How do I get PayPal to work with Laravel PHP? - php

Question

Seems like nobody in the last 5 years has tried to get PayPal to work with a Laravel site on PHP so I am forcibly asking now.
I am using this package: https://github.com/srmklive/laravel-paypal
And I am sending PayPal this:
array:6 [▼
"items" => array:2 [▼
0 => array:3 [▼
"name" => "Product 1"
"price" => 9.99
"qty" => 1
]
1 => array:3 [▼
"name" => "Product 2"
"price" => 4.99
"qty" => 2
]
]
"return_url" => "https://github.com/payment/success"
"invoice_id" => "PAYPALDEMOAPP_1"
"invoice_description" => "Order #PAYPALDEMOAPP_1 Invoice"
"cancel_url" => "https://github.com/cart"
"total" => 19.97
]
These values are purely for testing of course but they should work.
However, I get this error:
array:3 [▼
"type" => "error"
"message" => ""
"paypal_link" => null
]
My code looks like this:
public function start()
{
$provider = new ExpressCheckout();
$data = [];
$data['items'] = [
[
'name' => 'Product 1',
'price' => 9.99,
'qty' => 1,
],
[
'name' => 'Product 2',
'price' => 4.99,
'qty' => 2,
],
];
$data['return_url'] = 'https://github.com/payment/success';
$data['invoice_id'] = 'PAYPALDEMOAPP_' . 1;
$data['invoice_description'] = "Order #{$data['invoice_id']} Invoice";
$data['cancel_url'] = 'https://github.com/cart';
// $data['return_url'] = url('/payment/success');
// $data['cancel_url'] = url('/cart');
$total = 0;
foreach($data['items'] as $item) {
$total += $item['price'] * $item['qty'];
}
$data['total'] = $total;
$response = $provider->setExpressCheckout($data);
dd($response);
return redirect($response['paypal_link']);
}
These values are exactly the same as the one used by https://github.com/srmklive/laravel-paypal-demo/
Which is a working demo!
I looked into it further an found where the requests are sent within the package and it sends a POST Request to https://api-3t.sandbox.paypal.com/nvp and when I recreate the request with the same postdata in postman, I get ACK=Failure&L_ERRORCODE0=81002&L_SHORTMESSAGE0=Unspecified%20Method&L_LONGMESSAGE0=Method%20Specified%20is%20not%20Supported&L_SEVERITYCODE0=Error which is what I believe the real error to be.
If anyone could help, that'd be great!

Answer 1

The package you linked to is ancient, 2 generations out of date as far as PayPal APIs go. Don't use it.
Here is the current PHP SDK (not laravel specific): https://github.com/paypal/Checkout-PHP-SDK
It should be used to create two routes on your server, one to 'Set up Transaction', and one to 'Capture Transaction'. Here is a guide: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/checkout/reference/server-integration/
Those 2 routes should be called by this front-end code: https://developer.paypal.com/demo/checkout/#/pattern/server

Answer 2

Double check that credentials are configured correctly.
validate_ssl may also need to be set to false: https://github.com/srmklive/laravel-paypal/issues/229#issuecomment-472755054