About: Kim Dushinski

Jason:

Thanks for this answer as well. You are right, the www and no-www is an issue on my site and seems to be causing this problem. It fixes the first guy’s issue. However, the second one is strange.

The list of archived pages she was trying to access ALL start with www. She was able to access three of them, but not the others. I was able to recreate this login scenario (logging in without the www in the login page) and was also able to access two of the pages (that did go to a www page).

If I proceed to fix my site, by getting all my links with either the www or without, then I will likely wreck your ability to see this issue if you wanted to. I will try to push this fix as late in the day as possible in case you do want to take a look.

While trying to get HostGator to understand this problem, I may have figured out part of the problem. They kept trying to recreate the error in order to see what is happening. What I noticed is that they kept getting redirected to my Join Now page (where my payment button is located) but I had my Membership Options page set up as my Member Benefits page.

I have now fixed that. However, I am still having the original error.

When I log in using the refunded/demoted Subscriber test account I see the Member Welcome Page as expected. Then when I click to go to members only page, I see a blank page and that long URL. The techs at HostGator keep telling me that they see the Join Now page, fully loaded. No errors.

How do they see the right thing and I get this blank page?

I also did ask them to simply fix it based on your input from above and here is the conversation we had around that:

[Kim Dushinski]: What about this error: HTTP/1.1 414 Request-URI Too Long Server: Apache
[Anthony G.] There is not a setting for length of a URL but there is one for input variables
[Kim Dushinski]: What are input variables? How does it get changed?
[Anthony G.] This would be an example: http://domain.com/phpfile.php?variable=value&variable2=value2

Those things on the end are variables, input_variables would only be for PHP and not for http, and this setting would be modified at php.ini
[Kim Dushinski]: OK, not sure what that means exactly…
[Anthony G.] At this point I would need to be able to replicate the error on my end to further investigate it but I am unable to do so, I have been trying to see the error but its not coming up on my end.

Any ideas you can share to get this solved will be much appreciated.

Jason:

Thanks for your reply.

It was the IPN URL configuration that was the culprit. This is now working properly.

Kim

OK, I was able to install the Plugin Organizer plugin and get Lizatom Shortcodes (the plugin that was causing all the extra line breaks) to keep the extra space from showing up above my button.

However, a test order shows that the ShareASale integration is still not working!

The test order was done on a page using the s2member created button with a replacement image installed via shortcode. The conflicting plugin is turned off on that page.

The integration IS working. Through a phone call with ShareASale tech support I was able to find out that if the end user had ad blocking on in their browser it will cause the affiliate tracking to fail. I checked in with my tester and found out that was the case.

A new test on a browser allowing ads got this sale tracked to ShareASale!

OH MY GOSH AFTER FIVE DAYS OF DEALING WITH THIS IT IS WORKING!

I did not perform this action:
Another thing you can try is edit the button’s HTML template to minimize it, removing all newlines and HTML comments from it. /wp-content/plugins/s2member/includes/templates/buttons/paypal-checkout-button.php
because I don’t know how to do that. It seems to me like you should make the button in a way that works and I shouldn’t have to do that.

I also did not do this:
contact the developer and tell him about the problem so it can be fixed.
First of all, it is not their problem, secondly, I have no idea what to tell them to fix and thirdly, they wouldn’t be able to do it in time for me to launch my affiliate promotion. When we get this all sorted out I will be glad to report to them that their plugin does not work with s2Member so they can report it in their documentation. I am hoping you will do the same with yours.

I also did not do this:
For extra security, you should update your PayPal® account too, under: My Profile -> Website Payment Preferences. You’ll want to block all non-encrypted payments.

This seems like it will make my other shopping cart useless with PayPal unless they happen to already offer encrypted payments. Is that right? I can’t take down my ability to accept PayPal across the board just to get s2Member to work with ShareASale.

I did just now (after the test order) turn on button encryption.

My logging is turned on and you have my FTP details sent previously so you can check the logs.

Thanks, again, for all your help.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by  Kim Dushinski. Reason: The tracking is now working! YES =:)

Cristián:

Thank you so much for all the suggestions to try. I will do those right away and report back.

The test order you did will not track because you would need to click an affiliate link first in order for it to even try to track. But the worst news is that I didn’t receive the test order at all. I don’t see it in PayPal and nothing was sent to me.

Don’t do anything yet, I will work on these other suggestions first since we know the PayPal hosted buttons works for everything except ShareASale tracking. If I can get the plugins to play nicely with one another I may not need to worry about that.

Thanks for your replies. A few things I would like your thoughts on before I do the whole process of shutting down my plugins one by one.

For the record, I have done a lot of work on this in the past as referenced in these two posts:

http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/huge-gap-before-paypal-button-issue/
http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/extra-white-space-around-paypal-button/

1)
Changing my theme to Twenty Eleven still leaves the space above the PayPal button created by s2Member and installed via shortcode. My theme is not causing this.

2)
I just realized that my PayPal Subscr Cancellation button (created by s2Member and installed using a shortcode) did not put the extra space above the button. Are these buttons different in way that would explain this?

3)
You mention in the new KB article http://www.s2member.com/kb/using-paypal-created-buttons/ that
IMPORTANT TO NOTE: s2Member -> API Tracking Codes WILL be displayed on-site, even if you’ve used a raw HTML button code generated at PayPal. However, as I mentioned before, your API Tracking Codes will not be displayed until registration occurs, or upon the customer’s first login.

That is not true. The user who ran the test for me did register and did log in. ShareASale has not been notified of this sale.

Thank you very much for taking a look at this. Here are some responses:

3. It looks like your Return-Page URL is missing a vital piece of information.

I did not create this Return-Page URL, it is taken directly from the page that s2Member created. Furthermore, you said, This URL should include the s2member_paypal_return_tra variable, but it is missing.

