot of these posts is that the PayPal warning email references a URL that does not exist and was never entered into the PayPal site. I believe that the source of this bogus URL is inside the paypal_ipn.php file itself.

 

My paypal_ipn.php had an entry at line 330 that was:

 

$parameters['notify_url'] = tep_href_link('ext/modules/payment/paypal/ipn.php', '', 'SSL', false, false);

 

That seems to be the source of the non-existent URL. I have changed it to:

 

$parameters['notify_url'] = tep_href_link('includes/modules/payment/paypal_ipn.php', '', 'SSL', false, false);

 

which is the actual path to the PayPal IPN file. Only time will tell if this really fixes it, but I thought I would share it in case it works for you.

[njallison]

I just got the same basic e-mail pointing at:

 

http://my web site/ext/modules/payment/paypal/rp_ipn.php

 

I found 4 lines in paypal_direct.php refering to "ext/modules/payment/paypal/rp_ipn.php" lines 242, 346, 455, 561

and 4 more lines in paypal_express.php lines 183, 298, 409, 523

 

I changed them to point at "ext/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.php"

 

I don't know if this solves the problem, but at least the file actually is there.

 

nja

Edited August 27, 2010 by njallison

[negativeexistence]

Hello!

This morning I recieved the following email:

 

Please check your server that handles PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN). IPNs sent to the following URL(s) are failing:

 

http://mysite.com/ext/modules/payment/paypal_ipn/ipn.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.

 

I went to my site and ran a test order and at the checkout_confirmation.php page where the paypal payflow credit card input box would normally appear, I got the following warning:

 

Error: Token is missing. Please return to the website from where you started your purchase and try again.

 

I then remembered that manager.paypal.com required me to change my password not too long ago... so I went to my shop's admin / module / payment / paypal payflow setting and input the new password and now everything is working again!

 

I hope this helps!

-A