Question

I have an IPN handler, but it seems it isn’t getting any IPN’s from PayPal. When I hit the subscribe button, my payment goes through, but my IPN handler doesn’t get any requests.

I tried invoking via Firebug’s javascript console by

$.post('http://mysite.com/ipn', {'foo': 'bar'})

and I can see in my logs that the request is received (although my handler fails, as expected).

Answer 1

Debugging IPN is hard unless you follow the rules:

• Check that the IPN URL domain resolves correctly to an external IP
• Ensure that the URL is accessible from outside of your local network
• Do not expect to use echo or print for debug – log everything to a file.

Create a “sandbox” account for a buyer and a seller so you can to test from both the seller and buyer perspective. Read the PayPal sandbox user guide.

Make sure you follow all the directions in setting up a sandbox test environment, including the addition of fake bank accounts and credit cards.