Question about Subscriptions

[Kimmie]

Yeah it probably is ok, I am just weird about that stuff and i like to personalize it

I have a dilemma. I posted it in my other sub thread but I want to post it here since i know you are watching this thread.


I just set up a sub (to test out). i had someone buy it. It is not showing up in my admin area, it is not showing up in their profile, and it did not give them the added permissions of the 2ndary group I made (titled subscribers). Now, I think I may know why, I need you to confirm it first.. if this is the problem, I hav since changed it but I still show no "pending" or "purchased subs.


Initially I had this set to "primary on subscription" to the subscriber group and then just did not set any additional group. (this should have been set to the way you see it now in the image right?)




I have since changed this, but her sub is still not showing up. She also has not gotten the conformation email from the site

[Arantor]

Have you had any emails from PayPal regarding this? Have you got any errors in the error log?

[Kimmie]

She got her conformation from paypal let me go check and see if it sent me her 1.00. I will also check the logs. Be back in a jiffy

[Kimmie]

ok I have her 1.00 in my paypal

No errors in the log

and still nothing showing up in my admin area, her profile, etc.

[Kimmie]

Any ideas yet why this isn't working?  I have checked what I know to do on my end but there may be something I am missing since I am new to these.


1. Turned on IPN's in paypal and set the return url like it said
2. Put her in a post count group with the limited access.
3. 2ndary group is set up with access to all boards
4. Settings on sub page are:

Primary Group upon Subscription: Set to Don't Change
Additional Groups upon Subscription: Set to the 2ndary group that will give full access



We know the money part works, I got her 1.00 in my paypal
She got the confirmation email from paypal but not from the site
I got the confirmation email from paypal

Her sub is not showing up in my admin area
Her sub is not showing up under her profile.
It did not add the 2ndary account to her profile so she does not have access to those boards it permits.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Turned on IPN's in paypal and set the return url like it said

- Not necessary, your forum will receive IPN regardless of these settings.

Put her in a post count group with the limited access.

- Initial membergroup doesn't matter.

2ndary group is set up with access to all boards

- This would be the subscrber group.

Primary Group upon Subscription: Set to Don't Change
Additional Groups upon Subscription: Set to the 2ndary group that will give full access

- Make Primary Group the subscriber group.

[Arantor]

That would imply you can't ever add a group as a secondary group from the subscription?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Never tried it, but have always used primary group for subscriber group.  OP is not getting an error, which would indicate IPN is either not being received, or is being processed successfully but subscription is not being applied.

[Kimmie]

Turned on IPN's in paypal and set the return url like it said

- Not necessary, your forum will receive IPN regardless of these settings.

Put her in a post count group with the limited access.

- Initial membergroup doesn't matter.

2ndary group is set up with access to all boards

- This would be the subscrber group.

Primary Group upon Subscription: Set to Don't Change
Additional Groups upon Subscription: Set to the 2ndary group that will give full access

- Make Primary Group the subscriber group.

Looks like the only thing different are the last two - and if you look up a few posts to where I posted a screenshot, the way you say to do it is exactly how I did it "initially" and I only changed it to the "dont change" and "secondary" after it did not work thinking that was the problem. I just changed it back but it is still not showing up.

Also, I only had the sub active long enough to receive her payment and then turned it off because it is merely for test at this point and I did not want anyone else to use it. I simply unchecked the "active" button. Could there be an issue there perhaps? Since it says "A subscription must be active for new members to join". I didn't think that applied to people who already bought one.

[Arantor]

It needs to be on long enough for the IPN also to function - the IPN is not necessarily instant.

[Kimmie]

It needs to be on long enough for the IPN also to function - the IPN is not necessarily instant.

ok so maybe if I turn it back on it will update? Let me try that. I may have to change the # of days. I only set it up on 5 because I want this to be live on Aug 1st and that would give me time to test it.


Would that also be why she never got the email from the site?


Also, do we know what the average time is it takes to update? like 1 hour, 24 hours, etc.. this would be good to know when people start getting angry that they have paid but still have no access

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Just set up a 1 day sub for $.10, and use a test member to test it yourself.  IPNs are usually sent immediately, but I suppose there could be a delay if server loads on either end are high.  Member update is immediate, soon as the IPN is received.

[Kimmie]

Update: I have had it turned on for the last two days now, and it still has not updated anything. If the member update is immediate once the IPN is received then it should have worked because I waited to turn it off until I received the 1.00. Server load on my end is never high, and I would assume as big a company as paypal is, they would have the necessary resources in place to keep server loads to a minimum.


As for the test, I wanted to test every aspect of it which is why I selected a 5 day one. That way I could test the confirmation email when the sub is first gotten, as well as the reminder email the site is supposed to send x amount of days before the sub expires. I need to know all of it works, and so far none of it does .

The only other things I can think of is there is something else I am supposed to be doing in terms of paypal other than that IPN setting so it knows to shoot that info back to my site... OR there is a setting on the site such as with permissions that is stopping it from happening. I haven't had to mess with permissions since I used 1.0 so I wouldn't even know where to start looking.

