PayPal IPN not connecting to my database to insert transaction - php

Question

I'm a noob to paypal and php so I followed this tutorial online: https://www.developphp.com/video/PHP/PayPal-IPN-PHP-Instant-Payment-Notification-Script
My problem is that my IPN results are all fine but my ipn.php script won't connect to my database so that I can store the results.
IPN.PHP CODE
<?php
//connect to the database
include_once ('includes/connect_to_mysql.php');
// Check to see there are posted variables coming into the script
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] != "POST") die ("No Post Variables");
// Initialize the $req variable and add CMD key value pair
$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
// Read the post from PayPal
foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
$value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
$req .= "&$key=$value";
}
// Now Post all of that back to PayPal's server using curl, and validate everything with PayPal
// We will use CURL instead of PHP for this for a more universally operable script (fsockopen has issues on some environments)
$url = "https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr"; //USE SANDBOX ACCOUNT TO TEST WITH
//$url = "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr"; //LIVE ACCOUNT
$curl_result=$curl_err='';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $req);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "Content-Length: " . strlen($req)));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER , 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
$curl_result = #curl_exec($ch);
$curl_err = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$req = str_replace("&", "\n", $req); // Make it a nice list in case we want to email it to ourselves for reporting
// Check that the result verifies with PayPal
if (strpos($curl_result, "VERIFIED") !== false) {
$req .= "\n\nPaypal Verified OK";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Verified OK", "$req", "From: email#gmail.com" );
} else {
$req .= "\n\nData NOT verified from Paypal!";
mail("email#gmail.com", "IPN interaction not verified", "$req", "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit();
}
/* CHECK THESE 4 THINGS BEFORE PROCESSING THE TRANSACTION, HANDLE THEM AS YOU WISH
1. Make sure that business email returned is your business email
2. Make sure that the transaction’s payment status is “completed”
3. Make sure there are no duplicate txn_id
4. Make sure the payment amount matches what you charge for items. (Defeat Price-Jacking) */
// Check Number 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
if ($receiver_email != "email-facilitator#hotmail.com") {
$message = "Investigate why and how receiver_email variable sent back by PayPal does not match the buisness email set in cart.php. Email = " . $_POST['receiver_email'] . "\n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Receiver Email is incorrect", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ($_POST['payment_status'] != "Completed") {
// Handle how you think you should if a payment is not complete yet, a few scenarios can cause a transaction to be incomplete
$message = "Investigate why payment was not completed. Email = " . $_POST['receiver_email'] . "\n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Payment not complete", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$this_txn = $_POST['txn_id'];
$sql = mysqli_query($conn, "SELECT id FROM transactions WHERE txn_id='$this_txn' LIMIT 1"); //check to see transaction id exists in the DB
$numRows = mysqli_num_rows($sql);
if ($numRows == 0) {
$message = "Duplicate transaction ID occured so we killed the IPN script. \n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Duplicate transaction ID(txn_id) in the IPN system", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$product_id_string = $_POST['custom'];
$product_id_string = rtrim($product_id_string, ","); // remove last comma
// Explode the string, make it an array, then query all the prices out, add them up, and make sure they match the payment_gross amount
$id_str_array = explode(",", $product_id_string); // Uses Comma(,) as delimiter(break point)
$fullAmount = 0;
foreach ($id_str_array as $key => $value) {
$id_quantity_pair = explode("-", $value); // Uses Hyphen(-) as delimiter to separate product ID from its quantity
$product_id = $id_quantity_pair[0]; // Get the product ID
$product_quantity = $id_quantity_pair[1]; // Get the quantity
$sql = mysqli_query($conn, "SELECT price FROM products WHERE id='$product_id' LIMIT 1");
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($sql)){
