WP eMember No Longer Creating New User Accounts For Every New User

[Kristina]

Hi,
We have been using WP eMember for about 3 years now and over the last week we have seen a new issue where not all new members who have signed up via PayPal and therefore created recurring payments are getting new user profiles created in WP eMember automatically. Haven’t been able to work out yet why this only affects some new members but I could really do with knowing whether this has happened to someone else before and what we could possibly do to resolve it as we are having to track and create a lot of new members manually.
Thanks.

[wzp]

…this only affects some new members

Please ensure the debug logs are turned on, and see if there is a pattern or commonality. Also, are you using a Business or Personal PayPal account?

[admin]

In your email, you mentioned that you amended an existing subscription payment button temporarily and changed the pricing on it. That can cause this issue since for some of those users/members, the payment verification can fail. I will reply to you via email but I will also post an explanation of the issue here just in case you don’t receive the email:

Changing an existing subscription button on the fly is not recommended since a subscription agreement has ongoing payments that can affect future incoming payment verifications if the existing product prices are altered. Let me give you a simple example to illustrate the issue. Let’s say you have a subscription payment button that charges $10 per month. A few users subscribe to that payment. Now, you alter that payment button/product and set the price to $20 per month. When a payment notification for a recurring payment (from a user who subscribed at the $10 price tag) comes in, the plugin will fail that verification since it expects that product/payment button’s amount to be $20. It will assume that somebody is trying to pay less than what the real price is (some people out there will try to do this so the plugin has a guard against it).

So when you want to offer a new/different subscription pricing option, do the following:

– Create a NEW payment button/product at the new price or offer.
– Edit the page containing the payment button.
– Replace the old button with the new button so the new users interact with the new button.
– You can replace the button again if you want at a later time.

The payment from old users will continue to be processed correctly since you didn’t alter that payment pricing.

[Kristina]

Hi – thanks for your replies. I understand now about creating a new button when offering a flash sale trial period.
We have now enabled debug logging and also reset the debug logging files. I’ll update when we have had a new member start a subscription in PayPal who does not get a new WP eMember account automatically created for them, as I suspect we may need help understanding the debugging log.
We are using a business PayPal account but our members may not be.

[Kristina]

We had another new member with this issue this morning, below are the entries in the ipn_handle_debug_eMember.txt log file which relate to her subscription.

It looks like the following line shows what the issue is…

[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Did not find a record in the members table for subscriber ID: I-4V35V1UWWY6H

As other new subscribers who have had their WP eMember accounts correctly created have the following two lines instead of that one…

[09/30/2022 2:15 AM] – SUCCESS :Found a record in the member table. The eMember ID of the account to check is: 5451 Membership Level: 9
[09/30/2022 2:15 AM] – SUCCESS :This membership level is not using a duration/interval value. No need to change the start date. Only update the account status to active.

Any ideas how to resolve this or should I just create a brand new payment button to use for new subscribers?

Here are the full log entries for the new member with the issue…

[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :WP eMember Button IPN Hanlder. Paypal Class Initiated by 173.0.81.140
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Post string : transaction_subject=Academy+Member+II+Payment&payment_date=21%3A50%3A33+Sep+29%2C+2022+PDT&txn_type=subscr_payment&subscr_id=I-4V35V1UWWY6H&last_name=Jacob&residence_country=AU&item_name=Academy+Member+II+Payment&payment_gross=&mc_currency=GBP&business=hello%40kristinagasperas.com&payment_type=instant&protection_eligibility=Eligible&verify_sign=AtccfYEUBrypHB9n.gGEsne0Ip6iA-YEZvV8Gmhmwcws7ccPZF5x5xPJ&payer_status=verified&payer_email=tayawjacob%40gmail.com&txn_id=96G192680D308063H&receiver_email=hello%40kristinagasperas.com&first_name=Taya&payer_id=8ZUJF246CDHFQ&receiver_id=DDKUEZ9R68BVL&item_number=39259&payment_status=Completed&payment_fee=&mc_fee=1.18&mc_gross=17.99&custom=subsc_ref%253D9&charset=windows-1252&notify_version=3.9&ipn_track_id=f84670966bf82&
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Checking if PayPal IPN response is valid
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Connecting to: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :IPN successfully verified.
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Creating product Information to send.
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Transaction Type: Buy Now/Subscribe
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Item Number: 39259
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Item Name: Academy Member II Payment
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Item Quantity: 1
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Item Total: 17.99
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Item Currency: GBP
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Membership payment paid for membership level ID: 9
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Updating subscription start date if applicable for this subscription payment. Subscriber ID: I-4V35V1UWWY6H Email: tayawjacob@gmail.com
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Did not find a record in the members table for subscriber ID: I-4V35V1UWWY6H
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Saving transaction data to the database.
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Transaction data saved.
[09/30/2022 4:51 AM] – SUCCESS :Paypal class finished.

[wzp]

Any ideas how to resolve this or should I just create a brand new payment button to use for new subscribers?

As suggested by @admin, trying to reuse existing buttons, etc. could be an issue.

[Kristina]

I have now created a new subscription button and embedded it on our website. So, hoping that this issue no longer occurs.

[Author]

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