Setting PayPal return URL and making it auto return

Question

This is a follow up question to  PHP  Easy way to start PayPal checkout   So  my problem is that I am specifying the return url  However  after paying with PayPal  I end up at a a screen that says      You just completed your payment  XXXX  you just completed your payment    Your transaction ID for this payment is  XXXXXXXXXXXXX       We ll send a confirmation email to XX XXXX com  This transaction will appear on your statement as PAYPAL   Go to PayPal account overview    I need it to not show this screen and go directly to the return URL  I have     Set the  return  variable Set the  rm  variable to  2  which according to the guide    the buyer   s browser is redirected to the return URL by using the POST method  and all payment variables are included     In fact  here s my whole form    lt form method  post  action  https   www sandbox paypal com cgi-bin webscr  gt     lt input type  hidden  value   xclick  name  cmd  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  onlinestore thegreekmerchant com  name  business  gt     lt  --  lt input type  hidden  name  undefined quantity  value  1    gt  -- gt     lt input type  hidden  value  Order at The Greek Merchant  amp lt Br   amp gt Goldfish Flock BLG amp lt br   amp gt   name  item name  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  NA  name  item number  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  22 16  name  amount  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  5 17  name  shipping  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  0  name  discount amount  gt             lt input type  hidden  value  0  name  no shipping  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  No comments  name  cn  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  USD  name  currency code  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  http   XXX XXX XXX paypal return  name  return  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  2  name  rm  gt           lt input type  hidden  value  11255XXX  name  invoice  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  US  name  lc  gt     lt input type  hidden  value  PP-BuyNowBF  name  bn  gt     lt input type  submit  value  Place Order   name  finalizeOrder  id  finalizeOrder  class  submitButton  gt   lt  form gt    Any idea how I can get it to automatically go back  Alternatively  how do I get the result of the payment back to my website so I can update the database  What is IPN

User · Answer

Sample form using PHP for direct payments.

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">
    <input type="hidden" name="upload" value="1">
    <input type="hidden" name="business" value="[email protected]">

    <input type="hidden" name="item_name_' . $x . '" value="' . $product_name . '">
    <input type="hidden" name="amount_' . $x . '" value="' . $price . '">
    <input type="hidden" name="quantity_' . $x . '" value="' . $each_item['quantity'] . '"> 
    <input type="hidden" name="custom" value="' . $product_id_array . '">
    <input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="https://www.yoursite.com/my_ipn.php">
    <input type="hidden" name="return" value="https://www.yoursite.com/checkout_complete.php">
    <input type="hidden" name="rm" value="2">
    <input type="hidden" name="cbt" value="Return to The Store">
    <input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="https://www.yoursite.com/paypal_cancel.php">
    <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
    <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
    <input type="image" src="http://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but01.gif" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - its fast, free and secure!">
</form>

kindly go through the fields notify_url, return, cancel_return

sample code for handling ipn (my_ipn.php) which is requested by paypal after payment has been made.

For more information on creating a IPN, please refer to this link.

<?php
// Check to see there are posted variables coming into the script
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] != "POST")
    die("No Post Variables");
// Initialize the $req variable and add CMD key value pair
$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
// Read the post from PayPal
foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
    $value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
    $req .= "&$key=$value";
}
// Now Post all of that back to PayPal's server using curl, and validate everything with PayPal
// We will use CURL instead of PHP for this for a more universally operable script (fsockopen has issues on some environments)
//$url = "https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr";
$url = "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr";
$curl_result = $curl_err = '';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $req);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "Content-Length: " . strlen($req)));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
$curl_result = @curl_exec($ch);
$curl_err = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$req = str_replace("&", "\n", $req);  // Make it a nice list in case we want to email it to ourselves for reporting
// Check that the result verifies
if (strpos($curl_result, "VERIFIED") !== false) {
    $req .= "\n\nPaypal Verified OK";
} else {
    $req .= "\n\nData NOT verified from Paypal!";
    mail("[email protected]", "IPN interaction not verified", "$req", "From: [email protected]");
    exit();
}

