Paypal Error: "A payment error has occurred, looks like chosen payment method.."

Make sure your PayPal API credentials and sandbox mode are configured correctly. It helps if you install a plugin called Core Control which comes with HTTP logging, that might give you more insight in what’s going wrong in the PayPal request. My guess is that it’s just timing out or blocked.

Hope this helps.

I don’t have a developer account, so I cannot activate Sandbox mode. I have entered API, signature and password fields, click yes for “enabled” and “no” for Sandbox.

I’ve installed Core Control, activated the HTTP Access module and successfully tested all 4 external HTTP transports.

I do notice that when I click “register” on the form, there is a 60-90 second delay before the error comes up, so I’m assuming it’s a timeout issue, as you mentioned, even thought the HTTP transports don’t seem to be detecting an issue. What would be the best way to resolve it?

Use the HTTP Logging module to learn more about the actual requests. It’s right next to the HTTP Access module.

Ok activated that, here’s the logs:

REQUEST DETAILS:

RL https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp
Method POST
Result 200 OK
Time Taken 0.31554484367371 seconds
HTTP Args
timeout (integer) 20
redirection (integer) 5
httpversion (string) 1.0
user-agent (string) WordPress/3.5.1; https://r15.sfi.org
blocking (boolean) true
headers
Array
(
)
cookies
Array
(
)
compress (boolean) false
decompress (boolean) true
sslverify (boolean) true
stream (boolean) false
filename NULL
HTTP POST body
Array
(
[USER] => treasurer_api1.r15.sfi.org
[PWD] => KFT7AQVCXCNZUKJT
[SIGNATURE] => Yd2oah-gPUWyxqL6vWHYa.4y71EA923zmkWXkmJ0sRq5e5Ah.esDW3n
[VERSION] => 88.0
[METHOD] => SetExpressCheckout
[PAYMENTREQUEST_0_PAYMENTACTION] => Sale
[PAYMENTREQUEST_0_ALLOWEDPAYMENTMETHOD] => InstantPaymentOnly
[RETURNURL] => https://r15.sfi.org/?page_id=784&tix_action=payment_return&tix_payment_token=45feff52342034c70350790c68332a94&tix_payment_method=paypal
[CANCELURL] => https://r15.sfi.org/?page_id=784&tix_action=payment_cancel&tix_payment_token=45feff52342034c70350790c68332a94&tix_payment_method=paypal
[ALLOWNOTE] => 0
[NOSHIPPING] => 1
[SOLUTIONTYPE] => Sole
[L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NAME0] => SFI Region 15: test
[L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_DESC0] =>
[L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NUMBER0] => 792
[L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT0] => 25
[L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_QTY0] => 1
[PAYMENTREQUEST_0_ITEMAMT] => 25
[PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT] => 25
[PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CURRENCYCODE] => USD
)
HTTP Transports WP_HTTP_curl
Request Time 2013-04-10 11:18:19 –400

RESPONSE HEADERS:

date Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:29:53 GMT
server Apache
content-length 233
connection close
content-type text/plain; charset=utf-8

RESPONSE BODY:

TIMESTAMP=2013%2d04%2d10T15%3a29%3a53Z&CORRELATIONID=74ca9e5cd228a&ACK=Failure&VERSION=88%2e0&BUILD=5650305&L_ERRORCODE0=10002&L_SHORTMESSAGE0=Security%20error&L_LONGMESSAGE0=Security%20header%20is%20not%20valid&L_SEVERITYCODE0=Error

That basically means your PayPal API credentials are wrong. Read this article for more details: https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/express-checkout/integration-guide/ECAPICredentials

I have the exact same issue happening – my api credentials are right copy/pasted 3x just to be sure.
The core/logs module is not giving any info from the crash.

POST https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp error 0s 2014-02-19 00:16:04

Request Details

URL
Method
Result error
Time Taken seconds
HTTP Args
HTTP Transports
Request Time 1970-01-01 00:00:00 -0

Thats all the data it gives

Finally managed to get the error dtails
(is SSL timeout website or server related?)

Error Details
http_request_failed SSL connection timeout
Time Taken 20.0073709488 seconds
HTTP Args
timeout (integer) 20
redirection (integer) 5
httpversion (string) 1.0
user-agent (string) WordPress/3.8.1; https://www.fishing.org.nz
reject_unsafe_urls (boolean) false
blocking (boolean) true
headers

Array
(
)

cookies

Array

There was recently a change in PayPal’s sandbox infrastructure that is causing this for some people. Please follow https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/sandbox-error-a-payment-error-has-occurred for any updates.