we plan to change the domain name for our service. Therefore we need to update the IPN-url for our existing customers. I have tried googling a solution on how to change the IPN-url for current subscriptions, but I haven't been able to find anything.
Any help is appreciated.
best regards
Thomas
I ran into this problem today.
Folks who are saying that you can change the IPN URL on an existing Paypal recurring payment are incorrect; you can't, you can only change the IPN URL for future notifications.
To resolve this, I used an Apache rewrite:
RewriteRule ^sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/ipn.php$ https://example.org/wp-content/plugins/civicrm/civicrm/extern/ipn.php [R=307,L]
The magic is the R=307. A 307 redirect indicates that a POST request must be resent as a POST. Otherwise you lose the IPN data.
I had exactly the same problem .... I had to move servers which meant my IPN url changed.
I have spoken to 3 different paypal reps and even had a meeting with a tech support guy from there.
Unfortunately, there is NO WAY to change the IPN url for existing customers/subscriptions.
I have been advised that all existing customers/subscriptions would need to be setup again, your customers would then need to start a new subscription based on the new IPN url.
This is a right PITA ... I have just over 1500 customers I need to do this for, and I can guarantee I will lose some due to the hassle of this.
Sorry this wasn't the answer you were looking for :(
If you need to chnage IPN Url make sure that it is still turned on check from History>IPN History and turn it on.
IPN can be enabled in one of 2 ways.
In the PayPal account Profile
Passing an IPN URL as a parameter in an API call or button code.
To enable IPN in your account profile follow these steps:
Log into your account at https://www.paypal.com
Click on the Profile
subtab In "My selling tools" click Update in the Instant Payment Notifications section.
Click the Edit button or Choose IPN settings
Enter your IPN URL in the Notification URL field Make sure the radio button for 'Receive IPN messages (Enabled)' is selected
Click Save
IPN can be enabled directly in this section of the account: https://www.paypal.com/ie/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify-edit (access requires login)
To pass an IPN URL as a code-level parameter you should refer to the documentation of the feature you are implementing. Typically the API variable you would pass is 'NotifyURL' but it can differ based on the API call, if the API is Name-Value-Pair (NVP) or SOAP format or if you are using non-hosted PayPal Standard button code. For standard buttons the variable is "notify_url".
This profile setting is frequently overridden by shopping carts. Still, IPN should be enabled in the account.
It's 1 May 2013 & PayPal has changed the location for the IPN.
Login, go to Profile -> My selling tools ->Instant Payment Notifications...(Update)
This shows your current IPN URL, and there is an EDIT button.
In the absence of a solution from Paypal, I would encourage anyone to submit a support ticket requesting a manual change. If enough of us do this, they will have to provide this option eventually.
Contact Paypal Technical Support here.
EDIT: I managed to successfully change all my prior IPN URLs via a ticket with Paypal Support. They told me it has to be done manually, but obliged my request. It took about a week. They were very helpful. Hope this helps someone.
Dec 2022 update:
There is IPN URL settings at https://www.paypal.com/merchantnotification/ipn/preference . I changed the IPN URL and since then all IPN notifications are coming to the new IPN URL. I do not know if super old subscription notifications will also come to this URL or not, but I can confirm that 1.5 year old subscriptions are going to this new URL now.
I have just done it.
Login, go to Profile -> My Account Settings ->Instant Payment Notifications...(Update)
This shows your current IPN URL, and there is an EDIT button, which works.
This is April 2013, so PayPal might have changed since this question was posted
Related
I have a question about Paypal IPN, I was wondering when does the IPN activate and send it's message to my website.
I currently have my website that has a buy button. When the client buy the service, he is directed to paypal. Once he pay the service, nothing happen. In order for me to receive the IPN notification, the user has to click "Return to merchant website" or whatever the link is, then I receive the IPN notification.
Is it normal, does it work like that for everyone?
Cause right now, most people when they are done with the payment, just close the website and I don't receive any notification.
Thanks for any help !
Your question leaves a lot of missing information so I will go through each option for you:
Read here about how to setup a sandbox account if you don't already have one: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/lifecycle/sb_create-accounts/
Bare in mind that your sandbox account is entirely separate in every way from your live paypal account. All settings will need to be checked and customised as needed.