/* CHECK THESE 4 THINGS BEFORE PROCESSING THE TRANSACTION, HANDLE THEM AS YOU WISH
  1. Make sure that business email returned is your business email
  2. Make sure that the transaction?s payment status is ?completed?
  3. Make sure there are no duplicate txn_id
  4. Make sure the payment amount matches what you charge for items. (Defeat Price-Jacking) */

// Check Number 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
if ($receiver_email != "[email protected]") {
//handle the wrong business url
    exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ($_POST['payment_status'] != "Completed") {
    // Handle how you think you should if a payment is not complete yet, a few scenarios can cause a transaction to be incomplete
}

// Check number 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$this_txn = $_POST['txn_id'];
//check for duplicate txn_ids in the database
// Check number 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$product_id_string = $_POST['custom'];
$product_id_string = rtrim($product_id_string, ","); // remove last comma
// Explode the string, make it an array, then query all the prices out, add them up, and make sure they match the payment_gross amount
// END ALL SECURITY CHECKS NOW IN THE DATABASE IT GOES ------------------------------------
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Homework - Examples of assigning local variables from the POST variables
$txn_id = $_POST['txn_id'];
$payer_email = $_POST['payer_email'];
$custom = $_POST['custom'];
// Place the transaction into the database
// Mail yourself the details
mail("[email protected]", "NORMAL IPN RESULT YAY MONEY!", $req, "From: [email protected]");
?>

The below image will help you in understanding the paypal process. Paypal process flow

For further reading refer to the following links;

hope this helps you..:)

User · Answer

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    You may also find this helpful

User · Answer

I think that the idea of setting the Auto Return values as described above by Kevin is a bit strange   Say  for example  that you have a number of websites that use the same PayPal account to handle your payments  or say that you have a number of sections in one website that perform different purchasing tasks  and require different return-addresses when the payment is completed  If I put a button on my page as described above in the  Sample form using PHP for direct payments  section  you can see that there is a line there   input type  hidden  name  return  value  https   www yoursite com checkout complete php    where you set the individual return value  Why does it have to be set generally  in the profile section as well      Also  because you can only set one value in the Profile Section  it means  AFAIK  that you cannot use the Auto Return on a site with multiple actions   Comments please

User · Answer

You have to enable auto return in your PayPal account  otherwise it will ignore the return field   From the documentation  updated to reflect new layout Jan 2019       Auto Return is turned off by default    To turn on Auto Return          Log in to your PayPal account at https   www paypal com or https   www sandbox paypal com   The My Account Overview page appears    Click the gear icon top right     The Profile Summary page appears     Click the My Selling Preferences link in the left column    Under the Selling Online section  click the Update link in the row for Website Preferences    The Website Payment Preferences page appears   Under Auto Return for Website Payments  click the On radio button to enable Auto    Return     In the Return URL field  enter the URL to which you want your payers redirected after    they complete their payments     NOTE  PayPal checks the Return URL that you enter  If the URL is not properly formatted    or cannot be validated  PayPal will not activate Auto Return     Scroll to the bottom of the page  and click the Save button       IPN is for instant payment notification   It will give you more reliable useful information than what you ll get from auto-return   Documentation for IPN is here  https   www x com sites default files ipnguide pdf  Online Documentation for IPN  https   developer paypal com docs classic ipn gs IPN   The general procedure is that you pass a notify url parameter with the request  and set up a page which handles and validates IPN notifications  and PayPal will send requests to that page to notify you when payments refunds etc  go through   That IPN handler page would then be the correct place to update the database to mark orders as having been paid

User · Answer

one way i have found   try to insert this field into your generated form code    lt input type  hidden  name  rm  value  2  gt    rm means return method    2 means  post   Than after user purchases and returns to your site url  then that url gets the POST parameters as well   p s  if using php  try to insert var dump   POST   in your return url script  then make a test purchase and when you return back to your site you will see what variables are got on your url

User · Answer

on the checkout page  look for the  cancel return  hidden form element    set the value of the cancel return form element to the URL you wish to return to

[paypal] Setting PayPal return URL and making it auto return?

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