Are there any known issues or changes that I should be aware of in regards to the PayPal Advanced checkout?

Ray,

I have a few websites that use this method. One in particular has been going strong for about 3 years. Even after updating the entire site to MySQLi about 9 months ago, it has had no issues. All of a sudden, random users are experiencing an issue where they complete their checkout at PayPal but then things “freeze”, “lockup” (their words) after the payment is successful at PayPal.
Their transaction is not recorded in the database and no email is sent to them.

The odd thing is that it appears that all credit card orders where they remain on the website, are successful with no issues. And many, if not most of the transaction where they use their PayPal login, leave the site, then return all work just fine. It’s just various users that experience the issue. Their payment goes through and PayPal sends my client an email telling them of the payment. The failure occurs somewhere between PayPal and the success page.

The return url includes the full path to the ppadvforward.php file including https://www…
I’ll attach a copy of the key files just in case there are any glaring errors.
I’ve tried regenerating all the checkout files but I keep getting that timer error. Removing and reinstalling all of my WA extensions didn’t help. It gets as far as generating the confirm.php page and it stalls. So I'm stuck trying to figure this out using my current files.

Things to note;
-I do not find any server errors
-The htaccess file forces the www and the SSL so that all traffic uses both. Plus all hand coded links are set to use the full path of https://www.
-This site is still using php 5.6 although I do have the site ready to go to php 7. I was just waiting to make sure I had no other issues before I changed it over. (Could this be my issue?)

I've tried placing orders several times but I can not reproduce the problem. All my checkouts work fine. I can't think of any reason why it works for some, and not for others. And also why it seems to a problem only if you use the PayPal login method and return to the site.

Thanks,
TroyD

I'm not sure of any issues. I know paypal has deprecated Advanced Checkout. It is still supporting it for existing customers, but it doesn't plan on any updates, so that would imply that nothing would change on their side.

Unfortunately the first step is to reproduce the issue. My guess is that it has something to do with an item in the cart. Maybe a special character in the name or description. It is much more likely that something changed on your site to cause the problem than something on the paypal system failing intermittently. This implies to me that there is an item in your store that fails.

Ray,

I should have also mention that I had thought of that same thing. I looked through all items and I do not see any characters or odd spaces in the names or descriptions but I am still looking at this. Also, there are no similarities between what one person orders and the next person. I'm not saying it isn't a possibility but I can't find any evidence yet.

I do agree, it's most likely something I changed but this site hasn't had any changes for several weeks or longer, that I can think of. Just wanted to check in and see if there might be something I missed in an update. Thanks for the help. I'll report back if I figure this out.

Thanks,
TroyD

Ray,

One more question. You mentioned that PayPal was no longer supporting the Advanced checkout. What would be the best method to migrate these sites too? Which checkout should I be looking at? PayPal Pro, Payflow Pro?

Express Checkout is the free one. They are trying to move everyone to BrainTree, but I still use Express Checkout for sites I do since it is free and easier to implement.

Ray,

Since this issue with PayPal Advanced keeps getting worse, I am going to try and migrate these sites to Express Checkout.

I noticed there are multiple versions of that. One is just Express Checkout where they leave the site and return (no SSL required). The other is Payments Pro where they pay similar to the Advanced and don't leave the site when using a cc and the PayPal option seems to use a popup window. Which one do you prefer or recommend? BTW. I have SSL on both sites so that's not an issue.

Thanks,
TroyD

Payments pro costs $30 per month but allows a seamless integration. I'd start with express checkout and then move to payments pro with express checkout if the client asks for it and would like to pay the extra fee.

Thanks Ray.
If I run into any other issues on that front, I will start a new thread on the subject.

TroyD

Ray,

I just found something that MIGHT be the problem. Still looking for a reason though.

I created a hidden page to show the eCart session.

If I add just one item, no matter which item, I don't see any issues in the eCart1_Items session. But if I add 1, 2 or more items it affects all but the last items in the array. In that array, the price and (some other number, not sure what) are next to each other like this |WAECART|14.5|WAECART|12|
However, if I add another item, it affects the first item. If I add a third item, it affects the first and second item. The price and other number become this WAECART|14.5�WA�12|

I'm assuming it's in my code. I am just starting to work through the add to cart, first to see what is happening but wanted to post here quickly in case something jumps out to you.

Again, the last item is not affected so I am guessing it's in a loop somewhere.

Thanks,
TroyD

Can you send me a url so I can see? I'll be able to tell if that is the issue.