Is there a PayPal IPN when a suspended subscription is reactivated? - paypal

When a paypal recurring payment is suspend an IPN with either one of the following txn_type will be sent
recurring_payment_suspended
recurring_payment_suspended_due_to_max_failed_payment
Question: Is there an IPN to notify of a re-activation, like:
recurring_payment_reactivated
I could not find any info on SO, Google and https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/ipn/integration-guide/IPNandPDTVariables
Or does anyone know why PayPal would provide an IPN to tell us when a recurring payment is suspended
but not when its re-activated.

I just tested this scenario on the sandbox. I created a new profile using CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile and I immediately got the recurring_payment_profile_created IPN as expected.
I then suspended the profile using ManageRecurringPaymentsProfileStatus and immediately got the recurring_payment_suspended IPN as expected.
I then reactivated the profile using ManageRecurringPaymentsProfileStatus, but I did NOT get any new IPN from this action.
Based on those findings I would say, no, you will not get one in production either.
That said, I always recommend using the GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails API to check the current status of a profile any time users log in to a paid area of your site (or attempt to access anything that requires a valid profile.)

Related

Handle recurring payments with paypal

I'am having troubles about how to handle the paypal recurrent payment system.
I followed every instruction in the website, but once i create the profile, paypal puts it in pending, making me doubt about the reliability of the service itself.
I tried to look over the internet but i didn't really get how this should work...
i made the first call with SetExpressCheckout in order to create the request, when the token is returned, i send the token to the paypal page, the user confirms the payment, then i call the CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile method to confirm the operation (passing PAYERID and TOKEN and setting the AMT value for the first payment and the PROFILESTARTDATE as now +1 month for the future payments)
Now when i try to read the response from the last call (or if i go to the buyer/seller paypal account) i see that the payment is in pending and i have to wait an undefined amount of time before this payment is activated.
Now the real question is: can i trust the fact that even if the payment is in pending, i'll receive the payment and so i can set set the user as member or i have to check and wait until the status is 'active' with the GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails method?
PS: i'm doing this in the sandbox version, maybe the official version is a bit faster and more reliable?
Thank you!
In Sandbox as in Live when you call CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile you will also get the response in which it will give you the status of the profile (ActiveProfile or PendingProfile). When the status is in Penidng it means that the system is in process of creating the recurring payment profile. You can then check your IPN messages for an update. It is normal but obviously if you notice that all the profiles you create get into Pending and never activate then there could be a bug but should not be the case. In here is the PayPal technical guide for this API: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/api/merchant/CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile_API_Operation_NVP/

Not Receiving PayPal IPN With Invoicing API

On the introduction of PayPal Invoicing API documentation it states that.
PayPal sends IPN messages for invoice payments and for invoices
cancelled by the buyer.
But I've found this is not the case. IPN for invoice payment, cancel or other operation never get sent from PayPal (I have checked and confirmed it from IPN history page).
Worth Mentioning
Invoices are being created via Invoicing API successfully without any warning.
I am working on Sandbox and Creating for Third Party Merchant.
I do understand that paypal doesn't send IPN for api operation changes.
The IPN listener is working fine and I have successful implementation for subscription api with IPN.
Update
Today I tried the whole process with Live PayPal account other than sandbox account and I still not getting any IPN. So, I guess I am doing something wrong or Invoicing API is broken (which I highly doubt).
Which also makes me wonder about some additional questions:
I (merchant #1) has the permission information form merchant #2 for sending invoice to their behalf.
I have setup IPN to my IPN listener URL.
merchant #2 do not have IPN setup to my listener URL.
So, when Invoice that I created for merchant #2, Do I get IPN?
OR, merchant #2 also needs to setup their IPN url pointing to my listener URL?
IPN is get send from the account that receiving payment as #effone mentioned in comment. So, it seems I was confused from paypal documentation.
Answer: The IPN url from merchant #2 will need to setup in order to get notification about invoice payment. merchant #1 account who sending the invoice behalf of merchant #2 will not send any IPN as the payment isn't involves merchant #1
Way I see it, this is not a proper solution to create an invoice management system. As if I have 1000's of user they all need to set their IPN url to mine in order to get the application work correctly (aka, setting invoices as paid when they gets paid)
Your question reads strangely, because you say the IPN is working fine, then in your update, you say you're trying it in your live PayPal account. It sounds like it's working on the Sandbox, but not in production?
If this is the case:
Did you activate the IPN under your Production (Live) Paypal account?
Do you have the IPN URL for this?
Are you seeing the IPN being logged under the Production (Live) PayPal site?
If No -> it's been a while since I've worked with this, but there used to be an interface where you could send an IPN test- have you tried that?
If Yes -> make a bare bones listener- just a page that logs that it was hit, then add logic to it.
hth

Paypal IPN prior to renewal

I am setting up a Paypal IPN for a subscription service. After reviewing the documentation and speaking with Paypal, I'm still unsure as to whether the IPN feature will send out notifications before a subscription is renewed. I've got it to where it will notify a user when their account is charged for the renewal, but there is no prior notification that this transaction will take place.
Does anyone have any experience with setting this up and if it's possible?
Thanks!
IPN only notifies you when a payment is made or its status changes. For subscriptions you won't get one prior to renewal.
If you're using the Recurring Payments API, you can get that via GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails, which will tell you when the next billing cycle is.

