Socket time out with IPN - sockets

Question

Let me start by saying I am not really a developer. I pieced the below code together a few years ago and while it worked up until last week I don't really understand it. Starting last week every time I get a paypal IPN i get a 110 Connection timed out socket error!
If I got to the page directly in the browser I get the following
Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to ssl://www.paypal.com:443 (Connection timed out) in paypal_ipn.php5 on line 37
Below is the code in my paypal_ipn.php5 any help would be appreciated.
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);
$email = $_GET['ipn_email'];
$header = "";
$emailtext = "";
$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
if(function_exists('get_magic_quotes_gpc'))
{
$get_magic_quotes_exists = true;
}
foreach ($_POST as $key => $value)
{
if($get_magic_quotes_exists == true && get_magic_quotes_gpc() == 1)
{
$value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
}
else
{
$value = urlencode($value);
}
$req .= "&$key=$value";
}
// Post back to PayPal to validate new http 1.1
$header .= "POST /cgi-bin/webscr HTTP/1.1\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n";
$header .="Host: www.paypal.com\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Length: " . strlen($req) . "\r\n";
$header .="Connection: closer\n\r\n";
$fp = fsockopen ('ssl://www.paypal.com', 443, $errno, $errstr, 30);
if (!$fp)
{
mail("save10percent.net#gmail.com", "socket error!", "socket error!", "$errno $errstr");
}
else
{
fputs ($fp, $header . $req);
while(!feof($fp))
{
$res = fgets ($fp, 1024);
if(stristr($res, 'VERIFIED') !== FALSE)
{
//good payment process transaction
//code removed to make my post smaller
}
elseif(stristr($res, 'INVALID') !== FALSE)
{
// If 'INVALID', send an email.
mail("save10percent.net#gmail.com", "Live-INVALID IPN", "Invalid \n\n\n res = $res \n\n\n req= $req",$error_email);
}
}
}
fclose ($fp);
?>

Answer 1

This socket error is trying to inform you that PayPal does not recognize your SSL certificate as valid and therefore will not open a socket for you.
It appears from this snippet that you are set up for 1024 encryption which is no longer supported. The requirement starting on February 29th that all SSL certificates MUST be SHA-256 capable (2048). This means that your current SHA-128 certificate is no longer valid for use on PayPal's systems. If you don't administer your web server you'll want to contact whomever does to upgrade your certificate to one that is supported by PayPal.
https://devblog.paypal.com/upcoming-security-changes-notice/#ssl