The simplest way to test if the WordPress eStore plugin is working is to create a test product with the price of 1 cent ($0.01) and purchase that product yourself as a buyer.
It is a good idea to turn on debug (check the “Enable Debug” checkbox) from the settings menu and you will be able to see every step of the transaction process (IPN validation, product verification etc) in the ipn_handle_debug.log file.
How to Test Using PayPal Sandbox
You can also use the plugin in SandBox mode (PayPal Sandbox) which will allow you to test it without having to perform a live transaction. To test it using PayPal Sandbox do the following:
- Go to the settings menu of the WP eStore plugin.
- Enter your sandbox seller’s email in the ‘Paypal Email Address’ field.
- Tick the ‘Enable Sandbox Testing’ checkbox.
Please turn on debug from the settings menu and you will be able to see every step of the transaction processs (IPN validation, product verification etc) in the ipn_handle_debug.log file.
If you need a more detailed guide on using PayPal Sandbox then check the following post:
What to do When Something is not Functioning as Expected
If something is not functioning as expected after the payment is made on PayPal (e.g. emails are not getting sent out) it is a good idea to enable debug and perform a test transaction so you can analyze the log file to identify the issue. The following URL will help:
Tips
- Check this plugin testing checklist – setup preparation for testing
- Remember to revert the changes to run the Plugin in Live mode again after you are done with the testing (change the paypal email address and uncheck the ‘Enable Sandbox Testing’ option).
- The debug can be used in live or testing mode and can be very handy when you are trying to figure out an issue.
- I always recommend testing the system in live mode, this way you have the plugin running in live mode and can see if it has any issues that the customers are likely to see.
Note: We provide technical support for our premium plugins via our customer only support forum
Hello: I’m building a web site for a client that wanted to use your plug-in, but I’m finding conflicting information on this page and your web site:
When building a thank you page for post payment and downloadable links, your video says that you have to turn Paypal’s Autoreturn on as part of the process
But on this page you are telling people (Ivy) to turn Paypal’s Auto Redirect feature off
Are these two different things? I can’t find a separate “Auto Redirect” feature to turn off, just the one that you show in your video that needs to be turned on to get the PDT
Please help! Thank you
You are not meant to be able to reset your stats (can you reset your blog’s page view stats from Google Analytics or WordPress.com stats?)
When viewing the stats simply choose a date range where the starting date is the launch date of your site.
If you must delete the data then the best option is to delete it using PHPMyAdmin from your cPanel. You can empty out these tables in one click from PHPMyAdmin after you find the eStore tables.
Hi …
I’ve done a lot of testing using SANDBOX and so now I have a lot of fake test customers and my Stats are looking good 🙂
I couldn’t find an easy way to delete customers other than doing it ONE-BY-ONE. Is this right?
Also, how do I reset my stats so that I can start from zero when I launch my site?
Thanks …
OK, thanks Ivy. I think I found the problem. It was related specifically to Godaddy hosting for some reason blocking emails or so. Here is the link that helped me http://angstrey.com/index.php/2009/04/22/how-to-send-e-mail-with-wordpress-from-godaddy-windows-hosting/ After installing the suggested plugin everything seems started to roll.
Thanks again!
Val
Hi Val, Please see the following forum post :http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forum/topic/what-to-do-if-the-debug-file-is-empty
This should tell you more about how to troubleshoot a empty debug log.
Let me know how this goes.
Cheers,
Ivy
I have a similar problem as TDA had in his post where Paypal transaction works in the way that the money is received however no emails about the purchase either to us or to the customer. Debug file is empty. I am not aware about any firewall on the server nor I have many other plugins that would interfere. There is no check box like you indicated for TDA above in the latest plugin version but I use all default checks. I tried to send email to “customer” from the admin functions and have not received anything either. I tried using wordpress mail system as well as PHP script with the same result….
Hope you can help me on troubleshooting….
Thank you.
You won’t get the “Buyer Email” when testing with sandbox but remember you will get the admin email which is a copy of the buyer email plus some extra stuff.
The admin email will be sent to the email address specified in the “Notification Email Address” field in the settings menu.
If the links work fine in your email then it is guaranteed to work in the buyers case too as it’s the same link.
I’m having a problem with doing the testing:
When trying to use the sandbox, I can see that the flow of money is as I would expect, but I don’t get to see the email with the download links. If I understand correctly, the email addresses in the sandbox are not real, and for sandbox use only. It seems to me that because of this, we’ll never be able to test the download link side of things through the sandbox, because the plugin can’t send to the sandbox email addresses, because they don’t actually exist. Is that right?
You suggest that we should buy our own products to check that things are working, but when I try I get the following error:
“You are logging into the account of the seller for this purchase. Please change your login information and try again.”
I was thinking maybe I could create a second paypal account, but that is against their t&c’s.
For now I’ll use a friends account as a workaround.
Is there something I’m missing?
Many thanks,
Michael
Hi Laura, Can you please run a test transaction with the debug turned on?
