Paypal IPN vs API (or PDT?) - HELP!!!

[bugman]

I have my site set up to get IPN (Instant Payment Notification) from Paypal... but it seems it SHOULD be labeled "RPN" - RANDOM Payment Notification - it fails quite often, and we don't get notification that customer has paid.

I've been round & round with PP Merchant Tech Support, finally they have admitted that the IPN system just isn't reliable - got this in an email from them this morning:

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I would also like to acknowledge that, it is true that IPN is not fully reliable. It is highly possible that there would be delays in sending the IPN messages at certain times( due to various reason : connectivity, high volume of payments) .

IPNs acts as a message which is to notify you when a payment occurs, however it is not used as a real -time system notification message. You may refer to this documentation : https://developer.paypal.com/docs/class ... /IPNIntro/ . It has explained that, IPN would encounter delays and it should not be treated as the only payment notification mechanism.

Therefore, the best way to get immediate payment notification is by API response message. When your website sends us the payment details in the form of an API request, PayPal immediately processes the payment and notify your backend through API response ( whether the payment is success / failure ). In your case, yes PayPal Payflow PRO does uses the API to process payments and you should be able to receive PayPal payments as well through the Hosted Checkout pages. Also, you can still implement the IPN function, however just not as the only logic system to update your payment notifications.
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We have a Payflow Pro gateway set up to process credit cards - and that works great - but in the gateway settings only credit cards are shown as options - not Paypal itself. So we set up Paypal as a separate gateway to facilitate PP account balance payments, but the IPN is SO inconsistent, it's killing us! But when I remove the PP gateway, I no longer see Paypal as an option on my checkout page - only credit cards.

Can anyone guide me on how to configure my site so that the Paypal Payflow Pro gateway is used to process PP account balance payments?

OR... the info at the URL noted above in the email from Paypal also mentions something called PDT (Payment Data Transfer) - anyone have any experience with that?

Any guidance is greatly appreciated!

[compunerdy]

I use IPN and it has worked very well in the past but recently we have had issues as posted here..

viewtopic.php?f=65&t=18745

I am also getting a lot of complaints about PayPal all of a sudden not working for certain address's where they used to work fine before.

[Katie]

I found this information from another website. It might help...

Tips for Troubleshooting PayPal IPN Failures

- Check your IPN History in your PayPal account. This will allow you to confirm whether or not PayPal is actually sending IPN’s to your listener, and if so, what response code it’s getting back from your server. A 200 OK response means it worked as expected. Anything else means it failed, and PayPal’s server would continue to re-try until it gets a 200 OK.

- Check your web server logs. Apache, IIS, etc. have their own server logs that provide the same information you would see on screen if you ran into the problem in a client/browser. If PayPal IPN history is showing that it’s sending data but a failure is occurring, your web server logs can help you diagnose the problem.

I have heard, directly from a Paypal technician, that std Paypal using IPN is not reliable. So, what can you do? We decided to use Paypal but only for Website payments pro and express checkout. These integrations seem to be work without any problems.

Thanks
Katie

[bugman]

We have reviewed the IPN History on the PP side numerous times. Everything looks OK there, on ones that have failed IPN (meaning we just never got the IPN back from PP to my store) the History still shows the "HTTP 200 OK" - yet we didn't get the IPN.

Initially we thought it was an issue of PP using ever-changing IP addresses to send the IPN back from, and whenever we would find a new IP address being blocked (in firewall logs on web server) we add that new IP to allow list, all good for a few days, then we'd see some more failed IPN's, and find a couple new IP addresses in his logs, we add those to the allow list, and so forth. But now we're down to not receiving IPN's from IP addresses that are on the allow list - so we don't think that is (or maybe ever was) the real issue.

My developer says everything is good on our end - we send the initial payment request, undoubtedly PP gets that (payment is processed, money appears in my PP account), but we simply never receive an IPN.

Paypal says everything is OK on their end - they get our request to process a payment, it's processed, their logs show they do send out the IPN and get that "HTTP 200 OK" response back from our end stating that we did receive the confirmation, but in fact we DON'T receive it. Our server never shows any contact after us sending out the request to process the payment.

