IMPORTANT – PayPal IPN Validation Failures (01/07/2015 to 03/07/2015)

  • ResolvedPlugin Author Malcolm

    (@malcolm-oph)


    9 years, 4 months ago

    I have evidence of problems with Verification of PayPal IPN messages between 1st and 3rd July 2015. I have not been able (so far) to establish exact timing (which may vary in different locales anyway) but it appears the problem appeared between 08:00 and 13:00 UMT on the 1st and was fixed by 10:00 UMT on 3rd July. At the time I believed that the problem was restricted to the site I was investigating, but evidence that has come to light since suggests that it was far more widespread.

    StageShow receives an IPN message from PayPal for each transaction. These messages contain all the details of the transaction and are the only way that StageShow can determine if a sale Checkout has been paid for. As part of the process StageShow requests a validation of the IPN message from PayPal, and if this is not obtained the IPN is assumed to be suspect, and is discarded. During the period above, validation attempts on effected sites would result in an “Internal Server Error” from the PayPal server for all IPN messages, consequently the IPN was rejected, and even valid sales were ignored by StageShow. PayPal did however still take payment.

    StageShow was updated on 02/07/2015 to version 5.1 to improve the handling of this situation by marking these sales as “Unverified” and just sending an email to the administrator (but not to the purchaser) so that the sales can be manually verified. At the time this was implemented as a “Belt and Braces” solution to a problem that I thought was unlikely to reoccur.

    Suggested Action:

    Check the PayPal account to see if there are any sales between 00:00 UMT on 01/07/2015 and 13:00 UMT on 03/07/2015. If there are check that they have been recorded in the StageShow sales record. If there are a lot of sales, it should be sufficient to check that the same number of sales are recorded by StageShow as PayPal between certain times. If sales have been recorded correctly by StageShow then no further action is required.

    If sales have been recorded by PayPal but not by StageShow then immediate action is required to remedy the situation. All of these missing sales will have to be manually added and confirmation emails sent out. Checks should also be made to ensure that performances have not been oversubscribed, and in the case of performances with allocated seating, that seats have not been sold twice.

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/stageshow/

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • I saw you mentioned that you could be contacted on your website via the contact link but I don’t see website url?
    I try using google to find a website for stage show and only the wordpress page comes up, and no contact link as you mention.

    I want to use stageshow, probably stageshow+ but I can’t get the ipn to work, the purchased tickets are showing blank information for the customer. I tried the troubleshooting advice and followed word for word. Still nothing.

    I will need this to work very soon or I’ll have to go back to opentickets plugin which I’d rather not do…
    I have Version: 5.1, my site is https://thecloseuproom.com/
    please help soon, thanks!!!
    Cosmo

    Plugin Author Malcolm

    (@malcolm-oph)

    You can find the URL by clicking on my name under the StageShow entry on the Installed Plugins page on your site.

    We’ll take it from there.

    Hi Malcolm

    I am still getting the IPN error from PayPal:

    Please check your server that handles PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN). IPNs sent to the following URL(s) are failing:

    https://torbaytheatre.com/wp-content/plugins/stageshowgold/include/stageshowlib_paypal_callback.php

    If you do not recognize this URL, you may be using a service provider that is using IPN on your behalf. Please contact your service provider with the above information. If this problem continues, IPNs may be disabled for your account.

    Thank you for your prompt attention to this issue.

    Any idea why?

    Cheers,
    Graham

    Plugin Author Malcolm

    (@malcolm-oph)

    Hi Graham

    Firstly, your problem is a different one to the issue in the original support ticket, and needs to be in a new support ticket.

    The IPN URL looks correct for your site, and is accessible so it should not be a problem.

    So please create a new support ticket, and include the following extra information:

    Are you getting Sales information from PayPal (i.e. are the details of purchasers being added to Sales)?

    Are sales being marked as completed on the sales admin page?

    Have a look at the PayPal IPN history (here) and look through until you find any message that has an error response. Do you find any error IPNs?
    NOTE: IPNs may contain sensitive data so DO NOT post the data on this forum.

    You say “still getting”. How long have you been getting IPN error reports? How many are you getting?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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