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I have multiple websites that use PayPal Buy Now buttons and have PDT enabled.
All of the existing customer websites are working, in that after the user makes a purchase, they are redirected back to their site by PayPal with a return URL that includes the 'cm' parameter as specified here.

I have a new client with a brand new Merchant Account who has their PDT configured correctly (I have checked it multiple times to be sure). However, upon return from PayPal payment, we are missing the 'cm' parameter that is necessary to do validation/updates on our website.

I have never seen this before where some of the variables are getting sent back, but not all as defined in the PayPal documentation above.

Here is an example of a working return URL - (some values edited for privacy purposes only)

.../paypal/pdt?redirect=https://journals.myclient.com/view/journals/cssm/4/1/article-p14.xml?PFTxId=4435&offerProvider=DEFAULT&amt=9.95&cc=USD&cm=mJ5v4sm1PUcD0E9vbii0pm6e1ql5GRs/lv+aQuNuves=%7CaccountId=XXXXX%7COffer ID=7|mc_gross=9.95&item_name=ITEM NAME Dilemma&item_number=/journals/cssm/4/1/article-p14.xml&st=Completed&tx=XXXXXXXXXXXX

Here is the example of the newly created Merchant Account where this is not working

.../paypal/pdt?redirect=https://www.nonworkingclient.org/view/journals/tpmd/s1-1/6/article-p331.xml?PFTxId=40&offerProvider=DEFAULT&PayerID=RPUJELM94HEYU&st=Completed&tx=XXXXXXXXXX&cc=USD&amt=0.01

Here you can see in the comparison, PayPal is returning the 'tx' and 'cc' variables in both examples, but 'cm' is missing from the bottom example.

Has anyone else experienced this lately? Does anyone know of anything more than the PDT setup that needs to be checked to see why this is failing in the Merchant Account?

Thank you for any assistance.

D_00
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Locriansax
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2 Answers2

1

I have an account that has been set up and working for 3+ years. PDT always returned a "cm" parameter which I pass in as "custom". In the last couple weeks it is hit or miss whether I get "cm" back (can't say exactly when it stopped working as the site has not been used since Spring 2020). About 10% of the time it works but the other 90% no "cm". The response is a bit different in the success and failure cases. Here is an example of a successful return with "cm" (the output is the GET array parameters and values)

(
    [feepaid] => Y
    [amt] => 75.00
    [cc] => USD
    [cm] => 586
    [item_name] => IW***** Fee
    [item_number] => g**5
    [st] => Completed
    [tx] => 9J5******81R
)

and an example of a failure case (no "cm")

(
    [feepaid] => Y
    [PayerID] => 9J*******YG
    [st] => Completed
    [tx] => 3D2*****2457
    [cc] => USD
    [amt] => 75.00
)

The failure has "PayerID" which does not appear as a valid variable in PDT or IPN spec. Success case has no PayerID but has item_name and item_number (which are fixed in the button definition on PayPal merchant account).

GaryP
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0

Same here! Paypal no longer return cm paramater for some users

Islem Boussetta
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