Strange PayPal recurring charge hiccup

Greetings gents,

As a pre-launch test, I have setup a recurring (test) membership payment using PayPal. It was setup to test the recurring (monthly) payment functionality of S2MemberPro and PayPal. It is supposed to hit my personal PayPal account for a monthly $0.01 payment.

Yesterday, PayPal tried to charge that monthly payment, but for some reason could not. I am going to contact their tech support team to see what they can tell me, but I wanted to also see if you folks have ever seen this, and if you shed light on what the cause might be. Here is the message I received from PayPal:

Hello (Business Name)

We cannot process the following recurring payment. We will try again in five days.

Profile ID: X-XXXXXXXXXXX
For: Basic Professional Member (Individual) / Description and pricing details here.
Invoice Number: XXXXXXXXXXXXX~XX.XXX.XX.XXX
Date Due: Oct 17, 2012
Next Payment Date: Oct 22, 2012

Buyer Contact Information

Profile Status: Active
Buyer Name: XXXXX XXXXXX
Buyer Email:XXXXXXX@XXXXXXXX.com

Thanks,
PayPal

Thank you S2Member support team for any light you may be able to shed on this.

Could it be associated with the same Paypal you are receiving money with? You cannot use the same Paypal account to pay yourself. Just a thought.

Cassel,

Thanks for the suggestion. I’m using 2 different accounts, so I don’t think that would be the cause. The original transaction worked fine the day I setup the membership – this problem has occurred now 30 days later on the 1st monthly recurring charge.

Thanks though.

Ah. I dont have a better answer for you. I guess you`ll have to wait for someone more knowledgeable.

Cassel said:
Could it be associated with the same Paypal you are receiving money with? You cannot use the same Paypal account to pay yourself. Just a thought.

He wouldn’t even have been allowed to create the subscription.

The original transaction worked fine the day I setup the membership – this problem has occurred now 30 days later on the 1st monthly recurring charge.

It’ll be better to get more information from the PayPal support rep. It could have been a temporary error when their system tried to charge the card. I doubt it was a problem with the card (unless it expired within the last 30 days), the carge was too small to be a funds problem. :P

Do you have anything in your IPN log for that failed payment? I’m not sure if those get logged too, but it’s worth taking a look.

By the way, you can test these things without waiting so long, creating a button just for your tests with payments set to be daily.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by  Cristián Lávaque.

Thank you Cristián.

I will follow your advice. Can you advise me on what folder the IPN log is found in? Thank you sir.

I’m assuming logging is enabled, which is best when you’re still testing. [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Account Details -› Logging[/hilite]. If it isn’t, then please enable it so you get things logged in the future.

Logs would be found under /wp-content/plugins/s2member-logs/.

Thank you Cristián.

My pleasure. :)