$product_price = $row["price"];
}
$product_price = $product_price * $product_quantity;
$fullAmount = $fullAmount + $product_price;
}
$fullAmount = number_format($fullAmount, 2);
$grossAmount = $_POST['mc_gross'];
if ($fullAmount != $grossAmount) {
$message = "Possible Price Jack: " . $_POST['mc_gross'] . " != $fullAmount \n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Price Jack or Bad Programming", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// END ALL SECURITY CHECKS NOW IN THE DATABASE IT GOES ------------------------------------
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Assign local variables from the POST PayPal variables
$custom = $_POST['custom'];
$payer_email = $_POST['payer_email'];
$first_name = $_POST['first_name'];
$last_name = $_POST['last_name'];
$payment_date = $_POST['payment_date'];
$mc_gross = $_POST['mc_gross'];
$payment_currency = $_POST['payment_currency'];
$txn_id = $_POST['txn_id'];
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
$payment_type = $_POST['payment_type'];
$payment_status = $_POST['payment_status'];
$txn_type = $_POST['txn_type'];
$payer_status = $_POST['payer_status'];
$address_street = $_POST['address_street'];
$address_city = $_POST['address_city'];
$address_state = $_POST['address_state'];
$address_zip = $_POST['address_zip'];
$address_country = $_POST['address_country'];
$address_status = $_POST['address_status'];
$notify_version = $_POST['notify_version'];
$verify_sign = $_POST['verify_sign'];
$payer_id = $_POST['payer_id'];
$mc_currency = $_POST['mc_currency'];
$mc_fee = $_POST['mc_fee'];
// Place the transaction into the database
$sql = mysqli_query($conn, "INSERT INTO transactions (product_id_array, payer_email, first_name, last_name, payment_date, mc_gross, payment_currency, txn_id, receiver_email, payment_type, payment_status, txn_type, payer_status, address_street, address_city, address_state, address_zip, address_country, address_status, notify_version, verify_sign, payer_id, mc_currency, mc_fee)
VALUES('$custom','$payer_email','$first_name','$last_name','$payment_date','$mc_gross','$payment_currency','$txn_id','$receiver_email','$payment_type','$payment_status','$txn_type','$payer_status','$address_street','$address_city','$address_state','$address_zip','$address_country','$address_status','$notify_version','$verify_sign','$payer_id','$mc_currency','$mc_fee')") or die ("unable to execute the query");
mysqli_close();
// Mail yourself the details
mail("email#gmail.com", "NORMAL IPN RESULT - Transaction Entered", $req, "From: email#gmail.com");
?>
When testing I sent myself an email with the IPN results which were returned as verified and payment_status=Completed.
Here is the IPN output:
cmd=_notify-validate
mc_gross=9.99
protection_eligibility=Eligible
address_status=confirmed
item_number1=
payer_id=BDK3Z8X34KY3Y
tax=0.00
address_street=1+Maire-Victorin
payment_date=13%3A51%3A16+Jul+06%2C+2015+PDT
payment_status=Completed
charset=windows-1252
address_zip=M5A+1E1
mc_shipping=0.00
mc_handling=0.00
first_name=test
mc_fee=0.59
address_country_code=CA
address_name=test+buyer
notify_version=3.8
custom=9-1%2C
payer_status=verified
business=email-facilitator%40hotmail.com
address_country=Canada
num_cart_items=1
mc_handling1=0.00
address_city=Toronto
verify_sign=A2YnYs6LuOd-R8BHIdbWTA6xHgalAu.DiwxDdytu5YxLaIvebtzbprOA
payer_email=email-buyer%40hotmail.com
mc_shipping1=0.00
tax1=0.00
txn_id=6HE31475W2614530U
payment_type=instant
last_name=buyer
address_state=Ontario
item_name1=Leather+Pouch
receiver_email=email-facilitator%40hotmail.com
payment_fee=
quantity1=1
receiver_id=SF4CCTMHQJMF8
txn_type=cart
mc_gross_1=9.99
mc_currency=CAD
residence_country=CA
test_ipn=1
transaction_subject=9-1%2C
payment_gross=
ipn_track_id=a7531c2eb1cec
Paypal Verified OK
I further debugged the code down to the fact that my select statements were not returning any values which to me indicates that the connection to the database was failing.
Can anyone help me out as to why I can't connect to my database using the ipn.php code? All other pages of my website will connect using the same code except this page, so I can only think that it has something to do with PayPal calling this page and not my server.
Here is my connection code in connect_to_mysql.php:
<?php
/* PHP Database Connection */
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "user";
$password = "passs";
$database = "database";
// Create connection
$conn = mysqli_connect($servername, $username, $password, $database);
// Check connection
if (!$conn) {
die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}
echo "Connected successfully";
?>

