PayPal return link frustration

I’m having trouble with some users getting lost in the registration process when returning from PayPal.

After someone has paid for their membership, they are redirected to my website through:
my url/?s2member_paypal_return=1&s2member_paypal_return_tra=…

This works fine unless they get impatient when they see PayPal’s message “if you are not redirected within 10 seconds click here”. If they click, they get to a Not Found page with the url of …/?merchant_return_link=click+here

Afterwards, the only way they are able to continue registration is to follow the link in the confirmation email from PayPal.

Is there something I can set up differently?

Hi Susan.

I suggest you take a look at the success attribute for the button, to customize the page they are returned to.
[hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Buttons -› Shortcode Attributes -> success[/hilite]

I hope that helps. :)

Thank you for your quick reply Christian.

Two things that I should clarify: Most of the time the subscribers are returned to the right page. But PayPal gives them a link called “If you are not redirected in 10 seconds click here”. If they wait for the automatic redirect there is no problem, but if they click on the “10 seconds” link they get to a “Not Found” page.

The other thing is that the documentation says that the success shortcode attribute doesnt apply to subscriber modifications. Most of my customers are doing subscriber modifications, so I need to find some solution for this.

The “10 seconds” link is also a problem in the PayPal Sandbox.

Any ideas?

Ah, I see. Hmm…

I don’t know how to remove that link in the PayPal page. :/

What URL does it have? Is it the one you copied from the PDT panel?
[hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› PayPal® PDT Integration[/hilite]

I’ll check with Jason if there’s a way to make the [hilite mono]success[/hilite] attribute work when modifying a subscription.

Hi again,

The URL that I copied from the PDT panel, that I pasted into my PayPal “Return URL” is
…/?s2member_paypal_return=1

The automatic redirects have a url …/?s2member_paypal_return=1&s2member_paypal_return_tra=…
These are successful.

The return URL when someone clicks the “10 seconds” link and gets a Not Found page is
.…/?merchant_return_link=click+here

Thank you for looking into this for me!

OK, got it. I guess you’d need to ask PayPal how to edit that link, I don’t know how to do it.

You can also customize the header for that PayPal page, and add some instructions for the user so he knows what to do.

The header image has to be hosted in a secure server, here’s a free service for that:
http://www.sslpic.com/

I hope that helps!

Thank you — I talked to PayPal today and they asked for the url and a screenshot. They are working on it for me so I’ll let you know what they come back with.

Cool. I hope they help you solve it. :)

By the way, in case it’s of some use for someone that lands on this thread, there is a way to specify a custom success page for modifications too, Jason just told me how:

The success attribute will not work for modifications, only for new customers.

If you want a custom return URL after a modification to an existing account, this filter is available.

[hilite pre_code]
add_filter("ws_plugin__s2member_redirection_url_after_modification", "my_redirection", 10, 2);
function my_redirection($url, $vars)
{
return "http://www.example.com/my-custom-modification-ty-page/";
}
[/hilite]

Was there a solution?

Unfortunately I have the same problem. If the customer is waiting everything works well. PayPal then redirects to the URL:
http://www.mydomain.net/?s2member_paypal_return=1&tx=22M78991WX9538347&st=Completed&amt=0.80&cc=EUR&cm=www.mydomain.net&item_number=sp:30:4380
The S2Member return-page directs the customer to the paid content.

But if the customer does not want to wait and click on the link (i think most customers do so), the redirect is wrong:
http://www.mydomain.net/?merchant_return_link=klicken+Sie+hier&form_charset=UTF-8

This problem affects all s2member user, right? Or is it dependent on a setting?

Hi,

Your experience is the same as mine and it is still not resolved. After speaking with someone at PayPal, I got this reply by email:

After additional research, I can confirm that this is a known issue. I’m attaching your ticket to the bug that we have filed – this will ensure that we update you through this ticket when we have more information.

When they get back to me, I’ll post the info in this thread.

Thanks for your answer, Susan.
This is really frustrating. I have spent many hours trying to find any cause. :-(

Dear Cristian or Jason, are you sure that it could not be a problem of S2Member? Can you reproduce the problem?
Is there any workaround? I cant go live with my site in this way. :-(

For a work around (read: hack), have you looked into doing an .htaccess mod_rewrite to turn a “?merchant_return_link=click+here” http request into “?s2member_” request?

Holger, that really seems a problem with PayPal, their link in that page should take the customer to the URL that it’d redirect him to automatically (the one that works).

Mark, that’s a good idea to try.

Susan, thanks for the update! I look forward to future ones.