Recurring Payment not showing as Recurring

I’ve used S2Member for years for specific page purchases (buy now), but now we are going to start offering memberships with a choice of monthly or yearly recurring payments. I am testing now and the 1st test I did was an upgrade from Free to Monthly. The payment was made with another paypal account and it went thru fine, but when I checked in my paypal account it shows up under the type “Payment From” not “Recurring Payment From” – so it seems this went thru as a single payment that will not be recurring.

I called PayPal and since I am not generating subscription buttons on their site, they said I need to contact S2. My acct is PayPal Pro with Payflow and recurring is added on from PayPal Mgr.

How do I 100% know/tell a payment that goes thru is a recurring payment and how do I correct what I think is now payments being processed as just single buys?

I also checked the paypal account I made the payment from and in there it shows as a straight payment and when I checked under My Money > My preapproved payments… nothing shows up as a subscription.

Also the receipt received (buyer side) shows as “You sent a payment of $9.99 USD to XYZ company”
Description is blank unit price $9.99, qty 1, amount $9.99 – absolutely nothing about it being recurring. And on the seller side the receipt received was “You received a payment of $9.99 USD from …”

Inside WordPress when I check the user info, it now shows they are at Level 1, shows Paid Subscr. Gateway as PayPal, Paid Subscr. ID = RP0000…., but not showing any auto EOT time.

Thanks for any information,
Ian

Any help with this?

Is S2 set up to do the 1st payment as basically a single purchase and then it sets up the recurring to start at the next period of the term? I ask because if you look at one of my log files below, it shows the “Start Date” as May 13, but the original date the buyer paid for membership is April 12th. So I’m thinking the 1st payment is processed as just that, a regular payment, and then the recurring payment billing will start at the date the log show (next month or next year, based of what type of subscription the person purchased).

Just trying to confirm this is how it works as I am concerned we launch and we get a bunch of members who get billed initially, but then the recurring doesn’t kick in.

Here is some more info pulled from my paypal payflow api log. This is from a monthly subscription purchase that has a 30 day trial at $5.99, then recurring each month after at $9.99

array (
‘RESULT’ => ‘0’,
‘RPREF’ => ‘RLC58E8A1***’,
‘PROFILEID’ => ‘RP0000000***’,
‘STATUS’ => ‘ACTIVE’,
‘PROFILENAME’ => ‘1368420762:30 D:1 M~*****~1’,
‘START’ => ‘05132013’,
‘TERM’ => ‘0’,
‘NEXTPAYMENT’ => ‘05132013’,
‘PAYPERIOD’ => ‘MONT’,
‘FREQUENCY’ => ‘1’,
‘TENDER’ => ‘P’,
‘AMT’ => ‘9.99’,
‘ACCT’ => ”,
‘ABA’ => ”,
‘ACCTTYPE’ => ”,
‘AGGREGATEAMT’ => ‘0.00’,
‘AGGREGATEOPTIONALAMT’ => ‘5.99’,
‘MAXFAILPAYMENTS’ => ‘2’,
‘NUMFAILPAYMENTS’ => ‘0’,
‘RETRYNUMDAYS’ => ‘2’,
‘EMAIL’ => ‘*****’,
‘NAME’ => ‘*****’,
‘LASTNAME’ => ‘*****’,
‘CURRENCY’ => ‘USD’,
)

Is term correct at: ‘TERM’ => ‘0’, ?

Thanks for any input.

Thank you for your inquiry.

What your first payment shows up as depends on what you have set up here:

Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Account Details -› Recurring Profile Behavior

If you have this consolidated, then the first payment is done within the recurring profile. Otherwise, it shows up as a regular payment, and the first recurring payment is the next payment.

Thanks for the reply. I checked and I do have the Recurring Profile set to:
Consolidate w/Recurring Profile (1st payment charged immediately)

So the 1st payment will go thru as a regular charge and the recurring profile is set up, but the 1st recurring payment is not considered part of recurring until the 2nd payment is pulled from the account, correct?

I ask again because it seems odd that during that 1st period or term of the subscription (say 1 month) the person who buys will see it as a payment to us, but if they check their PayPal account under My Money>My preapproved payments it does not show up there yet.

Now if they go to cancel during that 1st month, it pops up on our site for them to log into Paypal (if payment was made with a Paypal acct), but when they do, it doesn’t show a subscription yet to cancel bc the 2nd payment hasn’t recurred yet to set it up as a recurring payment – so I can see those who want to cancel in the 1st month getting confused on how to do so.

So the 1st payment will go thru as a regular charge and the recurring profile is set up, but the 1st recurring payment is not considered part of recurring until the 2nd payment is pulled from the account, correct?

The opposite. This option will have Users see their first payment as part of the subscription. However, since you’re running a free trial it doesn’t work the same way. Your Users aren’t actually signed up for the subscription until the trial ends.

The opposite. This option will have Users see their first payment as part of the subscription. However, since you’re running a free trial it doesn’t work the same way. Your Users aren’t actually signed up for the subscription until the trial ends.