Answer 1

You need to troubleshoot the script to find the issue. This can be difficult with IPN, but if you follow these steps for how to test PayPal IPN you should be able to track it down pretty quickly.

Answer 2

I fixed the issue. I needed to switch all of the queries to Mysqli versions instead of the old Mysql. Fixed code below:
<?php
// Report all PHP errors
ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL);
// Destinations
define("ADMIN_EMAIL", "email#gmail.com");
// Destination types
define("DEST_EMAIL", "1");
/* PHP Database Connection */
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "aesirleatherworks";
$password = "";
$database = "my_aesirleatherworks";
// Create connection
$conn = mysqli_connect($servername, $username, $password, $database);
// Send an e-mail to the administrator if connection fails
if (!$conn) {
error_log("Failed to connect to MYSQL ".mysqli_connect_error(), DEST_EMAIL, ADMIN_EMAIL);
}
// Check to see there are posted variables coming into the script
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] != "POST") die ("No Post Variables");
// Initialize the $req variable and add CMD key value pair
$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
// Read the post from PayPal
foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
$value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
$req .= "&$key=$value";
}
// Now Post all of that back to PayPal's server using curl, and validate everything with PayPal
// We will use CURL instead of PHP for this for a more universally operable script (fsockopen has issues on some environments)
$url = "https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr"; //USE SANDBOX ACCOUNT TO TEST WITH
//$url = "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr"; //LIVE ACCOUNT
$curl_result=$curl_err='';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $req);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "Content-Length: " . strlen($req)));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER , 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
$curl_result = #curl_exec($ch);
$curl_err = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$req = str_replace("&", "\n", $req); // Make it a nice list in case we want to email it to ourselves for reporting
// Check that the result verifies with PayPal
if (strpos($curl_result, "VERIFIED") !== false) {
$req .= "\n\nPaypal Verified OK";
} else {
$req .= "\n\nData NOT verified from Paypal!";
mail("email#gmail.com", "IPN interaction not verified", "$req", "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit();
}
/* CHECK THESE 4 THINGS BEFORE PROCESSING THE TRANSACTION, HANDLE THEM AS YOU WISH
1. Make sure that business email returned is your business email
2. Make sure that the transaction’s payment status is “completed”
3. Make sure there are no duplicate txn_id
4. Make sure the payment amount matches what you charge for items. (Defeat Price-Jacking) */
// Check Number 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
if ($receiver_email != "email-facilitator#hotmail.com") {
$message = "Investigate why and how receiver_email variable sent back by PayPal does not match the buisness email set in cart.php. Email = " . $_POST['receiver_email'] . "\n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Receiver Email is incorrect", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ($_POST['payment_status'] != "Completed") {
// Handle how you think you should if a payment is not complete yet, a few scenarios can cause a transaction to be incomplete
$message = "Investigate why payment was not completed. Email = " . $_POST['receiver_email'] . "\n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Payment not complete", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$this_txn = $_POST['txn_id'];
$query = "SELECT id FROM transactions WHERE txn_id='$this_txn' LIMIT 1";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);
$numRows = mysqli_num_rows($result);
if ($numRows != 0) {
$message = "Duplicate transaction ID occured so we killed the IPN script. Transaction ID:$this_txn \n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Duplicate transaction ID(txn_id) in the IPN system", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$product_id_string = $_POST['custom'];
$product_id_string = rtrim($product_id_string, ","); // remove last comma
// Explode the string, make it an array, then query all the prices out, add them up, and make sure they match the payment_gross amount
$id_str_array = explode(",", $product_id_string); // Uses Comma(,) as delimiter(break point)
$fullAmount = 0;
foreach ($id_str_array as $key => $value) {
$id_quantity_pair = explode("-", $value); // Uses Hyphen(-) as delimiter to separate product ID from its quantity
$product_id = $id_quantity_pair[0]; // Get the product ID
$product_quantity = $id_quantity_pair[1]; // Get the quantity
$query = "SELECT price FROM products WHERE id='$product_id' LIMIT 1";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
$product_price = $row["price"];
}
$product_price = $product_price * $product_quantity;
$fullAmount = $fullAmount + $product_price;
}
$fullAmount = number_format($fullAmount, 2);
$grossAmount = $_POST['mc_gross'];
if ($fullAmount != $grossAmount) {
$message = "Possible Price Jack: " . $_POST['mc_gross'] . " != $fullAmount \n\n\n$req";
mail("email#gmail.com", "Price Jack or Bad Programming", $message, "From: email#gmail.com" );
exit(); // exit script
}
// END ALL SECURITY CHECKS NOW IN THE DATABASE IT GOES ------------------------------------
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Assign local variables from the POST PayPal variables
$custom = $_POST['custom'];
$payer_email = $_POST['payer_email'];
$first_name = $_POST['first_name'];
$last_name = $_POST['last_name'];
$payment_date = $_POST['payment_date'];
$mc_gross = $_POST['mc_gross'];
$payment_currency = $_POST['payment_currency'];
$txn_id = $_POST['txn_id'];
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
$payment_type = $_POST['payment_type'];
$payment_status = $_POST['payment_status'];
$txn_type = $_POST['txn_type'];
$payer_status = $_POST['payer_status'];
$address_street = $_POST['address_street'];
$address_city = $_POST['address_city'];
$address_state = $_POST['address_state'];
$address_zip = $_POST['address_zip'];
$address_country = $_POST['address_country'];
$address_status = $_POST['address_status'];
$notify_version = $_POST['notify_version'];
$verify_sign = $_POST['verify_sign'];
$payer_id = $_POST['payer_id'];
$mc_currency = $_POST['mc_currency'];
$mc_fee = $_POST['mc_fee'];
// Place the transaction into the database
$sql = mysqli_query($conn, "INSERT INTO transactions (id, product_id_array, payer_email, first_name, last_name, payment_date, mc_gross, payment_currency, receiver_email, payment_type, payment_status, txn_type, payer_status, address_street, address_city, address_state, address_zip, address_country, address_status, notify_version, verify_sign, payer_id, mc_currency, mc_fee)
VALUES('$txn_id','$custom','$payer_email','$first_name','$last_name','$payment_date','$mc_gross','$payment_currency','$receiver_email','$payment_type','$payment_status','$txn_type','$payer_status','$address_street','$address_city','$address_state','$address_zip','$address_country','$address_status','$notify_version','$verify_sign','$payer_id','$mc_currency','$mc_fee')") or die ("unable to execute the query");
mysqli_close();
// Mail yourself the details
mail("email#gmail.com", "New Order Entered: ".$txn_id, $req, "From: email#gmail.com");
?>