This problem occurs on maybe 10% (or more?) of orders that are paid with PP, and probably 80% of our orders are paid with PP account funds (not credit cards), so it's a big problem for us.

VERY frustrating!

I'm a little unclear on the diff flavors of Paypal... as previously stated I have a Payflow Pro gateway set up to process credit cards, but it has no checkbox for just "Paypal".. The "regular" Paypal gateway has checkboxes for all credit cards AND for "Paypal", and we have ONLY Paypal checked in it (none of the cards) - under the assumption that if we check credit cards in THAT gateway it would take the user from my site to login to PP to pay with their credit card rather than process the card in the background while they remain on our site like the Payflow Pro gateway does - is that correct, or not?

If I kill the Payflow Pro gateway & enable everything (Paypal and all credit cards) in the regular Paypal gateway, what will the checkout experience be? Would users still stay on my site & have cards processed in background & only have to go out to PP site to pay with PP account balance, or would they have to leave my site & login to PP to pay with credit cards also?

The bottom line, is... what is the best, most reliable way to collect Paypal account payments & get notification of payment back to a website??

THANKS for any and all thoughts!!!!!

[AbleMods]

The bottom line, is... what is the best, most reliable way to collect Paypal account payments & get notification of payment back to a website??

There isn't one.

It's been this way for well over a decade. It can go years and be really consistent and reliable. And then it can go for 9 months having failures nearly every day.

If I kill the Payflow Pro gateway & enable everything (Paypal and all credit cards) in the regular Paypal gateway, what will the checkout experience be? Would users still stay on my site & have cards processed in background & only have to go out to PP site to pay with PP account balance, or would they have to leave my site & login to PP to pay with credit cards also?

They will still leave your site. There is no way to accept PayPal without leaving your site. You can configure PayFlow or Payments Pro for the credit cards, but a pure PayPal payment has to be done on the PayPal website. Once the shopper leaves your site for payment, some sort of notification back to your site now has to come into play.

PayPal was built in a time where online stores barely existed. And they've done nothing to change that base technology even as the entire industry has evolved around them.

[bugman]

MAN!... that bites! Hard to understand why a company that big & (assumingly) profitable would not evolve with the industry.

Juts to be sure I am clear Joe... currently, using Payflow Pro as the gateway for credit cards when a user chooses to pay with card it is processed in the background with them never leaving my site (just like if using Authorize.net).

If I were to disable the Payflow Pro gateway & use only the "Paypal" gateway (for PP account payments AND credit card payments), would card payments still be processed same way (user never leaves my site) or would user have to leave my site & login to their PP account for their credit card to be processed "through Paypal"?

I understand it really wouldn't change anything about the way regular PP account payments are handled, just want to understand all I can about the functionality.

Katie - can you elaborate on this:

We decided to use Paypal but only for Website payments pro and express checkout. These integrations seem to be work without any problems.

The "Website payments pro" is same thing as "Payflow Pro" - credit card processing ONLY (not PP account balance payments), correct? Is it actually the exact same gateway just referred to by 2 different names, or is it a different gateway that FUNCTIONS the same?

And "express checkout" is the yellow rectangular-oval Paypal button that appears in the mini-cart control in Ablecommerce, right? The larger square-ish blue/gray button that appears on the final CONFIRM & PAY page of the AC checkout process is part of "website payments standard", correct?

The yellow "express checkout" button produces a cumbersome checkout experience - it takes user to their PP account to login, then back to AC store to select a shipping method, then BACK AGAIN to PP to complete the final payment - feels like a pinball game! How can we disable the yellow Express Checkout button and keep only the blue PP button on the final Confirm & Pay page? I haven't been able to make that happen - seems like I can't kill the Express Checkout button without also killing the blue PP button along with it.

What about Paypal's PDT (Payment Data Transfer) - anyone have any experience with that? What is it exactly? Does it improve the checkout/payment experience in any way?

And finally, I have just recently heard about Paypal In-Context Checkout (https://developer.paypal.com/docs/class ... n-context/) - has anyone had any experience with that? At first glance, it appears it would be a better experience - at least "feels" like user in not leaving your store to pay with Paypal.

Thanks to all for your answers to my plethora of questions - I'm fairly new at digging deep into all this, and I really appreciate the responses & assistance!

