recurring payment, no re-promotion

Some of my members use a yearly PayPal recurring payment. They signed up last year through the website during September. At the time, the website used the most current version of s2member framework. There were many problems, some due to configuration errors, some due to user errors and some due to issues that s2member has since resolved. In any event, many of the users ended up with manually entered EOTs.

This September, using s2memberPro, users are being appropriately demoted. But the repromotion is NOT happening. So I have –again– been entering manual EOTs. In the hope that this will not be a problem next year, I’ve been filling in the “Paid Subscriber id” with the “Automatic payment number” found on the user’s PayPal receipt. As well, I’ve set the payment gateway to PayPal, and the “Custom Value” to “ashguild.ca” (the value that s2member usually fills in for me).

Is this a normal failure for situations like mine?
How can I avoid a similar failure next year?
Are the values that I’m entering the correct ones?

Thanks

This September, using s2memberPro, users are being appropriately demoted. But the repromotion is NOT happening.

I don’t understand what you mean by “repromotion”. Are you expecting it to happen automatically or do you mean the user paying to start the subscription again?

If you entered an EOT manually, s2Member will use that instead of waiting for PayPal to notify when to end it, so even if the subscription is still going, the user will be demoted and the continuing subscription doesn’t upgrade the user again. If the subscription is still going, you’ll need to bring the user back to the level he should have and leave the EOT field empty so it works with PayPal instead.

Does that answer the question?

I thought that with a properly functioning recurring payment, s2Member would

1. demote user on automatic EOT
2. wait for payment confirmation from PayPal
3. repromote user to former level and capabilities

If I understand what you’re telling me, for recurring payments made through PayPal, s2member does not store any EOT but waits for PayPal to tell it if a payment occurs? How does it know to demote a member if, for some reason, PayPal doesn’t talk to it?

I wish that s2member had a field on the edit-user page that showed the expected EOT based on payment method. It would make it much easier to judge whether my system was working correctly.

In any event, if I remove the manual EOTs from the user accounts with problems, will the PayPal EOT work given this?

Paid Subscriber id ==Automatic payment number from the user’s PayPal receipt

If I understand what you’re telling me, for recurring payments made through PayPal, s2member does not store any EOT but waits for PayPal to tell it if a payment occurs?

Right, but the EOT is set when PayPal tells s2Member that payment didn’t occur or won’t occur anymore.

How does it know to demote a member if, for some reason, PayPal doesn’t talk to it?

It doesn’t know, it needs PayPal to tell it.

In any event, if I remove the manual EOTs from the user accounts with problems, will the PayPal EOT work given this?

Right, if there’s not EOT set in the profile, and PayPal is notifying s2Member, then the EOT will work correctly demoting the user if he stops paying (cancels, failed payment, etc.).