PayPal: "We cannot process your request"

Dear s2Member Support,
we are selling “Individual Memberships” for 100 EUR per year as a recurring payment on our website http://www.iiid.eu.
When a user tries to register, everything seems to be fine until the user is transferred to the PayPal Website.
There he gets an error message saying: We cannot process your request at this time. Please return to your dealer and choose another option.”
When I look into the paypal-api.log I can’t see any error messages. Could you please have a look into the log file to point me in the right direction for further troubleshooting?

Hello Robert,

Could you please share the related log entries in the log files under wp-content/plugins/s2member-logs/, otherwise we can’t look into the logs. :)

– Eduan

Hello Eduan,

sorry – I had expected to get a possibility to upload a small file – but if you want me to include the log in the posting – here it is. For your convenience I have extracted the part of the logfile which is corresponding to my posting. If I can supply any other information (f.i. the complete logfile or s2Member settings) I’ll be glad to do so.

Many thanks for your support,
Robert

PHP v5.3.21 :: WordPress® v3.4.1 :: s2Member® v121023 :: s2Member® Pro v121023
Memory 14.65 MB :: Real Memory 15.25 MB :: Peak Memory 14.69 MB :: Real Peak Memory 15.25 MB
www.iiid.eu/individual-membership/
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0
-------- Input vars: ( Thu Feb 7, 2013 10:01:27 am UTC ) --------
array (
  'METHOD' => 'SetExpressCheckout',
  'RETURNURL' => 'http://www.iiid.eu/individual-membership/?s2member_paypal_xco=s2member_pro_paypal_checkout_return',
  'CANCELURL' => 'http://www.iiid.eu/individual-membership/?s2member_paypal_xco=s2member_pro_paypal_checkout_cancel',
  'PAGESTYLE' => 'paypal',
  'LOCALECODE' => '',
  'NOSHIPPING' => '1',
  'SOLUTIONTYPE' => 'Sole',
  'LANDINGPAGE' => 'Billing',
  'ALLOWNOTE' => '0',
  'L_BILLINGTYPE0' => 'RecurringPayments',
  'L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0' => '100 EUR/year (recurring charge). Registration completed with PayPal checkout',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTONAME' => 'Olaf Hoffmann',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOSTREET' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOCITY' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOSTATE' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOCOUNTRYCODE' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOZIP' => '',
  'EMAIL' => 'olaf.hoffmann@olaf-hoffmann-design.de',
  'VERSION' => '71.0',
  'USER' => 'veronika.egger_api1.iiid.net',
  'PWD' => 'has-been-replaced-by-dummy-text',
  'SIGNATURE' => 'has-been-replaced-by-dummy-text',
)
-------- Output string/vars: ( Thu Feb 7, 2013 10:01:28 am UTC ) --------
TOKEN=EC%2d9AX30758JM636062S&TIMESTAMP=2013%2d02%2d07T10%3a01%3a28Z&CORRELATIONID=d3c3f09498fc3&ACK=Success&VERSION=71%2e0&BUILD=5060305
array (
  'TOKEN' => 'EC-9AX30758JM636062S',
  'TIMESTAMP' => '2013-02-07T10:01:28Z',
  'CORRELATIONID' => 'd3c3f09498fc3',
  'ACK' => 'Success',
  'VERSION' => '71.0',
  'BUILD' => '5060305',
)