Set up your IPN URL on your sandbox account Here: https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify
Once set up, you then need to download and set your code (PHP or something else) to the listener (referenced in the above sandbox profile link). You can find IPN code examples here: https://github.com/paypal/ipn-code-samples
When that's all set you need to set your listener to using the sandbox mode and then log in to your live account and then run the IPN simulator from here: https://developer.paypal.com/developer/ipnSimulator/
Paypal will send messages to your IPN listener and you need to do something with the messages, typically output them into some sort of log file. Any issues, you can read Paypals feedback and IPN data/delivery information here https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history&nav=0.3.4 [Found from History->ipnHistory on the Paypal menu] and it should list them out. You can resend any failed or queued or undelivered messages.
Paypal is a terribly documented and terribly structured system for coding with. I hate it. Use Stripe.
I love bullet points.
Paypal claims they will try and resend failed/queued IPNs 16 times over 5 days. I have yet to see this, you need to resend them manually (at least, sandbox ones)
Please remember all the settings and changes you have made to your Sandbox account will need to be also made to your live account before you make your payment system live!
Solution
My return_URL is the location of my IPN.php file which take care of the data sent and received. My problem is that the IPN is only firing when I click the "Return to merchant website" and not when the payment is actually completed
What you have done, from reading your comments, is set your IPN page to being your return from paypal page, this is NOT the way IPN is supposed to work, the IPN page should never be visited by the customer, only ever by Paypal.
Read through my anwser (points 2,3,4) and set up your IPN web link as I have described above, your return_url value should be a basic page to say to the customer "transaction complete". The IPN page is defined on your paypal accounts (sandbox and live) as I stated above.
This will fix your problem.
Just been trying to find the new IPN History link on the new PayPal website and I can't see it anywhere.
Are they still supporting this?
The current PayPal for Business interface only provides a way to access IPN History if you have manually configured IPN in your PayPal account settings. In this case, you'd go to [your name] > Account Settings > Notifications > Instant Payment Notifications (click Update here), then the explanatory text there will include a link to the IPN History page.
However, that link would not appear if you have not manually configured IPN -- e.g., when your ecommerce platform automatically transmits IPN parameters to PayPal for each checkout. While you could manually enable IPN with a dummy Notification URL in order to get the IPN History link, this could result in PayPal completely disabling IPN for your PayPal account if they try sending any actual notifications to that dummy URL.
In that case, you can use this link to access IPN History directly once you're already logged into PayPal:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history
Note that if you have not manually configured IPN in PayPal, you will see a notice in IPN History saying, "The IPN feature is turned off. You must turn on IPN in order to create history data." That notice is irrelevant if your ecommerce platform specs IPN dynamically for each checkout; in that scenario, you can still view/search your IPN History without manually turning on IPN there.
More menu -> Site map -> Transactions -> IPN History
2020
Sitemap (Footer) -> Instant Payment Notification (IPN) history (under "Transactions")
It's still available in the same place. If you want to navigate to it
Log in
Profile link (white bar up top)
IPN settings
History link on this page
Currently it's directly at https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify (provided you're logged in)
In the latest UI: Settings > My Selling Tools > Instant Payment Notifications click "Update". You will see a link there called "IPN History page".
As of May 2022, it's still convoluted.
TL;DR:
For IPN History, try https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history
For IPN Settings, try https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify
Also, a few reminders:
PayPal IPN is a completely separate feature from PayPal Webhooks.
Even though it's the exact same concept (argh!).
PayPal IPN is associated with your normal/business PaypPal account. It is is not a part of the PayPal Developer experience.
Also, PayPal IPN is now clearly deprecated, if not effectively obsolete, so if your application code is still reliant on PayPal IPN you really should update it to use PayPal Developer APIs and the Webhook service instead.
Anyway, here's the steps I took to find it today on 1st May, 20222:
Start off on your PayPal Business Account Dashboard page:
https://www.paypal.com/mep/dashboard
It should look like this:
Don't confuse this with the Developer Not
Use the top-left menu to go to Account Settings:
https://www.paypal.com/businessmanage/account/accountAccess
On the Account Settings page, look for "Notifications" in the left-side menu:
https://www.paypal.com/businessmanage/account/notifications
Then you'll see the link to PayPal Instant Payment Notifications.