The following post will explain more about this: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forum/topic/how-and-when-to-enable-debug-and-what-does-it-do
If the debug file is empty after this test transaction please see the following post: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forum/topic/what-to-do-if-the-debug-file-is-empty
Cheers,
Ivy
No I checked and the paypal autoredirect is off but I still cannot get any downlinks. Am I posting the code incorrectly? Do I just post the code or do I need to include a link within the code?
Hi Laura, Do you have Paypal Auto Redirect turned on? If this turned on Paypal will not send the post payment data back to the site. Paypal only sends this information when the “return to merchant site” button is clicked. The plugin needs the post payment information to verify that the payment is real and came from Paypal. The eStore will never send out a product with out a successful verification of the payment.
You can turn this setting off in your Paypal Profile if you want the links to show up on the thank you/post payment landing page.
Cheers,
Ivy
I can’t get the encrypted links for downloads to show on thank you page
Hi James, I had a look at your site this appears to be a PHP session issue. You will need to contact your hosting provider and have them take a look at it to make sure the PHP session is turned on and is configured properly. This should only take them a few minutes to do this.
Please let me know how this goes.
Hi. I have this problem where products in the cart are not transferred to paypal. instead I get an error “your shopping cart is empty” instead of the paypal login page showing up.
I get the error (sometimes) when i go to shop.schokmanphotography.com.au but it seems to work more often when I go to schokmanphotography.com.au/eshop which is where the shop.schok……domain is pointing. Could this be cuasing the problem.
Feel free to add some things from my site to your cart. If you get to the paypal login site, everything has worked. If it errors you will get the error screen instead of the paypal login .
Thanks
James
Thanks for pointing it out… I have edited it.
I think you have a typo in the top part of this post.
You wrote: “Enter your sandbox buyer’s email in the ‘Paypal Email Address’ field.”
You mean Seller’s email address, correct??
Hi Andre, Download links are never given out on a manual checkout. What is stopping the customer from doing a manual checkout taking the downloadable product and never transferring the money into your bank account? Remember this plugin always puts the security of your digital asset first. What you should be doing is after the customer pays you money you can generate a download link from the “Admin Functions” menu of the plugin and email it to him.
The plugin sends the email instantly… if it takes long to arrive in your inbox then you need to see what your server is doing when the mail is sent out.
Hey .
I’m having some problems with the “product email” not being sent out after purchase.
I am also only using “Manual Checkout” cause I only want to accept invoices as payment later on.
However, I do get an email with some information from the “eStore_payment_submission.php” file, regarding some details of my “purchase”.
But I never get the email with the encrypted download link.
I might aswell mention that it takes about a half hour for the “eStore_payment_submission.php” emails to arrive.
I have tried activating the debug log file, but it doesn’t record anything of this.
Thanks
Hi Stephen, The following post should sort out the problem (please read the 2nd paragraph from the “simple shipping option” section)
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-the-shipping-cost-calculation-works-in-wordpress-estore-50
If it doesn’t help please let me know.
We are sandboxing a new installation and have a problem with the Base Shipping charge. Our understanding is that this will be added to non-digital products. i.e: those which are not offered as a download.
Unfortunately this base cost is not being added when we try it out.
How do we register an item as “non-digital” in the system please so that the Base Shipping cost is added to it?
We had assumed it was sufficient to just leave the digital download fields blank but that doesn’t seem to work.
With kind thanks, Stephen.
Very outstanding site…The info here is truly helpful…I will invite my friends.
@Chris, this page should help:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-the-shipping-cost-calculation-works-in-wordpress-estore-50
Hi there. I’m building a website on behalf of RoyalAncestors.com and would like to know if there is any way to use your plugin to combine shipping for when someone orders multiple copies of the same product. This would be helpful to my client as RoyalAncestors.com sells big, heavy books :). Thanks.
Hi TDA, Ofcourse I can help… the empty “ipn_handle_debug.log” file means the pugin didn’t receive payment confirmation and actual Payment data from PayPal. The plugin never sends out the digital product without receiving payment confirmation from PayPal and verifying that the correct amount was paid in PayPal.
Here are a few pointers…
1) Make sure you have the “Email Notification & Digital Product Delivery” checkbox is checked in the settings menu. if not the plugin won’t tell paypal to send the payment confirmation (IPN).
2) Make sure you do not have any firewall that is blocking PayPal from communicating with this plugin.
3) If you are using the “Bad Behavior” plugin please make sure it’s not blocking PayPal’s IPN (it is known to do this)
4) Post a link to the page where you are testing it so I can go and have a look at a few things 🙂
I am having a few problems and hopefully you can help me!
I set everything up and tested by changing the price to $0.01.
I recieved the payment via paypal. But I didn’t get an email saying someone had purchased or the email with the link to download the products. Plus the quatitly of the products available didn’t reduce by 1 (for the sale).
I then re-tested after checking the ‘debug’ box but the ipn_handle_debug.log file is empty.
Thanks.