Paypal Express errors and constant looping

Please download the release branch from GitHub and update your site manually to see if that resolves any of your issues.

@rememberhim Do you have any caching plugins installed? Can you temporarily disable them or make sure to clear them out and run some more tests to see if that helps?

@angelleye I do have a caching plugin installed. So, I updated to the latest version and kept the caching plugin activated to test it out first.

With the update, the looping stopped whether or not had the Skip Final Review. So, that’s good. However, when I uncheck Skip Final Review, and the customer comes back to my site from PP, I get a Cancel Order button under Proceed to Check out. I have never seen a cancel button before until this update.

Now granted, I plan on keeping the box checked for Skip Final Review because I don’t like the customer hustling back and forth between Paypal and my site. I’d rather let them finish off at Paypal. Therefore, the Cancel Order button will not appear.

But for the sake of trying to figure this out this Cancel Order button, I’ll help out and do whatever testing you need me to do see why this Cancel Order button mysteriously showed up.

Let me know if I need to check/uncheck some other settings to make the Cancel Order button disappear.

The review page should have “Place Order” and “Cancel Order”. The Proceed to Checkout button would show up on the cart. Are you saying you’re getting a Cancel Order button on the cart page? That would be odd. Cancel Order makes sense on the review page if somebody want to cancel at that point. That button was always there in previous versions up to 1.4.0. It was brought to our attention that it wasn’t showing up so we added it back with 1.4.3. Maybe you just started using our plugin at 1.4.0..??

Skip Final Review will work well as long as you don’t need shipping / tax to be applied to the order. If you do then you need to leave the review page in place because that’s where the buyer would choose their shipping and see their final break down before placing the order (or canceling).

Please verify where exactly you’re seeing the Cancel button. A screenshot would be great. Thanks!

hmm, I’ve been using the plugin on a test site for a year now. Just went live a week ago.

Yes, I have never seen a Cancel Order button while on my test site. So, I guess that would be inline with others were saying.

Skipping Final Review doesn’t seem to preventC adding shipping/tax. It’s calculated on their initial view of the Checkout page. I’m OK with not showing the Cancel button. My type of customers are already fickle anyway…haha!

Here is what I see with Skip Final Review is checked:
Item is in the cart
Go to Checkout screen
When I am on Checkout screen, I enter Billing & Shipping
The shipping and tax are sitting there already calculated. They know at this point.
Click on the Proceed to PayPal button
Transfer over to PP
Enter Login credentials
Transfer to screen with “Payment With” options
Click Pay Now
Transfers back to the Checkout. But I’m not sure if I have the header right. Because it’s not really Checkout. It’s their order where they can review their order details. So, the order actually went through because it shows up in the Admin. So, I think the landing page coming back from PP is titled wrong…I gotta fix that.

Now, let me list the steps for when the “Skip Final Review” is unchecked:
Item is in the cart
Go to Checkout screen
When I am on Checkout screen, I enter Billing & Shipping
The shipping and tax are sitting there already calculated. They know at this point.
Click on the Proceed to PayPal button
Transfer over to PP
Enter Login credentials
Transfer to screen with “Payment With” options
Hit Continue
Transfer back to my site on the Review Order screen
Now, the Cancel Button appears right underneath the Place Order button. However, it is much smaller the Place Order button. It doesn’t look right. Maybe that’s due to my theme?

Hit Place Order button
Goes to my Checkout page which is really where they can see the end result of their order. Remember, I think I have the wrong landing page for when the customer finishes their order.

I have no problem providing a screenshot. How do I do that without getting a ticket from the Mods?

Not sure what you mean..?? They don’t have a problem with screenshots here. They just don’t like you sharing credentials / login details, so make sure the screenshots don’t have any sensitive data on them.

If a user is logged in and the system knows their address already, then skipping the review page would be fine. However, if a user is not logged in and they use Express Checkout from the product page, cart page, or checkout page (skipping the forms) then the system would not know their address until they are returned from PayPal, and that’s when the review page would display to show them shipping/tax options.

Looking into your other comments…

Well, every time I check out, I am using incognito and check out as a Guest. Does that make a difference also?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4ZWgh_UDmBJTmxkZjhRWWhkczQ/view?usp=sharing

When the Skip Review is clicked, I still see the shipping and tax before I leave to the PP side.

The screenshot above is for the Skip Review is not checked. The Cancel Order button appears.

It looks like you’re forcing people through the checkout page, in which case the address would be entered at that point and could be handled without the review page. Most people prefer to use Express Checkout from the product page or cart page, though, so that they can completely skip filling out the checkout forms. That’s one of the primary benefits of “Express” checkout. If they’re still filling out forms then it sort of defeats the purpose of “Express”. So then if if they do skip the forms, you would need the review page because that’s the point at which the system would know their address based on what gets returned by PayPal.

For the cancel button we’re going to have to look into that a bit more. In our 1.4.0 update we were getting complaints that the cancel button wasn’t showing up anymore, but people sent us screenshots of the Place Order and Cancel Button together in previous versions. Our developer made the comment, too, that he forgot to include the Cancel button on the review page as of our 1.4.0 update, so we added it back on there in 1.4.3. Now you’re telling me you never had a cancel button before, and I agree it looks a little odd on your particular theme (although it could be styled to look better in your theme’s CSS). We’ll look into that a little bit more and see if there’s another adjustment we need to make in 1.4.4.

ahh, good observation. Yes, you are correct. I am forcing the customer to go through the checkout page. Why? I have a disclaimer about no returns and shipping insurance option(s) on my checkout page that they must see. It gives the option to decline the insurance. When I enabled the PP Express at the Cart screen, they would have bypassed it and never saw it.

But you got me rethinking it. I went back and set the PP Express to appear at the Cart screen. I unchecked the Skip Review. After the customer hits Continue on the PP screen, transfer back to my site, they will then see the disclaimer text and shipping insurance.

I see that it works but it seems like a lot hustling back and forth for the customer. I wish it could be smoother for them. But I do see that I do not have to fill out any forms. Which is cool. I do like that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Now, the only thing I do not like is that Cancel Order button shows up. But let me track back on not seeing the Cancel button.

Perhaps I never saw the button for this past year because I wasn’t allowing the customer to come back on the Review Order screen. I really think that is what has happened on my end…come to think of it a little bit further. So, I don’t want to add any more confusion that it wasn’t there…when it probably was there all along.

I can tell you from many years of experience that users would rather click a few buttons on a few different pages than fill out billing and shipping forms. Express Checkout from product pages and cart pages are the primary thing that leads to increased conversion rates of nearly 25% on average when people implement it.

On that note, though, we do have plans to get the In-Context implementation of Express Checkout added as an option before long. This will allow the whole thing to sort of float above your site instead of going through redirects and you may like that experience better. It will be coming just as soon as we’re sure we’ve fixed up any bugs that have been reported in the 1.4.x releases.

Yes, it sounds like you simply weren’t using the review page so you never saw the cancel button there with the place order button. ??

Yeah, you are right. Advice well received. I will make that change to your suggestion. Is it possible to have the Cancel Order button as an option to not display in the settings?

We can see about adding that, but you could probably hide it pretty easily with some CSS in your theme.

ahh, good looking out. I’m going to hit up my theme author for some assistance.