Why is my PayPal IPN script failing? - php

Question

I'm developing a lightweight e-commerce solution that uses PayPal as the payment gateway. However, my IPN callback is constantly returning an INVALID response. I even tried using the sample PHP script provided by PayPal:
// read the post from PayPal system and add 'cmd'
$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
$value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
$req .= "&$key=$value";
}
// post back to PayPal system to validate
$header .= "POST /cgi-bin/webscr HTTP/1.0\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Length: " . strlen($req) . "\r\n\r\n";
$fp = fsockopen ('ssl://www.paypal.com', 443, $errno, $errstr, 30);
// assign posted variables to local variables
$item_name = $_POST['item_name'];
$item_number = $_POST['item_number'];
$payment_status = $_POST['payment_status'];
$payment_amount = $_POST['mc_gross'];
$payment_currency = $_POST['mc_currency'];
$txn_id = $_POST['txn_id'];
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
$payer_email = $_POST['payer_email'];
if (!$fp) {
// HTTP ERROR
}
else {
fputs ($fp, $header . $req);
while (!feof($fp)) {
$res = fgets ($fp, 1024);
if (strcmp ($res, "VERIFIED") == 0) {
// check the payment_status is Completed
// check that txn_id has not been previously processed
// check that receiver_email is your Primary PayPal email
// check that payment_amount/payment_currency are correct
// process payment
}
else if (strcmp ($res, "INVALID") == 0) {
// log for manual investigation
}
}
fclose ($fp);
}
But as I say, I keep getting an INVALID response. This is in fact the response I get using a PHP class that writes the response to a log file:
[2011-06-02 19:18:49] - FAIL: IPN Validation Failed.
IPN POST data from PayPal:
test_ipn=1,
payment_type=instant,
payment_date=11:07:43 Jun 02, 2011 PDT,
payment_status=Completed,
payer_status=verified,
first_name=John,
last_name=Smith,
payer_email=buyer#paypalsandbox.com,
payer_id=TESTBUYERID01,
business=seller#paypalsandbox.com,
receiver_email=seller#paypalsandbox.com,
receiver_id=TESTSELLERID1,
residence_country=US,
item_name1=something,
item_number1=AK-1234,
quantity1=1,
tax=2.02,
mc_currency=USD,
mc_fee=0.44,
mc_gross=15.34,
mc_gross_1=12.34,
mc_handling=2.06,
mc_handling1=1.67,
mc_shipping=3.02,
mc_shipping1=1.02,
txn_type=cart,
txn_id=4362187,
notify_version=2.4,
custom=xyz123,
invoice=abc1234,
charset=windows-1252,
verify_sign=AjbdIvvDAW2fh1O9jAbEym4myX.WAV7-jCEiEWMqoSkewvM6L3Co6oUQ
This is from the official PayPal IPN test tool. So something between PayPal's sample code and test tool is causing my script to fail. Any one have any ideas?

Answer 1

what is encoding of your html/php page ? (charset=windows-1252) ?