Sharing this as I've recently encountered issues similar to this thread
For a long time, my script worked well (basic payment form) and returned the POST variables to my success.php page and the IPN data as POST variables also. However, lately, I noticed the return page (success.php) was no longer receiving any POST vars. I tested in Sandbox and live and I'm pretty sure PayPal have changed something !
The notify_url still receives the correct IPN data allowing me to update DB, but I've not been able to display a success message on my return URL (success.php) page.
Despite trying many combinations to switch options on and off in PayPal website payment preferences and IPN, I've had to make some changes to my script to ensure I can still process a message. I've accomplished this by turning on PDT and Auto Return, after following this excellent guide.
Now it all works fine, but the only issue is the return URL contains all of the PDT variables which is ugly!
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