[AbleMods]

Juts to be sure I am clear Joe... currently, using Payflow Pro as the gateway for credit cards when a user chooses to pay with card it is processed in the background with them never leaving my site (just like if using Authorize.net).

Correct. Has nothing to do with a PayPal account. You're just using PayPal (the company) as a gateway processor like AuthNet.

If I were to disable the Payflow Pro gateway & use only the "Paypal" gateway (for PP account payments AND credit card payments), would card payments still be processed same way (user never leaves my site) or would user have to leave my site & login to their PP account for their credit card to be processed "through Paypal"?

No. The user would leave the site and be offered the opportunity to pay by logging into their PayPal account or submitting credit card details into the PayPal screen. The shopper would still leave the site.

The "Website payments pro" is same thing as "Payflow Pro" - credit card processing ONLY (not PP account balance payments), correct? Is it actually the exact same gateway just referred to by 2 different names, or is it a different gateway that FUNCTIONS the same?

Here is a good explanation of the difference between the two: https://www.smith-consulting.com/Forums ... cope/posts

The yellow "express checkout" button produces a cumbersome checkout experience - it takes user to their PP account to login, then back to AC store to select a shipping method, then BACK AGAIN to PP to complete the final payment - feels like a pinball game! How can we disable the yellow Express Checkout button and keep only the blue PP button on the final Confirm & Pay page? I haven't been able to make that happen - seems like I can't kill the Express Checkout button without also killing the blue PP button along with it.

This is because of developer standards imposed by PayPal, has nothing to do with AbleCommerce. You can customize your site to hide the express button, but you risk being caught in violation of PayPal standards. PayPal is ruthless with the lockdown process should you be found in violation. The arbitration process is a nightmare. I've been there. It's not pretty. You can read more about the developer standards here: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/class ... uirements/

What about Paypal's PDT (Payment Data Transfer) - anyone have any experience with that? What is it exactly? Does it improve the checkout/payment experience in any way?

Not something that helps your situation. https://developer.paypal.com/docs/class ... atransfer/

In-Context is nothing more than a popup with postback integration, PayPal's version of AuthNet Direct Post Method (DPM). Payment details are entered into popup window and there is some limited back-and-forth with the ecommerce site. It's awkward, and it has a huge list of what DOESN'T work with it. I wouldn't recommend that road, but then again I'm no Javscript programmer so it may be very well suited for certain scenarios.

[Katie]

Good Morning,

This has ended up being a very good discussion. PayPal issues and questions come up often, so it will be nice to refer back to this post.

The "Website payments pro" is same thing as "Payflow Pro" - credit card processing ONLY (not PP account balance payments), correct? Is it actually the exact same gateway just referred to by 2 different names, or is it a different gateway that FUNCTIONS the same?

Well, about 10+ years ago, Payflow Pro was a Verisign company and Paypal Website Pro was a Paypal company. We had two separate integrations in our software, which was version 5 back then. Because we always try to keep all features moving forward, they both still exist in the software today. I am not entirely sure if they are really that different, and as far as functionality, they should be the same. I think for ease of configuration, you would want to use PayPal.

How can we disable the yellow Express Checkout button and keep only the blue PP button on the final Confirm & Pay page?

I'm sure it can be done with a simple code change, but it was always my understanding the PayPal required express checkout if you were using their Website Payments pro feature. I am not sure if this is still a requirement though. If not, we should add a setting on the configuration page so merchants can easily disable it.

What about Paypal's PDT (Payment Data Transfer) - anyone have any experience with that?

I know very little about this. It's hard to keep up with a company like Paypal.

I have just recently heard about Paypal In-Context Checkout

I don't know much about this either, but I do remember it coming through as a feature request a week or two ago. It sounded like a good idea, but again, Paypal has so many integration flavors. We're not a big company like Paypal, so we have to be careful what we decide to integrate with. We'll have to wait and see how the voting goes on this one.

Our Merchant Guide has quite a bit of documentation on Paypal. I wanted to give you a link because there is a section which explains some of the differences between each version.

http://help.ablecommerce.com/mergedProj ... paypal.htm

Hope this helps,
Katie