How can you make s2Member include this? It seems to me that this is something s2Member should be doing. Why isn’t it? You have said…

1. You’ve NOT used the s2Member Shortcode, and instead you’ve used the full PayPal Button Code in raw HTML, or a PayPal-hosted button? We recommend that you integrate with s2Member Shortcodes for the best compatibility across all features made possible by s2Member.

I am using a PayPal hosted button because the ones created by s2Member put in about 4 inches of blank space ahead of them and cannot be fixed. I have spent hours working on that to no avail. Using the PayPal hosted buttons is the only option I have gotten to work with my site. How is it that the PayPal button strips out code from the Return URL? Really, the button can do that?

2. Your Shortcode is being modified by a custom hack file, or another plugin that is attempting to integrate with s2Member?

I do not know how to custom hack a file, so that is not happening. No hacks on this site. I have only worked within the boxes and fields of s2Member user interface.

I have no other plugins that integrate with s2Member to my knowledge. Is there a particular type of plugin that seems to mysteriously attack s2Member and thus render it useless? Forgive my sarcasm, but honestly, I have spent hours and hours trying to get s2Member set up correctly and at the end of my rope here.

I bought s2Member because it integrated with ShareASale and Aweber. There must be a way for it to work and the fault simply cannot be other plugins.

NOTE: If you’re attempting to build the PayPal Button via PHP code, we recommend using the do_shortcode() function provided by WordPress.

Yeah, again. I do not know how to build a PayPal button via PHP code, so that is not happening either.

The ball is back in your court. I really need more help here. How can you make s2Member work properly?

OK, I have enabled logging and also turned on the SignUp Notifications > Email. Not sure what I should be getting, but I didn’t get anything new that I haven’t already gotten with every other sign up before this test.

Here is the log from the test order I just did.

HP v5.2.17 :: WordPress® v6531 :: s2Member® v121023 :: s2Member® Pro v121023
Memory 54.30 MB :: Real Memory 54.50 MB :: Peak Memory 54.45 MB :: Real Peak Memory 54.50 MB
immbn.com/?s2member_paypal_return=1&tx=1H5003036K849442V&st=Completed&amt=1.00&cc=USD&cm=immbn%2ecom&item_number=&sig=qBTaAs5KC640GY998EIgaBWVw1Hcv8Y4jhfLmDwxgx31exG9%2br2Vmtc3o5CQZynnI6Uv3WtrRyqKjPGgzjn%2buz8f08dIqVRNRf7zbh3BOlW5qy4brXwlu3ml%2bFDz2%2fvY6inJYRMJ87RudEv3VJpQ1R9AUtNQXsAZpM%2bz%2bQIra2g%3d
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/23.0.1271.97 Safari/537.11
array (
‘transaction_subject’ => ‘IMMBN Annual Membership (auto renewed every year)’,
‘payment_date’ => ’14:00:02 Jan 08, 2013 PST’,
‘txn_type’ => ‘subscr_payment’,
‘subscr_id’ => ‘I-CTY6VRWDHP24’,
‘last_name’ => ‘Dushinski’,
‘residence_country’ => ‘US’,
‘item_name’ => ‘IMMBN Annual Membership (auto renewed every year)’,
‘payment_gross’ => ‘1.00’,
‘mc_currency’ => ‘USD’,
‘business’ => ‘kim@xxxxxxxxxxx.com’,
‘payment_type’ => ‘instant’,
‘protection_eligibility’ => ‘Ineligible’,
‘payer_status’ => ‘verified’,
‘payer_email’ => ‘kim.xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.com’,
‘txn_id’ => ‘1H5003036K849442V’,
‘receiver_email’ => ‘kim@xxxxxxxxxxx.com’,
‘first_name’ => ‘Kimberlee’,
‘payer_id’ => ‘H3RRV4W9DPCQU’,
‘receiver_id’ => ‘4ESQQCMRZQPNN’,
‘item_number’ => ‘1’,
‘payment_status’ => ‘Completed’,
‘payment_fee’ => ‘0.33’,
‘mc_fee’ => ‘0.33’,
‘btn_id’ => ‘55685109’,
‘mc_gross’ => ‘1.00’,
‘custom’ => ‘immbn.com’,
‘charset’ => ‘windows-1252’,
‘s2member_log’ =>
array (
0 => ‘Return-Data received on: Tue Jan 8, 2013 11:00:11 pm CET’,
1 => ‘s2Member POST vars verified through a POST back to PayPal®.’,
2 => ‘s2Member originating domain ( `$_SERVER[“HTTP_HOST”]` ) validated.’,
3 => ‘s2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ).’,
4 => ‘s2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
5 => ‘Registration Cookies set on ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
6 => ‘Transient Tracking Cookie set on ( `web_accept|subscr_signup|subscr_payment` ) w/o update vars.’,
7 => ‘Redirecting Customer to Registration Page. They need to Register now.’,
),
‘subscr_gateway’ => ‘paypal’,
‘eotper’ => NULL,
‘ccaps’ => NULL,
‘level’ => ‘1’,
‘ip’ => ‘184.99.251.149’,
)

Thanks for answering me.

I should have said, but yes, everything else is integrated perfectly between s2Member and PayPal. Right down to the Aweber integration.

Any other ideas? I really need to get this working.

Is there any documentation or information about this:
*Tip* ShareASale® also provides an alternative method, using a 3rd-party call. The alternative 3rd-party call, could be used with s2Member -> API Notifications. A 3rd-party call, is essentially an HTTP connection that runs silently behind-the-scene, as opposed to being loaded in a browser. It’s a bit more powerful, but also more advanced.