What happens when a PayPal subscription is cancelled or fails?

I am thinking about using PayPal to take subscription payments for a website but have a question relating to the process of cancelling and failed payments.
Initial process:
Click subscribe/buy now button
Log into PayPal or enter card details
Review, click confirm
Completion page (with PDT)
3 months and 2 days later and the user logs into PayPal to cancel their subscription (within PayPal instead of using my website).
How is that process or information passed back to my website for cancelled or failed subscription?
I haven't found anything in FAQ, Help or How to and Louise was useless. I hope that someone here can help me...
Manually, I assume we're expected to log in review History and update the website accordingly (every couple of days).
Many thanks,
Simon
You would set up an IPN listener in your PayPal Profile. Once a subscription or recurring payments is charged, skipped, suspended or cancelled, you'll receive an appropriate IPN message at your IPN listener URL.
For IPN sample code and documentation, take a look at https://www.paypal.com/ipn, and for the individual IPN variables, take a look at https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_html_IPNandPDTVariables

PayPal express checkout handling "pending payments" with IPN

I cant find anny clear documentations about this.
If you use paypal express checkout, when a payment is pending what happens next?
Does paypal sends you by IPN an update if the states changes, do you have options?
Let say you do an DoExpressCheckoutPayment (with NVP)
and you get this:
&PAYMENTSTATUS=Pending
&PENDINGREASON= ECHECK //The payment is pending because it was made by an eCheck that has not yet cleared.
&REASONCODE=None
So you've made the payment and you want to wait until its cleared? What should you do next.
Update Some (external documentation) I found only sugest you could use (IPN?) to handle pending payments.
"If the Do Express Checkout Payment PENDINGREASON response is a value
other than none or completed , the payment is pending. Typically,
this means the customer has paid with aneCheck. In such a case, funds
are not guaranteed, and you should not ship or deliver items or
services until the payment has successfully completed. NOTE:
PayPal recommends that you block eChecks as a payment method if you
are unable tohandle pending state payments.To find out the status of a
pending payment, you can:
Submit an Inquiry transaction.
Check the status using PayPal Manager. See PayPal Manager online help
for details."
The paypal sandbox seems to have the option to check IPN messages for the express checkout type. The only correlation (if its ment to be used this way) between the DoExpressCheckoutPayment and the IPN seems you can use the "custom" field to keep track of a pending status. The txn_id (ipn) isn't given in DoExpressCheckoutPayment (nvp). Does any one have any experience with this?
The transaction ID is most certainly given in DoExpressCheckoutPayment, even if the PAYMENTSTATUS=Pending. A pending payment is still a transaction.
So yes, you would be notified via IPN when the transaction is completed. This typically takes a few working days.
Once it has completed, you can correlate the transaction from DoExpressCheckoutPayment to the IPN you will have received via the txn_id in the IPN.
Note: If you want to test a 'Pending' payment in the PayPal Sandbox, simply go to https://developer.paypal.com/ > Test account and click on 'Payment review' for the seller account you're testing with.
Once payment review is enabled on that seller account, any transactions it receives will be in a 'Pending' state.
Simply disable payment review to release the tranasctions afterwards.
I thought i'd add my two pence worth of thoughts to this.
I was getting a pending return status using Express Checkout via the dotNet SDK, according to the doc's and examples I should have been getting an 'approved' status.
I couldn't figure out why but it turned out to be because I was passing through a new currency, in our case 'GBP'. I had to log in as the facilitator sandbox account and decide what to do with the new currency.. convert it or setup a new balance in the currency. Once I did this, and set it as the default action, the pending return status no longer occurred.
hope that helps someone!
One thing not noted here and I haven't found anything else to confirm.. is that Paypal Express API doesn't support passing in the NOTIFYURL with the code. So you have to use the hardcoded IPN url set in your paypal account. This of course causes issues because you need a common callback file that can redirect to the individual payment options.
For example, if you are using Paypal Express AND Paypal Advanced.. Neither of those properly support a notifyurl passed in using the code. Paypal Advanced claims to, but it doesn't seem to work. So there needs to be a common IPN callback file that handles the redirection to each.
Unless someone else can confirm a working notify url for Express Checkout variable that can be passed in the code?