PHP v5.3.21 :: WordPress® v3.4.1 :: s2Member® v121023 :: s2Member® Pro v121023
Memory 14.64 MB :: Real Memory 15.25 MB :: Peak Memory 14.68 MB :: Real Peak Memory 15.25 MB
www.iiid.eu/individual-membership/
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0
-------- Input vars: ( Thu Feb 7, 2013 10:05:10 am UTC ) --------
array (
  'METHOD' => 'SetExpressCheckout',
  'RETURNURL' => 'http://www.iiid.eu/individual-membership/?s2member_paypal_xco=s2member_pro_paypal_checkout_return',
  'CANCELURL' => 'http://www.iiid.eu/individual-membership/?s2member_paypal_xco=s2member_pro_paypal_checkout_cancel',
  'PAGESTYLE' => 'paypal',
  'LOCALECODE' => '',
  'NOSHIPPING' => '1',
  'SOLUTIONTYPE' => 'Sole',
  'LANDINGPAGE' => 'Billing',
  'ALLOWNOTE' => '0',
  'L_BILLINGTYPE0' => 'RecurringPayments',
  'L_BILLINGAGREEMENTDESCRIPTION0' => '100 EUR/year (recurring charge). Registration completed with PayPal checkout',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTONAME' => 'Olaf Hoffmann',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOSTREET' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOCITY' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOSTATE' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOCOUNTRYCODE' => '',
  'PAYMENTREQUEST_0_SHIPTOZIP' => '',
  'EMAIL' => 'olaf.hoffmann@olaf-hoffmann-design.de',
  'VERSION' => '71.0',
  'USER' => 'veronika.egger_api1.iiid.net',
  'PWD' => 'has-been-replaced-by-dummy-text',
  'SIGNATURE' => 'has-been-replaced-by-dummy-text',
)
-------- Output string/vars: ( Thu Feb 7, 2013 10:05:11 am UTC ) --------
TOKEN=EC%2d0KD63464HV6011714&TIMESTAMP=2013%2d02%2d07T10%3a05%3a11Z&CORRELATIONID=b9c295c4a050f&ACK=Success&VERSION=71%2e0&BUILD=5060305
array (
  'TOKEN' => 'EC-0KD63464HV6011714',
  'TIMESTAMP' => '2013-02-07T10:05:11Z',
  'CORRELATIONID' => 'b9c295c4a050f',
  'ACK' => 'Success',
  'VERSION' => '71.0',
  'BUILD' => '5060305',
)

Thank you for your inquiry.

sorry – I had expected to get a possibility to upload a small file – but if you want me to include the log in the posting – here it is. For your convenience I have extracted the part of the logfile which is corresponding to my posting. If I can supply any other information (f.i. the complete logfile or s2Member settings) I’ll be glad to do so.

This appears to be the paypal-api.log file. Could you please send us all of the logs files that go along with this transaction through our Private Contact Form?

See: s2Member® » Private Contact Form

… when asking PayPal to analyze a failed transaction they say that we are not sending the PAYMENTREQUEST_n_CURRENCYCODE, therefore the transaction defaults to US$, which can cause trouble when the customer (and his PayPal acount) is non-US (which happens frequently, because we are Europe-based).

Hope that helps.

Kind regards,
Robert

Thanks for the follow-up.

… when asking PayPal to analyze a failed transaction they say that we are not sending the PAYMENTREQUEST_n_CURRENCYCODE, therefore the transaction defaults to US$, which can cause trouble when the customer (and his PayPal acount) is non-US (which happens frequently, because we are Europe-based).

I see. We would need to take a closer look at your installation and logs to get a clearer picture of what’s happening here. We have received data for your site, but they appear outdated, as they do not work anymore. If problems persist, please send us another login for your installation of WordPress.

Also, you said that your customers had this issue when they were non-US, does this mean that only Users that have non-US based currencies are receiving this error?

Dear Bruce,

thanks for the follow up!

Our problem: We are based in Austria and are selling memberships for 1 year as a recurring payment, currency: EUR.

We have configured s2Member (PayPal Account Details) with our PayPal API-credentials (our PayPal Account does not offer Payflow API credentials).

Recurring payments from customers in different countries seem to work well.

But when a customer is located in Germany, the transaction fails.

When I check the log (paypal-api.log) for a failed transaction I can see the first (of usually three activities for a recurring payment):
…
‘METHOD’ => ‘SetExpressCheckout’,
..
‘L_BILLINGTYPE0’ => ‘RecurringPayments’,
…
But after this first activity the process is halted by PayPal. The customer gets a message from PayPal “At this time we are unable to process your request….”.

When we are asking PayPal for the reason they say that it is not possible to sell recurring payments in Germany via that button (=API function call) we use and we should use another button instead, which is the “Subscribe” Button:
https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/paypal-payments-standard/integration-guide/subscribe_buttons

So how can we get s2Member working with PayPal – what can I do?

Credentials & ScreenShot have been sent via privat contact form a minute ago.

Kind regards,
Robert