Renewals via PayPal not being updated in eMember

[parks]

Hello, the majority of our annual memberships expire on Jan 1st, so members have been renewing their memberships via our online integration with PayPal (we created a renewal payment button on our website). The issue we’re encountering is that some of the renewals are updated correctly by the database, but there are several that are not. I receive an email from PayPal for every payment made. For those members who’s records are not updated as expected, there is no record of their PayPal transaction in the Payments list. It appears that several payments are not being reported back to eMember, or if they are, eMember is dropping the record.

This happens on days when there are a lot of renewals and on days when there is only a handful of renewals. Out of 71 renewals, 18 were not properly processed. I now have to manually check every renewal to ensure the member’s record is getting updated.

I would really like to find out why this is happening and resolve it quickly.

Thanks,
Terri

[wzp]

It appears that several payments are not being reported back to eMember, or if they are, eMember is dropping the record.

Unless you have the debug logs turned on; there is no certain way for sure, to know if eMember is receiving the IPN from PayPal. There are a number of reasons, but without the debug log information, we would only be guessing. But because of the ratio of payments, it might be due to payment method failure; in which the member used a payment method that either failed, was rejected, or delayed.

Please turn on debug logs and periodically check for errors.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by wzp.

[parks]

Thanks for the quick reply. I reset and enabled the debug logs this morning (~8am PST). Since then, 2 members have renewed online. One of the members is using a different email address for their PayPal account than their membership, so eMember assumed he was a new member (I’m aware of this limitation and just correct things manually when it happens). He was sent a new member registration email which he ignored. However, a new member record was NOT created and there is no record of his transaction in the Payments list.

The 2nd member renewed online, but the transaction was not processed and does not appear in the Payment list. I manually updated her renewal. For both renewals, I received email notices from PayPal, so I believe the transactions were successful.

When I went to look at the log files, the files eMember_debug.txt and jpn_handle_debug_eMember.txt files did NOT contain any information other than the date & timestamp of my reset. The eMember_debug_cronjob.txt file contained records showing the processing of the Auto expiry email notification checks (all were successful).

The log files were still empty even after I manually updated the membership records. I would have expected something to have been recorded after I made the changes. I have the “Enable Debug” setting option checked.

Any thoughts as to why the debug files are not capturing information?

Thanks,
Terri

[wzp]

One of the members is using a different email address for their PayPal account than their membership, so eMember assumed he was a new member (I’m aware of this limitation and just correct things manually when it happens).

Are you requiring members to be logged in, before they are allowed to renew?

When I went to look at the log files, the files eMember_debug.txt and jpn_handle_debug_eMember.txt files did NOT contain any information other than the date & timestamp of my reset.

Did you receive any log entries for the first member? If you have IPN log entries for the first member, but not the second, it means PayPal had trouble processing that member’s payment method.

I received email notices from PayPal,

Log into your PayPal account and make sure you were properly credited for each renewal.

[parks]

Yes, members are required to be logged into our website in order for the Renew page to be visible. There were no log entries for the first or second members who renewed earlier today. This afternoon, two more members renewed and their renewals were updated by eMember as expected. There are log entries in the eMember_debug.txt and jpn_handle_debug_eMember.txt files for each renewal, all showing a SUCCESSFUL process.

I can understand there being no log entries for the first two members who failed to properly renew this morning IF PayPal is not sending back payment info, however I expected there to be some entries in the log files after I manually updated each membership record. Are manual updates like that not recorded in the log files?

I don’t have any evidence that PayPal is having issues processing the payments. However, it does appear that PayPal may not be sending eMember transaction information for all of the renewals that are being processed.

[parks]

More information – I’ve had a few more renewals come through over the past 2 days. In total, 6 members renewed, of which 2 were renewed successfully (there are entries in the log files for these 2), 2 did not renew as expected (there are NO entries in the logs for these), and 2 failed because the email address for the person’s PayPal accounts differs from their membership email addresses (there are NO entries in the logs for these).

For those that are failing without any obvious reason, it appears that PayPal is not sending over the transaction records. The payments are not in the Payments list and there’s nothing written to the logs. I did receive email notices from PayPal stating that both payments were made, and our PayPal account shows the money in our account, so I can conclude that there was no issue with either payment.

Any ideas on why PayPal will fail to send over transaction records for successful payments? Should I reconfigure our “Direct PayPal Integration Settings”? Would that help by re-establishing our connection?

Thanks,
Terri

[wzp]

Are you using PayPal Buy Now & Subscription buttons in eMember, or are you going through eStore?

[parks]

We’re using the PayPal Buy Now buttons. We are not using the Subscription buttons and do not have eStore installed.

[wzp]

Please ensure that your PayPal profile is correctly setup, to ensure that IPN are sent back to your site. Also, you might want to perform some kind of hands on testing, with a $1 button, to make sure the user experience is working the way it should.

[parks]

Hello, I believe I have resolved the issue of renewals randomly not working. In our reminder email, we include a link to our renewal page. Turns out that the link works if you’re not logged in. I assumed members would be taken to the login page, but that doesn’t happen. In other words, members did not have to be logged in to renew if they clicked on the direct link to the renewal page.

I changed the instructions for renewing to go to our website and first login, then go to the Renew page. So far, 5 members have done this and all memberships were renewed correctly. This also seems to resolve the issue when someone’s PayPal email address doesn’t match their eMember email address.

Thanks for all your help, there was some strange stuff going on, but now I understand why.

Have a Happy New Year,
Terri

[wzp]

The great thing about computers, compared to humans, is that they do EXACTLY what you tell them… not what you’d like them to do, LOL. You could also partial protection shortcodes on the renewal page, so that logged in members see the renewal form, and non=logged in members see a warning message & login form.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by wzp.

[Author]

Posts