Annoyingly, they don't use the term "IPN" so Ctrl+Fing for that won't work.
Click the "Update" link (even though we aren't updating anything: we just want to see IPN History), and you'll be taken to a page belonging to Olde PayPal just with a new header:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-ipn-notify
And the link to the History page is disguised in the page's text:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-ipns-history
And you'll be welcomed back-in-time to 2005 with a page that looks like this:
I have read about paypal IPN but that has delays in notification.
I watched this video on setting up a paypal subscription button
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHC9BoRDEOY
but the thing I am missing is that I add a url that paypal will go to after payment. When this url is hit, I need to immediately verify that payment was made(ie. I want it so if a user goes to that url without paying, we don't accidentally continue the process since he has not paid yet).
so, how can I
1. have paypal feed me some kind of unique id when it brings up my url
2. call back to paypal to verify that payment as been made.
Lastly, how can I test this all out on the paypal sandbox to make sure everything is working together?
thanks,
Dean
I did find this but this is not using the buttons at all. Is there not a way to use the buttons?
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/express-checkout/ht_ec-recurringPaymentProfile-curl-etc/
thanks,
Dean
Hi I have searched for this solution and although others have experienced the same problem I couldn't find a solution that works for my site.
My wordpress site mainly sells registrations/bookings for events and I'm using the s2Memberplugin to process the payments with Paypal. The problem is that when we direct the users/customers to the paypal page to complete the transaction which i want set up with the option of paying via credit/debit card if the user/customer doesn’t have (or doesn’t want to create one) a paypal account. That has been working perfectly except for when users/customers are using a variety of internet browser with various cookie settings so the user/customer get’s directed to a completely different page both in appearance and functionality from the page I want them to see. This incorrect page ‘requires’ users/customers to have or create a paypal account to make the payment, no option to pay via card is available. I tried calling paypal and of course they say it is something wrong with my site.
Over 20 days ago i lodged a support ticket with Paypal MTS (or whatever they are called) and of course no response. I have lodged about 5 more tickets and made about 10 more phone calls and they simply don't care about customers. That is clearly demonstrated when you ask to speak to the complaints section and they say "We don't have a complaints section'
Thanks very much, any assistance is greatly appreciated
I haven't been provided with any error codes, unfortunately - i did ask for them but nobody supplied them.
we just discovered that the payflow and IPN settings within my sites plugin were empty but i'm filling them in now but i have two questions:
The vendor, is that just my username for my paypal account? (why don't they just use the same terminology - confusing)
My s2Member plugin say's i'll need my IPN url (and then supplies a url, but whn i look at the IPN notification url within my paypal settings it's a totally different link. Should i be changing my paypal IPN url to that which is supplied by my s2Member plugin or am i getting two different url's confused?
Thanks for your help again mate.
If you're using Payments Standard this experience is cookie based as you mentioned. If you want to make sure the full credit card form shows up and allows people to pay with a credit card without creating an account you can use the Express Checkout API instead.
In your SetExpressCheckout request you just need to set SOLUTION=Sole and LANDINGPAGE=Billing.
PayPal states:
Note: If you have turned on Auto
Return and have chosen to turn on
PayPal Account Optional for new users,
a new user will not be automatically
directed back to your website, but
will be given the option to return.
But if some of the customers don't get "Auto Returned", how do I handle them programmatically?
Paypal does not guarantee autoreturn especially when Paypal Account - optional setting is on.
The right way to handle the integration is with Instant Payment Notification (IPN) option. Using IPN Paypal will make POSTS to your page notifying you of payment events. The following link explains the IPN process pretty well.
To summarize, you will write code that will trap posts from Paypal and then make sure to update your billing data accordingly.
Also, IPN messages might be slightly delayed.
Create a script (cron or what) that does check for such payments at paypal perodically (e.g. every hour).
Is this what you mean?
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/mer/express_return_summary-outside
If not, you may need to be a little more specific with your question. Like - are you using paypal pro? How are your customers checking out? etc. And now that I read the answer below mine, I wonder if you are even talking about the payment process and not something else.