MMv4 KB
 
PayPal orders not present in Modular Merchant
  Last Edited - 12/6/2012 4:57pm PST
  Category Path - Shopping Cart Software Components > Administration Area > Modules > 3rd Party Service Integration > FAQs & Tutorials
 
missing paypal orders
Our Paypal orders aren't showing up in Modular Merchant. They're listed on the Pending Off-Site Transactions page, but aren't on the Search Orders page. The only way we know there was an order is from the PayPal notification. Why isn't the store recording our PayPal orders?

PayPal is an off-site payment gateway, which means the customer must leave your store website to complete their transaction on PayPal's site.

Before the customer leaves for PayPal's website, the store records a snapshot of their order, which is recorded as a Pending Off-Site Transaction. When the customer completes their order on PayPal's website, PayPal then sends a notification back to the shopping cart software. When the store receives this notification from PayPal, it upgrades the pending transaction to a full-fledged order, which will be listed on the Search Orders page with all your other orders.

common causes of missing orders
Abandoned Orders
If the customer abandons the transaction on PayPal's website before completing it, then their Pending Off-Site Transaction record will remain in your store records. It will not be considered completed, and it will not be moved to the Search Orders page.

No Notification Received From PayPal
The PayPal account area on their website includes a setting that can affect whether or not your PayPal account is allowed to respond back to your store. The recommended values for these settings are discussed below.
 
PayPal IPN Notification Settings

If PayPal orders aren't present on your Search Orders page, it may be necessary to edit your PayPal account's Instant payment notifications settings. These settings can be found by following these steps:
  1. Log in to your PayPal account.
  2. In the My Account tab, go to the Profile menu and select More Options.
  3. On the My Profile page, click the link for My Selling Tools.
  4. Locate the section titled Instant Payment Notification and click its Update link.
it's not default's fault
If you've never touched this settings, then PayPal's default values for it usually allow your PayPal account to send its notifications to the shopping cart, and the store will be able to correctly record PayPal orders in the Search Orders area.

PayPal's Instant Payment Notification (IPN) settings include several options:

Turn Off IPN Button
There is a button with the option to Turn Off IPN. Don't ever click this button. Turning off PayPal's IPN system will prohibit PayPal from being able to send the shopping cart software the notifications it requires.

Edit Settings Button
Clicking the Edit Settings button will allow you to set several more settings:

Notification URL
To enable PayPal's IPN settings, a URL must be entered in this field. However, the URL entered in this field is not actually used during the communication between the shopping cart and PayPal. (The store provides its own Notification URL, which overrides the URL entered in this field.)

However, PayPal won't allow the IPN setting to be enabled without something entered in this field. We recommend entering the URL of your store website. This will allow you to enable PayPal's IPN system. Just remember, the URL entered in this field will not actually be used in any way when the shopping cart and PayPal communicate.
 
IPN Messages
Set this setting to the option titled Receive IPN messages (Enabled). This setting must be enabled in order for the PayPal account to send notifications of completed orders to your store. If this setting is set to Disabled, then the orders won't be recorded in your store records.

After configuring the Notification URL and IPN Messages settings, click the Save button to commit these changes. Your PayPal account should now be able to send its notifications to your store, allowing orders completed on PayPal's website to be moved from the store's Pending Off-Site Transactions page to the Search Orders page.

tip: manually complete a pending transaction
If PayPal has sent a separate notification that the customer was successfully billed, but the transaction is still listed as a pending transaction at [Orders >  Pending Off-Site Transactions], it is possible to manually complete the transaction.

On the Search Pending Off-Site Payment Gateway Transactions page, simply select the checkbox corresponding to the desired transaction.

Then in the Perform an action on the rows selected above... section, select Complete Transaction from the dropdown menu, and then click Go. This will remove the selected row from the Pending Off-Site Payment Gateway Transactions list and will create a new order record. The new order will be available on the Search Orders page.
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