Mike (Volunteer Moderator)

One possible source of confusion here, could be the difference in cookies. I have experienced subtle changes in the past, in cases where I had previously logged into my PayPal account. Even though I was not currently logged in, PayPal (through cookies in my browser) knew that I was an existing user of their service.

In short, testing from one browser to the next (if it’s not the one you normally use); can also create changes in the layout. This occurs because of the way PayPal analyzes cookies from previous logins.

i uploaded the S2 server scanner and the only thing that came up as an “error” was: [NOTICE] WordPress® Memory Limit – it said to set at least 64M – mine is at 40.

Oh, excellent work in finding that! Be sure to update this in your /wp-config.php file. See: http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#Increasing_memory_allocated_to_PHP

This could be the solution that fixes things for you. I would take a look at your PHP error log (or ask your hosting company about this) and see if there have been cases where your WP installation ran out of memory. If so, this could explain the lack of log entries from s2Member®. It could also fix some other problems.

I was referring to this one “PayPal® PDT Identity Token”. It didn’t make any difference anyway so it’s obviously something else. Have you ever heard of such a problem where paypal directs to different pages depending on what browser is used?

To be honest, no. I’ve never heard of PayPal redirecting to a different location based on browser, as that would be extremely confusing for folks integrating PayPal with their site and services. Mobile devices see a different layout (that’s normal) but it should not reduce the functionality and make things impossible to accomplish.

My site mainly sells registrations/bookings for events and when we direct the users/customers to the paypal page to complete the transaction which i want set up with the option of paying via credit/debit card if the user/customer doesn’t have (or doesn’t want to create one) a paypal account. That has been working perfectly except for when users/customers are using Internet Explorer or Google Chrome. When using IE or Chrome, the user/customer get’s directed to a completely different page both in appearance and functionality. This incorrect page ‘requires’ users/customers to have or create a paypal account to make the payment, no option to pay via card is available. I tried calling paypal and of course they say it is something wrong with my site.

That’s really interesting. I’ve not heard this before now. If you hear something back from PayPal, please let us all know. One way to get a faster response is to post this question at StackOverflow.com for PayPal techs. See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/paypal

When you post a question, tag it “paypal”. The techs monitor this area.

You can also try: https://ppmts.custhelp.com/

i am wondering if it is due to updating wordpress ???

It’s most likely something with your IPN URL. Have a look at your Dashboard here. See: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› PayPal® IPN Integration. Grab the IPN URL from that section and visit it directly in your browser. You should get a blank page, but this will generate an entry in your log file. If it doesn’t, be sure logging is still enabled. See: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Log Files (Debug) -› Logging Configuration

This would require some custom code.

Here’s an idea that perhaps you can build from; or get someone to help you with.

Please create this directory and file:
/wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-hacks.php
(NOTE: these are MUST USE plugins, see: http://codex.wordpress.org/Must_Use_Plugins)
(See also: http://www.s2member.com/kb/hacking-s2member/)

<?php
add_filter('wp_authenticate_user', 'check_login_status');
function check_login_status($user)
	{
		$identifying_prefix = 'lt_'; // Username prefix indicates it's for a limited time.
		
		if($user instanceof WP_User && stripos($user->user_login, $identifying_prefix) === 0)
			{
				$last_login_time = (integer)get_user_option('s2member_last_login_time', $user->ID);
				$total_previous_logins = (integer)get_user_option('s2member_login_counter', $user->ID);
				
				if($last_login_time || $total_previous_logins)
					return new WP_Error('expired', 'Sorry, your Username has expired.');
			}
		return $user; // Default passthrough.
	}

Another way (perhaps more secure); would be a CRON job that sets a flag against certain accounts after they have logged in for the first time. With that in place, you might have something like this variation of the above routine.

<?php
add_filter('wp_authenticate_user', 'check_login_status');
function check_login_status($user)
	{
		if($user instanceof WP_User && get_user_option('login_expiration_flag', $user->ID))
			return new WP_Error('expired', 'Sorry, your Username has expired.');

		return $user; // Default passthrough.
	}

Combine one of these techniques with a real-time check on every page as well; like this.

<?php
add_filter('init', 'check_login_status_while_on_site');
function check_login_status_while_on_site()
	{
		if(($user = wp_get_current_user()) && get_user_option('login_expiration_flag', $user->ID))
			wp_redirect(wp_login_url()).exit();
	}

Yes, that matters. However, it is unrelated to this change.
This change impacts sites using API calls that want to verify the underlying SSL certificate on the PayPal side; and perhaps it also impacts site owners making API calls using an API Certificate file provided by PayPal.

s2Member uses an API Signature (not a certificate), and it uses the WP_Http class to deal with remote communication with PayPal. So this does not affect s2Member®. The only possible issue I can see here, would have more to do with your server configuration and installed version of OpenSSL on the server itself. If this is a problem (not likely) you will see it right away, because all checkout routines would start failing.

Again, this is highly unlikely, and from our tests against most of the popular hosting companies running WordPress® it’s a non-issue. If you want to be extra cautious, you could send an email with the above notice to your hosting company and ask them if they’re prepared as well.

The first thing to do in a case like this is to enable logging. It sounds to me like there is something missing or invalid in your configuration and s2Member® is having some trouble behind-the-scene. Please see: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Log Files (Debug) -› Logging Configuration

Once logging is enabled, please take a look at this log file after running a test transaction.
See: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Log Files (Debug) -› Log Viewer
Look at the paypal-ipn.log for an any indication of a problem.

Confirmed. This is working correctly now :-)

I don’t know if this relates but i had completely forgotten to enter the security token into the s2Member plugin until this morning, is it possible that IE and Chrome were too strict and redirected users/away form the page i wanted them to see as a result of not having this security token?

Sorry. What security token are you referring to? What is the label that s2Member® gives this?

..but is it possible to add custom fields to the registration forms for renewing members?
if not all custom fields, at least one?

No, but what you can do is redirect the customer immediately after renewal to a page that asks for any additional information you’d like to collect (e.g. ask them to update their profile now).

Please see: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Custom Return URLs Upon Success

I would create a page and put the [s2Member-Profile /] shortcode in it; and then redirect the customer to that page after checkout/renewal; asking them to update their profile.

Confirmed. This was resolved shortly after the release.

See also: Knowledge Base » Simple Shortcode Conditionals

From what I’m hearing in chatter, my guess would be mid-September.