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The link you have used to enter the PayPal system is invalid.

I’m trying to set up the Supporter plugin but with no luck. When I try to make a purchase in the PayPal sandbox everything works fine (it shows the correct subscription information on PayPal, etc) until I click the "Log in" button. On the next page I just get an error:

The link you have used to enter the PayPal system is invalid. Please review the link and try again.

And a button to "Return to Merchant" — when I click that button it takes me to the correct Supporter page with a "Transaction Canceled!" message.

I’ve tried:

– Checking all the "Supporter" settings, and they’re all filled in

– Creating a different sandbox account

– Installing a fresh copy of WPMU and supporter

Any ideas?

Wed, 27 May 2009 16:39:21
  • Chris M.
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Here’s the form generated by the Supporter plugin. I’ve replaced some info with EMAILADDRESS/BLOGADDRESS/BLOGNAME:

    <form action="https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr&quot; method="post">

    <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick-subscriptions">

    <input type="hidden" name="business" value="EMAILADDRESS">

    <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="BLOGNAME Supporter">

    <input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="1">

    <input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1">

    <input type="hidden" name="return" value="http://BLOGADDRESS/wp-admin/supporter.php?updated=true&updatedmsg=Transaction+Complete%21"&gt;

    <input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="http://BLOGADDRESS/wp-admin/supporter.php?updated=true&updatedmsg=Transaction+Canceled%21"&gt;

    <input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="http://BLOGADDRESS/supporter-paypal.php"&gt;

    <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1">

    <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">

    <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">

    <input type="hidden" name="custom" value="2_1_7.00_USD_1243442960">

    <input type="hidden" name="a3" value="7.00">

    <input type="hidden" name="p3" value="1">

    <input type="hidden" name="t3" value="M">

    <input type="hidden" name="src" value="1">

    <input type="hidden" name="sra" value="1">

    <p class="submit" style="border:none;padding-top:2px;">

    <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="PayPal">

    </p>

    </form>

  • Chris M.
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I’m using a sandbox account. In the sandbox I went to "Test Accounts" and created a "Preconfigured" account. Once the account was created, I verified that I could log in by selecting that account and clicking "Enter Sandbox Test Site". I logged in successfully, then went to my WPMU Supporter page, and clicked the 1 month subscription "Paypal" button. That took me to Paypal’s "Enter Payment Information" page, where the "Subscription To" "Terms" and "Amount" fields all looked correct. I entered my Paypal generated email in the "Email" field (paypal_1241815806_per@mydomain) and the password I created for that account. When I click "Log In" it takes me to a page titled "Return to Merchant – PayPal" with the error above.

  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    Hiya,

    I’ve just looked at the PayPal site for the sandbox requirements and apparently the only requirement is the url:

    http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ipn-test-about-outside

    The form you posted has the correct sandbox url according to that page so I’m not really sure what’s wrong.

    Couple of questions:

    1) Have you tried both single and subscription payments options just to make sure it’s not an issue with only one of them

    2) Did you enter your sandbox email address into the "Supporter PayPal Email" field?

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • James Kirk
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Hey Andrew,

    I was having the same challenges with my recent install of the Supporter plugin. At first it seemed that my challenges came with not having the correct email entered into the "Supporter PayPal Email" field you listed in #2 above. This has to be the address associated with the sandbox account, which is likely different than the real PayPal account email address.

    Once that was straight, I tried to purchase the recurring plan, and am still getting the:

    The link you have used to enter the PayPal system is invalid. Please review the link and try again.

    message from PayPal.

    When I change the payment type to "single", I am able to get through the purchase process in the sandbox.

    Can you tell me what I need to check now in order to ensure that I’ll be able to allow my customers to process recurring payments correctly?

    Thanks much, as always!

    James.

  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    Hiya,

    It appears PayPal has change their recurring payments requirements for their sandbox environment. We’ll take a look at this next week.

    You really shouldn’t have any problems though. The supporter plugin pretty much works out of the box as long as all of the files are in place.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • James Kirk
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Heya Andrew,

    So what you mean is that in "real" mode, there shouldn’t be a challenge? Does that go with all of the plugins that use PayPal (and have a test mode)? Because I just installed Pay to Blog and it, like Supporter and Upgrades all have the sandbox recurring payment blues.

    Thanks for your time!

    James.

  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    So what you mean is that in "real" mode, there shouldn’t be a challenge?

    Pretty much. The supporter plugin has been downloaded over eight hundred times and we’ve never received a complaint about it just not working. We also use the supporter plugin ourselves.

    Does that go with all of the plugins that use PayPal (and have a test mode)?

    Yep, the same goes for all of our plugins.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • myliszt
    • New Recruit

    Folks – I see this thread is two years old and yet I’m still having the same problem.

    I have the correct Paypal account for the sandbox mode, and I have the correct test user account to test the purchase.

    I’m glad to hear that this is only an issue with the Sandbox, but it’s pretty pointless giving us the Sandbox option and then saying “oh, by the way, it doesn’t work”. Any chance someone could try to fix the bug?

  • bcoelho2000
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    Hi everyone!

    Same problem here… The sandbox option is a must have to test our Supporter setup! You’re asking us to make a leap of faith without testing how the system responds to the settings that we setup?

    Any plans to fix this?

  • lorilr
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    I am using the membership plugin and having this same issue. I’ve double checked the sandbox credentials. I’ve used them before in other situations and they work fine.

    I saw the answer about paypal having changed the sandbox rules but surely that has been fixed by now?

    Thanks

    Lori

  • bcoelho2000
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    P.S: I even followed the excelent “marketpress-chained-payments” pdf guide by WPMUDEV fan Ozbod… but with no luck… I’m told that this is happening because I installed WP Multisite in a subdirectory but with so many people complaining about paypal changing their sandbox’s rules…

  • lorilr
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    I have solved my issue. (though I got several other misleading errors along the way) Will post here in case it helps others. Mine turned out to be user error. :slight_smile: The error messages apparently all pointed to the email I listed as the paypal account owner NOT the buyer email I was entering during the purchase process.

    I created the sandbox account [email protected]. (created many moons ago, not the real address) It has been so long since I last used this account that I forgot (if I really ever knew) how the sandbox works.

    In the membership plugin this was the address I listed as the payment gateway, paypal express subscriptions, PayPal Email for the paypal sandbox mode.

    Today I logged into paypal sandbox and created 2 new accounts. I created them as preconfigured accounts. In the “login email” box for one I typed “buyer” and for the other I typed “seller”. I entered my own password so I would be sure to get that right.

    I did nothing else in the sandbox.

    Then I went back to the membership plugin and in the payment gateway, paypal express subscriptions, PayPal Email – I changed to the seller email I created.

    And it worked. Processed the transaction, completed the purchase.

    HTH

    Lori

  • adamohern
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    I’m having the same issue. As far as I can tell I’m using the correct sandbox email and signing up using a test user with the correct sandbox test email, and yet I’m getting the same error message. Has anyone at WPMU managed to figure this out?

  • RodeoRamsey
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Just wanted to let everybody know that I found this thread when searching for the same issue regarding another (non-WPMUdev) plugin and thanks to the answers above, I was able to process a sandbox subscription payment. Mine was the same thing – had to swap my regular email addy for my sandbox email addy.

  • lewismedia
    • Flash Drive

    +1 to lorilr for her very helpful comment. I was having the same problem, because I was using my primary Sandbox testing e-mail under Paypal Express settings. What I had to do was create a test “Seller” account in the sandbox, then enter that e-mail address in the Membership plugin payment gateway settings and now works seamlessly.