I completely take the sample PHP script shown below. Why $res is always INVALID when I test it? Thanks. // 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"; //echo $key." : ". $value."<br>\n" } // 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 ('www.paypal.com', 80, $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_gross = $_POST['payment_gross']; $txn_id = $_POST['txn_id']; $receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email']; $payer_email = $_POST['payer_email']; if (!$fp) { // HTTP ERROR header("Location: subscribe.php"); exit; } else { fputs ($fp, $header . $req); while (!feof($fp)) { $res = fgets ($fp, 1024); if (strcmp ($res, "VERIFIED") == 0) { // check the payment_status is Completed // check that txn_id has not been previously processed // check that receiver_email is your Primary PayPal email // Access the database here. } else if (strcmp ($res, "INVALID") == 0) { // log for manual investigation header("Location: subscribe.php"); exit; } } // while fclose ($fp); }

IPN is activated. I tried http://www.paypaldev.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1658 and it worked. I got valid $res. But I still get INVALID $res when I test IPN in my site. Please tell me why. Thanks a lot.

When I try to log $req, I find nothing posted from Paypal. For example, when the following script is implemented, nothing is displayed.

foreach ($_POST as $key =&gt; $value) {
$value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
$req .= "&$key=$value";

echo $key." : ". $value."&lt;br&gt;\n"
}

I did log $res as follows:

else if (strcmp ($res, "INVALID") == 0)
{
// log for manual investigation
echo "res is invalid";
}

Then "res is invalid" is always the output when I test. That's why I say $res is always invalid.

Please help me solve this issue. Thanks a lot.

Of course, I turned on IPN in my profile.
I copied a part of my profile as follows to prove it.

PayPal's Instant Payment Notification (IPN) allows you to integrate PayPal payments with your website back-end operations.


Instant Payment Notification (IPN) On
Instant Payment Notification (IPN) URL: http://www.shinybid.com/paypal_return.php

Thanks.

Hi,

Do you know what version of PHP you have on your server. I belive if the PHP version is older than 4.2.x then $_POST is not supported. Try using $HTTP_POST_VARS instead and then see what gets printed.

Cheers,

Sharad Goel
Well Drafted Consultants Inc.
http://www.welldrafted.net