I'm having a website build on CodeIgniter 2 and I'm using the CodeIgniter PayPal Lib. I have done everything neccessary and I'm now able to proceed payments. I receive an IPN data an I have it send to my e-mail. I have read the PayPal IPN Guide, but I couldn't find a solution there.
Evetything fine untill here and I'm happy with the result, but I'm concerned, because the PayPal IPN verification fails and I cannot understand where is the problem.
When I send an IPN test from the sandbox test site I receive a valid IPN, but when I make a payment from my website the IPN validation fails.
I'm logging all the data and in the both cases (valid or invalid) the payment is successful and i have a "SUCCESS!" message from PayPal.
Things I have tryed
Code I'm using
The fields I'm using
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('business', 'name_1321715512_biz@gmail.com');
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('return', site_url('paypal/success'));
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('cancel_return', site_url('paypal/cancel'));
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('notify_url', site_url('contest/receive_ipn'));
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('item_name', 'Contest Subscribtion Payment (Test)');
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('amount', '30');
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('item_number', Y11-1329469079-12); // Reference number
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('quantity', '1');
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('charset', 'utf8');
$this->paypal_lib->add_field('custom', 1723); //This is an id that I need.
The post to PayPal for validation
$post_string.="cmd=_notify-validate";
if (isset($_POST)){
foreach ($_POST as $field=>$value){
$value = str_replace("
", "
", $value);
$value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
$post_string .= "&$field=$value";
$this->ipn_data[$field] = $value; //this is part of the library
}
}
$header .= "POST /cgi-bin/webscr HTTP/1.0
";
$header .= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
";
$header .= "Content-Length: " . strlen($post_string) . "
";
$fp = fsockopen ('ssl://www.sandbox.paypal.com', 443, $errno, $errstr, 30);
The code to verify the IPN
fputs ($fp, $header . $post_string);
while (!feof($fp)) {
$res = fgets ($fp, 1024);
if (strcmp ($res, "VERIFIED") == 0) {
// Send me e-mail - Verified
} else if (strcmp ($res, "INVALID") == 0) {
// Send me e-mail - Invalid
}
}
fclose($fp);
Also I'm posting the response I receive
This one is the INVALID (then send from my website)
cmd=_notify-validate&mc_gross=30.00&protection_eligibility=Ineligible&address_status=unconfirmed&payer_id=LD9UMUWHD44GY&tax=0.00&address_street=Via+Unit+d%27Italia%2C+5783296&payment_date=02%3A19%3A29+Feb+17%2C+2012+PST&payment_status=Completed&charset=windows-1252&address_zip=80127&first_name=Alexander&mc_fee=1.37&address_country_code=IT&address_name=Alexander+Videnov¬ify_version=3.4&custom=1721&payer_status=verified&business=aviden_1321715512_biz%40gmail.com&address_country=Italy&address_city=Napoli&quantity=1&verify_sign=AF1YwvTycK97c-VCwQnfsdzArWAcAqZjskElh-FsmZ0s9HqL9BjFUKVH&payer_email=aviden_1329133801_per%40gmail.com&txn_id=32Y96385XJ0686735&payment_type=instant&last_name=Videnov&address_state=Napoli&receiver_email=aviden_1321715512_biz%40gmail.com&payment_fee=&receiver_id=TQVQ3ASRDBW28&txn_type=web_accept&item_name=Yicca+Contest+Subscribtion+Payment+%28Test%29&mc_currency=EUR&item_number=Y11-1329473936-12&residence_country=IT&test_ipn=1&handling_amount=0.00&transaction_subject=1721&payment_gross=&shipping=0.00&ipn_track_id=35382e1887f00
And this is the VERIFIED (when send from PayPal test site)
cmd=_notify-validate&test_ipn=1&payment_type=echeck&payment_date=02%3A28%3A24+Feb+17%2C+2012+PST&payment_status=Completed&address_status=confirmed&payer_status=verified&first_name=John&last_name=Smith&payer_email=buyer%40paypalsandbox.com&payer_id=TESTBUYERID01&address_name=John+Smith&address_country=United+States&address_country_code=US&address_zip=95131&address_state=CA&address_city=San+Jose&address_street=123%2C+any+street&business=seller%40paypalsandbox.com&receiver_email=seller%40paypalsandbox.com&receiver_id=TESTSELLERID1&residence_country=US&item_name=something&item_number=AK-1234&quantity=1&shipping=3.04&tax=2.02&mc_currency=USD&mc_fee=0.44&mc_gross=12.34&txn_type=web_accept&txn_id=242171028¬ify_version=2.1&custom=xyz123&invoice=abc1234&charset=windows-1252&verify_sign=An5ns1Kso7MWUdW4ErQKJJJ4qi4-Arge8MWjXZSo7fPSQf3xaqAOjrSH
Two things I have noticed
notify_version field. From my website (3.4) | From PayPal (2.1)Did anybody expirienced the same problem with the validation. Is there something that I'm missing, or some way that I can debug more?
Not sure if you're using adaptive payments or not, but I used this library: http://www.binpress.com/app/paypal-adaptive-payments-pro-codeigniter-library/140 and it works awesome and the author is very helpful.
See my question here: Paypal IPN Issue with parallel payment. I've posted my paypal IPN code in the answer.
The CodeIgniter PayPal Lib is outdated and bugged all the time. At least in my experience.
What I do, and I would recommend, is using the official PayPal SDK's and 'convert' them to CI. This is fairly easy.
You can find these here: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/library_download_sdks
Also do check out there docs: https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/development-integration-guides#ec You can't live without them!
I got this response from Paypal which might be relevant to you also:
Now we know from experience that special characters can be difficult to deal with during the IPN validation. Basically, the character encoding that we use to send the IPN Message to your server needs to be matched by your IPN Handler when it posts the message back to the PayPal Systems for verification.
We've had a lot of success at resolving these issues by changing the language encoding options of the account to UTF-8.
Here's how you do it: 1. Please log in to your PayPal Account.
Then follow this link that will take you directly to the language encoding options: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-language-encoding
Click on the "More Options" Button.
Change both pull down menus to UTF-8 and click on save.
If you've specified a different character encoding in your code, please switch it to UTF-8 as well.