In reading thru the log files, I am pretty confident these payments will recur on the start date given. But, I did just run a test payment, with no trial, and it still showed up as a regular payment and not part of a subscription. Did the test for a 1 week subscription and the log file shows start date a April 20th, so I’m still taking it that the 1st payment is not part of a recurring subscription until that 1st time period runs out and the 2nd payment is processed (the one a week later on April 20th).

In reading thru the log files, I am pretty confident these payments will recur on the start date given. But, I did just run a test payment, with no trial, and it still showed up as a regular payment and not part of a subscription. Did the test for a 1 week subscription and the log file shows start date a April 20th, so I’m still taking it that the 1st payment is not part of a recurring subscription until that 1st time period runs out and the 2nd payment is processed (the one a week later on April 20th).

It’s interesting that PayPal would report that the subscription hasn’t started yet. The best way to tell at this point is to check your paypal-ipn.log file and see what txn_type s2Member is picking the transaction us as. s2Member should be creating a new subscription.

‘txn_type’ => ‘express_checkout’,

‘txn_type’ => ‘express_checkout’,

Can you post the shortcode you’re using?

This is for the tests I’ve been running with no trial, $2.00, recurring weekly

[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form level="4" ccaps="" desc="$2.00 USD / Weekly (recurring charge, for ongoing access)" ps="thecushion" lc="" cc="USD" dg="0" ns="1" custom="thecushion.com" ta="0" tp="0" tt="D" ra="2.00" rp="1" rt="W" rr="1" rrt="" rra="2" accept="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal="paypal" coupon="" accept_coupons="0" default_country_code="" captcha="0" /]

I haven’t read the rest of the thread because Bruce is helping you, but I noticed something in your shortcode that I thought I’d mention: your [hilite mono]custom[/hilite] value is [hilite mono]thecushion.com[/hilite], but when I opened that address it shows a www. Please see this article: Knowledge Base » Don't Mix www, — and Without!

I haven’t read the rest of the thread because Bruce is helping you, but I noticed something in your shortcode that I thought I’d mention: your custom value is thecushion.com, but when I opened that address it shows a www. Please see this article: Knowledge Base » Don’t Mix www, — and Without!

Thanks for the feedback, but for me, whenever I test in any browser, it shows without the www.

Even if I try to put www in, the resulting url reverts to thecushion.com/xxxxx (without the www)

Thanks for the information.

I believe you’re getting this because of your integration with Payflow. I currently don’t have any way to recreate this with Payflow yet, so if you could let us know if your test transaction works correctly when it recurs, that would be great. As far as I can see there’s nothing actually going wrong here, PayPal just does not show that this is a recurring subscription for the first payment through Payflow.

If you do have issues with the actual subscription let us know and I’ll have our development team look into it. Your shortcode looks correct.

Thanks for the feedback, but for me, whenever I test in any browser, it shows without the www.

Even if I try to put www in, the resulting url reverts to thecushion.com/xxxxx (without the www)

I can confirm that you have some issues here, but only with your homepage. Your site redirects to http://www.thecushion.com when you access thecushion.com. Any other time it does not.

Hi there,

Any update on that? I’m having the exact same problem and it’s not a small one…

The “Description” field in Paypal receipts is blank… Well, everything exactly as described by t2media:

Description is blank unit price $9.99, qty 1, amount $9.99 – absolutely nothing about it being recurring. And on the seller side the receipt received was “You received a payment of $9.99 USD from …”

Pretty annoying, huh?

Thanks for your insight.

Hi Ian. I read the whole thread this time.

Your shortcode seems okay, and it would create a subscription. The log entry you quoted says it’s a subscription too.

To test and find out quicker about the next payment, make the regular term just a day, the amount can be 1 cent for the tests.

[[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form level="4" ccaps="" desc="$0.01 USD/day" ps="thecushion" lc="" cc="USD" dg="0" ns="1" custom="thecushion.com" ta="0" tp="0" tt="D" ra="0.01" rp="1" rt="D" rr="1" rrt="" rra="2" accept="paypal,visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal="paypal" coupon="" accept_coupons="0" default_country_code="" captcha="0" /]]

Keep logging enabled during your tests and if you still have a problem with this, please submit your site’s info so I can take a look at the logs. Let us know if you send the info. s2Member® » Private Contact Form

Hey Cristiàn,

Your shortcode seems okay, and it would create a subscription. The log entry you quoted says it’s a subscription too.

It does create a subscription on s2member’s side, but apparently not on PayPal’s.

I just made another test, with all .htaccess redirects disabled –> no joy.

Another weird thing is that there’s no Description whatsoever in PP’s receipts (customer & seller).
So, apparently this info is not transmitted to them, or it’s lost in translation… but only for recurring payments.

Getting a bit concened and very confused!

That’s very weird. Could you submit your site’s info? s2Member® » Private Contact Form

Did you do the troubleshooting suggested here? Knowledge Base » Common Troubleshooting Tips

OK, I have more info. I had to go live because I had an event that needed to be covered, so I currently have my logging disabled.

