HI Jason. I am stupid as after thinking about the logic. for me to manually go to the failure.php page after paypal wouldnt work as a test since there would have been no error...I have added the 2 binding groups to my failure.php page and now I wait for a customer to run into a transaction error...maybe sometime though as I have noticed recently other transactions go through fine (and thats from UK, Australia and USA).
It really is baffling me this problem as I so want to know the reason. It just doesnt make sense that some transactions go through and others dont...Im wondering if its to do with the customer browser set up (perhaps they not using a desktop, who knows why).
The only other problem is that when I do get the order failure email sometimes the customer details are blank (and I know it has to do with the session variables not being passed as I use the session variables in the email) - but sometimes these sessions variables are being passed so in other words it seems there are two directions the failure page gets to...now since I set the session variables on the checkout page (since this is where the customer types in their address details) the session would be set once the form is submitted..but once its submitted it woulf leave the page and go to the paypal page...so if the session variables are not being passed to my failure email then that would suggest the session dosnt even get passed posting from the checkout page. I even did a test whereupon I left all of the checkout page form fields blank and that still allowed me to get to the paypal page, so I know it has nothing to do with correct form fields being filled out.
I am wondering if the failure page doesnt get passed the form posting on the checkout page, can I still somehow set the session variables from the fields the customer fills out...or does it need to form post before since the sessions variables relate to the form contents?