I am going to make a new test member, make a completely new subscription and delete this one...  do another test myself, and leave it active and see what happens. If it doesn't work this time there is definitely something wrong somewhere.

Will keep you updated.

[Kimmie]

Question: On my subscriber group.. which of these is it supposed to be?

Private (Membership must be assigned)
Protected (Only administrators can manage and assign)
Requestable (User may request membership)
Free (User may leave and join group at will)
Post Based (Membership based on post count) - I already know it cant be this one



Is this still a problem? If so I don't need to use recurring right?

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=477461.20

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Subscriber group should be Private.

The PayPal IPN is one of the few things in Paid Subs that is pretty much idiotproof.  Your forum sends a notify_url to PayPal with the subscription info, and that overrides IPN settings.  You can put any valid PayPal account in subscription settings, and it will post an IPN to your forum, regardless of account settings.  That's not your problem.

Recurring payments is problematic, but won't prevent the subscription from being successfully applied.

What's puzzling is that you're not logging an error.  There are many situations in which the forum receives an IPN but doesn't know what to do with it, but this usually throws an error, and emails a notification to admins.

If you can set up a temporary admin account and pm the info, I'll take a look.

[Kimmie]

Subscriber group should be Private.

The PayPal IPN is one of the few things in Paid Subs that is pretty much idiotproof.  Your forum sends a notify_url to PayPal with the subscription info, and that overrides IPN settings.  You can put any valid PayPal account in subscription settings, and it will post an IPN to your forum, regardless of account settings.  That's not your problem.

Recurring payments is problematic, but won't prevent the subscription from being successfully applied.

What's puzzling is that you're not logging an error.  There are many situations in which the forum receives an IPN but doesn't know what to do with it, but this usually throws an error, and emails a notification to admins.

If you can set up a temporary admin account and pm the info, I'll take a look.

nope, not one single error on the site, in my email, nothing.


Ok I have completely deleted everything (test sub, test member group, etc). I will pm you the temp admin account info and you can work your magic . I appreciate this, it was about to be my next request  lol.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Works for me.  Registered new member (SubTest) in 0 post count group (Before the Storm), created new subscription (TestSub) that moves member to your Subscriber group (as Primary), made payment to your PayPal account from mine.  By the time I got back to your forum, subscription was successfully applied.  Did not make any changes to either membergroup, or to your subscription settings.

Try it.

[Kimmie]

Thanks for the help with this Krash, I REALLY appreciate it. After looking at how you set things up. about the only thing I can figure is...

I turned the sub off once I got her money. Apparently if you do this before Paypal has had time to shoot that info back to the site, the sub goes poof and turning it back on will not resolve it. I left it back on for over 2 days and her sub never appeared. I just hope that if I ever decide to get rid of any particular sub, this won't cause me problems in the future. I know that I couldn't delete one until every last subscriber was done with that sub, if I turn it off, I just wouldn't want it to cause problems with anyones current sub, etc. 

The only other thing different is that you listed no email. I wouldn't think that would be a problem, just wished I knew if it (and the reminder email)  worked or not. Now that I know the main part of the subs work, I can just tell people to give me feedback on these two things as time goes on.

I notice this at the top when modifying the sub:

"Note that as this group has existing subscribers the group settings cannot be changed!:"


Is this referring to the "Subscriber" group, the specific sub settings, or the main subscription settings?



You want a refund?   (about how long were you away from the forum before you checked it? I am trying to get a timeline so I can let folks know an average time to expect).

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I've never seen a subscription take more than a few seconds to activate after PayPal payment is successful.

The email notification is sent when subscription expires - has no effect on new sub.

You can deactivate an existing subscription, which prevents new members from subscribing, without deleting it. 

As for deleting a subscription with active subscribers, this is what it says:

"If you delete this subscription all users currently subscribed will lose any access rights granted by the subscription. Unless you are sure you want to do this it is recommended that you simply deactivate a subscription rather than delete it."

I deleted the test sub and ran Paid Subscriptions Checks, and Subtest is still a Subscrber, so don't know what's up with that.  Will have to tinker with it later when I have time.

Don't worry about the $.10 - buy yourself something nice. 

[Kimmie]

I've never seen a subscription take more than a few seconds to activate after PayPal payment is successful.

Well that is what I would have thought as well and is why I deactivated it after I got her payment. I didn't want any other members messing with it. Who knows at this point.

The email notification is sent when subscription expires - has no effect on new sub.

I plan on ticking the setting that sends them an email x amount of days before it expires. I hope it sends it.

I deleted the test sub and ran Paid Subscriptions Checks, and Subtest is still a Subscrber, so don't know what's up with that.  Will have to tinker with it later when I have time.

Not sure what that is... is it a report or something you ran? I will leave you access until you have had time to tinker with it. There is still about 7 days before I take this live.

Don't worry about the $.10 - buy yourself something nice. 

Hehehe cute!


Ok so, the rest of the member groups other than the one your test member was in, all have full access to the site right now. I am planning on throwing the site into MAintenance Mode on the night of the 31st and removing their access. All I should have to do is go to Permissions > Board Permissions > Go into each board and uncheck those groups, and then set up my 3 subs I plan on having right?