Now the below is info from going back and forth with PayPal:

In looking deeper into my Paypal manager reports, it is showing all my members as recurring, though it is too early before the 2nd payment has been pulled from any account. Now I did do some tests at the 1 week recurring period and neither of these recurred after 1 week. In checking the PP mgr reports it shows that both of these were trying to recur but they were both declined. One of these I did with a PayPal account and the other was an Amex card.
Result code is coming up: 7

I also tried this morning to force a payment to both of these and they came up:
Field format error: 10411-This Express Checkout session has expired. Token value is no longer valid..

I looked at a lot of the profile IDs I have so far and they all look correct, that they will recur. It seems the info is getting into PayPal Manager correctly, but that there is sort of error to complete the recurring payment. Maybe things are coming from my site via S2Member correctly and there is something not getting logged into the accounts?

Paypal came back with:
“It is good that they are trying to recur, this means the profile was created properly. But the Result Code 7 you are seeing is happening when there is a formatting error. The other code you are seeing is when you try to use a token after it expires. Tokens expire after 3 hours. When you are using recurring billing, you should be getting back a BAID (billing agreement ID). You can then use that to run the transactions. I did not see any BAID fields in the log you sent over.” (I sent PayPal the Payflow API logs from before the site went live)

“Compare the code on this page to see what I am referring to. https://www.x.com/node/2761 Check your requests to make sure you are following the correct example. It looks like the initial payment is being done, but the wrong info is being referenced when it comes time to recur.”

My question back to S2… is what doing I do now, seems something is not getting to PayPal.
Also, I just ran 2 more tests today using a PayPal acct & this is the receipt the end-user would have gotten:

Description Unit price Qty Amount

$5.99 USD 1 $5.99 USD

No description….

Like I said, I am live now and have a little time to get this sorted out, but I am due to start recurring with my members in 3 weeks.

Any further help is much appreciated.

Thanks for the update. I forwarded it to Jason.

I understand you had to go live. If possible, could you set up in another directory a new test installation of WP with just s2Member and fill out the PayPal fields so some testing can be done there with logging enabled? s2Member® » Private Contact Form

Hey Cristián,

I’ve reset WP to its defaults with just S2Member & the PayPal info.

Just made a test (with logging enabled), same issue.

I’m contacting you via the Private Contact Form.

Hi there,

Any update on that? It’s becoming pretty urgent on my side, as it is for t2media: we must go live next week.

I’ve sent you everything you need to test on the real site (reset to WP defaults), via the Private Contact Form.

Btw., and this is important too, could you e-mail me the IPs that I have to allow in .htaccess. I’ve disabled the redirection so you can access it… but I need to re-enable it asap.

Thanks.

No, I’m waiting for Jason.

Thanks, got the email with your site’s info, I’ll take a look now.

I did a few test purchase attempts and sent Jason some notes about what I did and found. I’ll wait for his input.

I also saw in the PayPal IPN log, for the test that resulted in a successful purchase, a weekly subscription for 1 cent, that there was this error:

2 => ‘Unable to verify `$_SERVER[“HTTP_HOST”]`. Please check the `custom` value in your Button Code. It MUST start with your domain name.’,

I don’t know why you’re getting that, if the custom value in the shortcode is correct, I just created the shortcode. The account I created also has the correct valud for that field in the profile. Could you check in the subscription’s profile over at PayPal if the s2Member custom field has the correct value?

I’d have liked to try the server scanner, but you didn’t send FTP info in your email. Could you try it please? Knowledge Base » s2Member® Server Scanner

Hi Cristi´n,

Thanks for your speedy reply and testing.

Could you check in the subscription’s profile over at PayPal if the s2Member custom field has the correct value?

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that. In PayPal’s Manager > latest transaction?

I’ll install the server scanner within the next hour (got a quick appointment).

Meanwhile: s2i.php if it can help.

Can’t believe it! Something new in PayPal’s Manager > Recurring Billing > Manage Profiles.

Up until now, the search returned nothing. Now I can see the subscriptions, yours and mine (meaning before I reset WP):

Cristian	Active	USD 0.01	Weekly	0	Fri Apr 26, 2013		Sat May 04, 2013 	Sat May 04, 2013

Go figure… but that seems to be good news anyway!

1. Still can’t see what you call “s2member custom field” though.

2. Just made another test and received PP’s customer receipt –> Description field still empty.

3. Still can’t explain the IPN error you mentioned. Call PayPal support to double-check w/ them that everything is configured properly everywhere? My customer didn’t know and used “www” in several places. I think I removed them all, but I may have missed one.

On my side, I have always seen the subscriptions when I search in PayPal manager > Recurring Billing > Manage Profiles. Everything looks 100% correct, but when it went to do its first recurring payment, it was declined – both on an account that was originally paid with a PayPal account and one that was paid with an AMEX card.

Both showing Result code as 7
and when I try to force a payment, comes back:
Field format error: 10411-This Express Checkout session has expired. Token value is no longer valid..

In searching the forums I noticed something on BAID, that S2 does not rely on that method. So I sent that info onto the PayPal rep I have been dealing with on my ticket with them. Not sure what they will get back with, but hopefully Jason might have some more insight from the S2 side of things as I am 2 weeks away from real customers set to be billed again for their 1st recurring period and right now it recurring is failing with the tests I ran.

Thanks