registration form not showing after paypal

I’ve just installed and configured s2member (free version), and created a paypal sandbox account. I’ve gone through all the s2member settings, set up the s2member paypal options and generated the button OK. Clicking on the paypal button takes me to the sandbox account OK, I authorize the payment and get returned to a screen telling me to check my emails (which of course are not sent in sandbox mode).

Should this not return to the registration page (as per the s2member documentation) or does this not work in sandbox mode? I’ve checked the forums but cannot see this problem having been reported before. Is there something else I need to do?

I enabled logging, also have firebug enabled. The logs contain a mass of information that looks like it returned from paypal OK; also, the post data in the return contains all the required info from paypal, but it does not display the registration page.

I am getting a javascript error:-

“NetworkError: 404 Not Found – http://wp.tech2.severndelta.co.uk/wp-includes/js/l10n.js?ver=120703-679339497”

Not sure if this is causing the problem, but according to https://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/wordpress-i10n-file-404-from-s2member/ this is not a problem.

OK – after further searching I have found this post:-

http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/when-complete-paypal-no-registration-form/

which seems to confirm that it doesn’t work properly in sandbox mode.

• This topic was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by  David Easeman.

Hello David,

I wanted to add that you can do 1 cent transactions, so they will work correctly, but don’t need to spend a lot of money or use sandbox mode.

Hope this helps. :)

Hi Eduan

Thanks for that. As you suggested, I’ve used our live paypal account to test the IPN feed. However, I seem to have hit a small problem with this.

If I generate the paypal button from s2member as a subscriber, paypal will not accept credit card payments; it says you need a paypal account. I’ve set the ‘paypal account optional’ to ON, and the paypal help says ‘The PayPal Account Optional Feature is available for merchants using Express Checkout and for ‘Buy Now’, ‘Donations’ and ‘Shopping Cart’ buttons within Website Payments Standard’. This implies that the optional paypal account feature does not work with subscriber buttons.

So I generated the button as a ‘buy now’ button, and this will accept credit cards, it returns to my registration form and they get registered OK. However, I did a refund, to test the IPN feed to cancel the account. Paypal sent the IPN but s2member did not cancel the account. So does, IPN refunds only work with subscriber accounts? Is there something else I need to do?

Hello David,

OK, first, to accept subscribers with credit cards you would need s2Member pro and PayPal pro, just want to get that clear.

If you don’t have the PayPal pro and s2Member pro, only users with PayPal can subscribe, express checkout is for buy now buttons.

Also, about the refunds, I believe you would have to refund them through PayPal, and modify their account to reflect that refund, cause s2member doesn’t currently work with refunds.

Does that solve your questions?

Hi Eduan

Thanks for this info. The s2member help for PayPal IPN integration does say under s2member->PayPal Options->PayPal IPN Integration ‘… s2Member handles cancellations, expirations, failed payments, terminations ( e.g. refunds & chargebacks ) for you automatically.’ However, either I misunderstood, or the s2member documentation is not clear, on the difference between express checkout (buy now) and subscriptions. The s2member help for the IPN integration does only mention handling of subscriptions.

I did find this under s2member->PayPal Buttons->PayPal Subscr Cancellation Buttons; ‘Since all recurring charges are associated with a PayPal® Subscription; and every PayPal® Subscription is associated with a PayPal® Account; your Members will always have a PayPal® Account of their own, which is tied to their Membership with you.’

I am still at the point of evaluating s2member, we need to be able to take card payments but our ‘subscribers’ may not have PayPal accounts. I have been told that our PayPal business account is the basic version and not the pro version and it is unlikely we will upgrade to the pro version.

I guess it’s probably me, but I am finding it somewhat frustrating trying to work out what is required to make use of the various options within s2member.

Just found this post which gives a comparison of PayPal services, just a bit surprised this information is not in the Knowledge Base.

http://www.primothemes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2634

Hello David,

I suppose you solved your question then, I made sure to make a knowledge base article about it.

– Eduan