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PayPal App 5.018 Express Checkout now gives generic "Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later." error


cinolas

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My PayPal App is no longer working. I only use Express Checkout, and I removed the button on the cart page so it has to go through the checkout process to the payment method. Everything seems fine on my site but after the log-in page on PayPal it loads a generic error page that reads: "Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later." The Return to Merchant button sends the user back to their shopping cart. There's nothing in my logs, and I'm not sure I even have access to a log at PayPal.

Any idea?

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I contacted PayPal support about this and they said:

Quote

I checked your SetExpressCheckout details call and was able to see this error is occurring because the character count you are returning in the callback of shippingoptionname exceeds 256 characters. The example you provided had 423. 

See example:

"Flat Rate (arrives same date as Expedited)" "Small package: NO TRACKING\, NOT INSURED Mailbox delivery.: 0.0105kg\, 1mm\," "Canada Post Service Expedited Parcel\, 2020-03-24" "Canada Post Service Priority\, 2020-03-23" "Canada Post Service Regular Parcel\, 2020-03-26" "Canada Post Service Xpresspost\, 2020-03-24" "Store Pickup Store Pickup in Vancouver\, BC\, Canada ***Choose me for GIFT CERTIFICATES only email delivery" 

You'll need to reduce the character count in the callback in order to resole the issue. 

Is there something on the back end I can do to reduce the number of characters? or do I need to reduce the actual names of each shipping service offered?

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PayPal support is correct. This happens if the shipping methods text > 256 characters.

I edited my shipping method names and texts and it now works fine.

Still, I'd prefer to be verbose if I need to. Is there some way of preventing this bug so I can preserve my original shipping method names and texts?

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Can't you just change the text that you send to PayPal?  That would be a coding change, but that's the only way that you can change just what PayPal gets. 

Note that the "bug" is that PayPal doesn't accept values more than 256 characters (a character is a letter or other mark).  So to fix that, you'd have to fix PayPal.  It's a limitation in PayPal, not in osCommerce. 

Always back up before making changes.

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5 minutes ago, ecartz said:

Can't you just change the text that you send to PayPal?  That would be a coding change, but that's the only way that you can change just what PayPal gets. 

Note that the "bug" is that PayPal doesn't accept values more than 256 characters (a character is a letter or other mark).  So to fix that, you'd have to fix PayPal.  It's a limitation in PayPal, not in osCommerce. 

I'm not even sure why this text is being sent to PayPal, the payment page on PayPal shows the chosen shipping method only, not all available. I'm weary of changing code in the PayPal App module since I understand so very little of it. Could you recommend a change?

I fully understand that the bug is actually at PayPal. But us store owners who need to accept PayPal payments are at their mercy. The "bug" on the PayPal App would be the unhandled exception: ie catching the problem on osCommerce, before it gets to PayPal (if that's even possible). Or perhaps at least emergency-truncating the text at 256 chars so it doesn't cause the payment process to fail for the end user.

This problem could creep up on many stores without them even having to change anything, if the courier company changes their service names and adds too many characters for example. PayPal didn't sound like they were planning on expanding their character limit...

Cheers!

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1 hour ago, cinolas said:

I'm not even sure why this text is being sent to PayPal, the payment page on PayPal shows the chosen shipping method only, not all available.

The shipping methods are sent when the Instant Update option is enabled. You can try disabling that instead of changing the text, as long as you don't mind not having the choices show up at paypal.

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  • 1 year later...

Just setting up my site and noticed I keep getting this error page on Paypal when an order goes through, but only when the currency on my site is set to CA$. Seems to work fine if the currency on my site is set to US$ though:

http://www.rewindtoys.ca/catalog/

Any idea if this is something on my Paypal account that needs to be updated? I have it setup to accept multiple currencies, to be added as a balance in that currency. Not sure what else it could be, any thoughts?

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There is something else weird about your site.

Precision, I am in France.

I arrive on the site, it is "US Dollar" which is by default and the prices are all at 0.

0.jpg.0dc43ddc68a8f385f6225349767e8b9d.jpg

I click on "Canadian Dollar" and the price appears in Canadian Dollar.

ca.jpg.7bb4143e4166869080d43ec9f0862dcc.jpg

I click on "US Dollar" and the price appears in US Dollar.

us.jpg.f7350c33f673cc39a6036b3641aa52ec.jpg

with OsC 2.2 since 2006 ...

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This just happened for some reason. I changed the currency info from CDN to CAD which fixed the Paypal issue now the prices are all showing as 0 for some reason. Im not sure what happened? Fiddled with changing the currency back and forth and now it seems to show fine. Can anyone confirm?

Edited by 10incher
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