https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/api/country_codes/
lists the country_codes available for use with PayPal Express. That's fine and dandy, but not exactly code friendly! I see no actual API call that presents my server with this information. What am I missing? Do I really have to manually type in that list and manually check periodically to make sure nothing's changed?
Well, according to PayPal support... nope, only way is to manually do it. Granted, geopolitical scenes aren't changing THAT rapidly, and PayPal probably tends to align itself with the more stable list, but still I expected better. I should be able to set a cron that checks periodically against a nicely formatted JSON, etc, so I can automatically update the country list used by my sites. That way 5 years from now I don't have to find out that 4 years earlier I started unnecessarily missing business because PayPal opened up their services to Antarctica's hot bed of ecommerce activity.
Related
Every so often there will be a package updated that the bot framework service requires to be up to date. This time, it was something to do with the identity model. My bot is just sitting and running, and then we found out that it hasn't even been reporting errors (why we didn't look sooner) because nothing could authorise a request to it.
I think it's a bit ridiculous that a simple out of date package could bring down the entire bot, and I'm not sure if there's any documentation or newsletters telling us that certain things will be updated.
Any ideas?
I have a site making calls to the PayPal sandbox. This has worked fine in the past. Today, all of my calls are returning INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR. I am using the Node.js paypal-rest-sdk module to make these calls.
The debug ID of the transactions are 38ddafc521580, bc93a6d0f3b60, and fb3f7b74697c9.
On a related note - I don't see anywhere on PayPal developer support where you can directly ask for help with these issues; PayPal seems to just point to StackOverflow. Is that correct? Seems like I should just be able to log into the PayPal developer portal and ask for help with specific debug IDs, or at least see some more detail for those transactions on why they failed. Using StackOverflow for this doesn't feel "right" to me...
UPDATE: An update was pushed out just now that should resolve most of the external issues. Can you all please let me know if you are still seeing problems? There are a few outstanding problems in the cleanup, so I want to make sure they aren't impacting anything.
Full disclosure: I work at PayPal
I just ran a test against sandbox and have confirmed that there appears to be some downtime. I've notified the sandbox team of the problem and have provided your (and my) debug ids for them to take a look. We're on it and will hopefully have a resolution shortly.
From the support side, you're correct, there is no forum system for technical integration issues. For problems with downtime, you can report those to the technical support team at https://www.paypal-techsupport.com/app/ask/session/L3RpbWUvMTQ1OTM0NzAxNi9zaWQvVC00anZNTW0%3D, or contact support directly from https://www.paypal.com/selfhelp/home. You can always reach out to the merchant technical support Twitter handle at https://twitter.com/paypal_mts as well.
For integration troubles, that's where SO would be best, where we can help work through code issues.
The server errors have gone away, but they've been accompanied by a massive uptick in customers getting a message that reads "the card you entered cannot be used for this payment". So they're still not able to make payments. We had the first couple contact PayPal, but we've gotten so many that it seems like it's not a coincidence. Do we really need to refer people to PayPal (which will cause them grief, surely, and cause PayPal to get a bunch of extra calls) or is there still something going on?
I am just starting out learning to integrate and write 3-rd party code with the Volusion API. I don't really know where to get everything going yet. My first task is understanding where I need to go to download the API, or begin coding with it. Secondly, I would like to know how to add a feature the orders page that totals all outstanding order balances together and display it somewhere in the page.
The original API info is located here.
http://devwiki.volusion.com/index.php/Introduction
The "newer" not fully functioning API info is located here.
http://docs.volusion.apiary.io/
As of this writing only a small portion of the listed endpoints are currently useable and even then the ones that are useable are only partially functional.
I'm admittedly unsure whether this post falls within the scope of acceptable SO questions. If not, please advise whether I might be able to adjust it to fit or if perhaps there might be a more appropriate site for it.
I'm a WinForms guy, but I've got a new project where I'm going to be making web service calls for a Point of Sale system. I've read about how CRUD operations are handled in RESTful environments where GET/PUT/POST/etc represent their respective CRUD counterpart. However I've just started working on a project where I need to submit my requirements to a developer who'll be developing a web api for me to use but he tells me that this isn't how the big boys do it.
Instead of making web requests to create a transaction followed by requests to add items to the transaction in the object based approach I'm accustomed to, I will instead use a service based approach to just make a 'prepare' checkout call in order to see the subtotal, tax, total, etc. for the transaction with the items I currently have on it. Then when I'm ready to actually process the transaction I'll make a call to 'complete' checkout.
I quoted a couple words above because I'm curious whether these are common terms that everyone uses or just ones that he happened to choose to explain the process to me. And my question is, where might I go to get up to speed on the way the 'big boys' like Google and Amazon design their APIs? I'm not the one implementing the API, but there seems to be a little bit of an impedance mismatch in regard to how I'm trying to communicate what I need and the way the developer is expecting to hear my requirements.
Not sure wrt the specifics of your application though your general understanding seems ik. There are always corner cases that test the born though.
I would heed that you listen to your dev team on how things should be imolemented and just provide the "what's" (requirements). They should be trusted to know best practice and your company's own interpretation and standards (right or wrong). If they don't give you your requirement (ease-of-use or can't be easily reusable with expanded requirements) then you can review why with an architect or dev mgr.
However, if you are interested and want to debate and perhaps understand, check out Atlassian's best practice here: https://developer.atlassian.com/plugins/servlet/mobile#content/view/4915226.
FYI: Atlassian make really leading dev tools in use in v.large companies. Note also that this best-practices is as a part of refactoring meaning they've been through the mill and know what worked and what hasn't).
FYI2 (edit): Reading between the lines of your question, I think your dev is basically instructing you specifically on how transactions are managed within ReST. That is, you don't typically begin, add, end. Instead, everything that is transactional is rolled within a transaction wrapper and POSTed to the server as a single transaction.
I have been playing around with the currency converter web service offered by http://webservicex.net as a way of learning how to interact with a web service from an iPhone application and I have managed to get the currency converter working perfectly.
I have since expanded my application to include other features to make it something a little 'different' from what is currently available on the App Store.
The question that I have is if I release an app on the App Store and that is ad-supported am I allowed to use this web service that someone has obviously put time and effort into making? Up until a month ago I did not even know what a web service was or how it existed so I am not sure if there is any etiquette (eg, give them a mention in the About page of your app) or if these things are generally out there and free to use?
I have tried contacting Webservice X via email but every time I get a bouceback because their mailbox is full, which has helped get me closer to an answer. Has anyone else used their services or know of the standard allowed use of someone elses web service in an ad-supported application?
Thanks guys!
Using their web-service is not going to get you rejected. That being said, relying on someone else's equipment (of which you have no control and are not paying for usage) is not a good idea for a production app. I would do some research into finding a service that you feel is going to be more reliable or can pay (a minimal amount) to use.
The other piece of advice I would give is to build the application so that it gets the data from your own web-service and let all the base data come from you. In other words, get your own web-site (from as little as $7 a month from GoDaddy or other services), and do the currency lookups there. Build your server-side processes to be easy to swap from one service to another and that way if for some reason you lose access to the currency converter service you have been using, it is a quick amount of work to switch to a different one without having to release a whole new version of the application (and wait 7+ days for the app review process).
In other words, your web-service you build supplies all the data for the iOS app and you get the currency data on your web-server.
That is how I would do it to make sure it is the most reliable and easiest to change without affecting the installed iOS app.