Some (random?) customers not being sent an email

[VeevPidgin]

I use s2Member (version 110815) to sell access to certain posts/pages on my web site. For the most part, it has been working great (and thanks for that!). The first page I sold I received around 35 purchases and had no (reported) issues. However, the second page that I am currently selling has been sold to 9 customers, and 2 of them have reported issues.

One of them did not receive an email initially, and then later received an email containing a link to this page: http://www.riftstrats.com/?s2member_pay ... :1022:8760

(I have tested my server's PHP configuration as described by that page, and both tests passed successfully.)

And another customer claims to have received no email or notification at all. This same customer purchased my first page without any issues, so I don't believe it got stuck in his spam folder or anything. I issued him a refund and provided him a new link since I don't want to inconvenience any of my customers like that, but I'm not really sure what I can do to figure out or prevent this issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and thanks a ton to the authors and contributors of s2Member -- terrific plugin!

[Cristián Lávaque]

Hi Veev. Thanks for the kudos!

Could you post the log entries related to the purchases that have that problem? WP Admin -> s2Member -> PayPal Options -> Account Details -> Enable Logging

The ones that got it later are probably due to a network thing, the one I'd like to look at closer is the one that didn't get a thing. Did he check his spam folder?

[VeevPidgin]

He claims it wasn't sent to his spam folder, but obviously I can't verify that 100%. He seems trustworthy though, especially since he received the previous purchase with no issue.

I enabled logging, so I guess I'll need to wait til something happens again til I can give you any data?

Thanks.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Yeah, wait until the problem happens again and post the related log entries here (x'ing out any private info) please.

[VeevPidgin]

Alright, I finally come bearing good news! At least good news that I can provide you with some data, not good news that emails are being lost again. ;P

Someone failed to receive an email again, and his email address was only found in the ipn log file.

paypal-ipn.log

Code: Select all

WordPress® v3.2.1 :: s2Member® v111003
Memory 16.10 MB :: Real Memory 16.25 MB :: Peak Memory 16.13 MB :: Real Peak Memory 16.25 MB
www.riftstrats.com/?s2member_paypal_notify=1
User-Agent:
array (
  'mc_gross' => '14.95',
  'invoice' => '4e8a6f3b48aec~68.49.149.112',
  'protection_eligibility' => 'Ineligible',
  'payer_id' => 'VEHL6RX8RY688',
  'tax' => '0.00',
  'payment_date' => '19:28:46 Oct 03, 2011 PDT',
  'payment_status' => 'Completed',
  'charset' => 'windows-1252',
  'first_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'option_selection1' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'option_selection2' => '68.49.149.112',
  'mc_fee' => '0.73',
  'notify_version' => '3.4',
  'custom' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payer_status' => 'verified',
  'business' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'quantity' => '1',
  'verify_sign' => 'HIDDEN',
  'payer_email' => 'CUSTOMER1@gmail.com',
  'option_name1' => 'Originating Domain',
  'option_name2' => 'Customer IP Address',
  'txn_id' => '1BR12271SG406991P',
  'payment_type' => 'instant',
  'last_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'receiver_email' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'payment_fee' => '0.73',
  'receiver_id' => 'SAMZ435T7ZKGG',
  'txn_type' => 'web_accept',
  'item_name' => 'Lord Jornaru and Akylios',
  'mc_currency' => 'USD',
  'item_number' => 'sp:1251:8760',
  'residence_country' => 'US',
  'handling_amount' => '0.00',
  'transaction_subject' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payment_gross' => '14.95',
  'shipping' => '0.00',
  'ipn_track_id' => '1SccXL0S3rtrxG70MHtHVg',
  's2member_log' =>
  array (
    0 => 'IPN received on: Tue Oct 4, 2011 2:28:51 am UTC',
    1 => 's2Member POST vars verified through a POST back to PayPal®.',
    2 => 's2Member originating domain ( `$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]` ) validated.',
    3 => 's2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept` ) for Specific Post/Page Access.',
    4 => 'Specific Post/Page Confirmation Email sent to: "HIDDEN" <CUSTOMER1@gmail.com>.',
  ),
  'subscr_gateway' => 'paypal',
  'hours' => '8760',
  'sp_ids' => '1251',
  'ip' => '68.49.149.112',
)

WordPress® v3.2.1 :: s2Member® v111003
Memory 16.10 MB :: Real Memory 16.25 MB :: Peak Memory 16.14 MB :: Real Peak Memory 16.25 MB
www.riftstrats.com/?s2member_paypal_notify=1
User-Agent:
array (
  'mc_gross' => '14.95',
  'invoice' => '4e8a71226ba7f~67.60.117.250',
  'protection_eligibility' => 'Ineligible',
  'payer_id' => 'M97R7UPCBSABU',
  'tax' => '0.00',
  'payment_date' => '19:39:17 Oct 03, 2011 PDT',
  'payment_status' => 'Completed',
  'charset' => 'windows-1252',
  'first_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'option_selection1' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'option_selection2' => '67.60.117.250',
  'mc_fee' => '0.73',
  'notify_version' => '3.4',
  'custom' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payer_status' => 'unverified',
  'business' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'quantity' => '1',
  'verify_sign' => 'HIDDEN',
  'payer_email' => 'CUSTOMER2@yahoo.com',
  'option_name1' => 'Originating Domain',
  'option_name2' => 'Customer IP Address',
  'txn_id' => '5XB14000XL5248901',
  'payment_type' => 'instant',
  'last_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'receiver_email' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'payment_fee' => '0.73',
  'receiver_id' => 'SAMZ435T7ZKGG',
  'txn_type' => 'web_accept',
  'item_name' => 'Lord Jornaru and Akylios',
  'mc_currency' => 'USD',
  'item_number' => 'sp:1251:8760',
  'residence_country' => 'US',
  'receipt_id' => '2749-9846-8165-6051',
  'handling_amount' => '0.00',
  'transaction_subject' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payment_gross' => '14.95',
  'shipping' => '0.00',
  'ipn_track_id' => 'zrLY97qcE9Pz1xmboEDFiA',
  's2member_log' =>
  array (
    0 => 'IPN received on: Tue Oct 4, 2011 2:39:21 am UTC',
    1 => 's2Member POST vars verified through a POST back to PayPal®.',
    2 => 's2Member originating domain ( `$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]` ) validated.',
    3 => 's2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept` ) for Specific Post/Page Access.',
    4 => 'Specific Post/Page Confirmation Email sent to: "HIDDEN" <CUSTOMER2@yahoo.com>.',
  ),
  'subscr_gateway' => 'paypal',
  'hours' => '8760',
  'sp_ids' => '1251',
  'ip' => '67.60.117.250',
)

WordPress® v3.2.1 :: s2Member® v111003
Memory 16.10 MB :: Real Memory 16.25 MB :: Peak Memory 16.13 MB :: Real Peak Memory 16.25 MB
www.riftstrats.com/?s2member_paypal_notify=1
User-Agent:
array (
  'mc_gross' => '14.95',
  'invoice' => '4e8a7422b6ff6~184.148.175.199',
  'protection_eligibility' => 'Ineligible',
  'payer_id' => 'EPD45GHAEFV48',
  'tax' => '0.00',
  'payment_date' => '19:49:28 Oct 03, 2011 PDT',
  'payment_status' => 'Completed',
  'charset' => 'windows-1252',
  'first_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'option_selection1' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'option_selection2' => '184.148.175.199',
  'mc_fee' => '0.88',
  'notify_version' => '3.4',
  'custom' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payer_status' => 'verified',
  'business' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'quantity' => '1',
  'verify_sign' => 'HIDDEN',
  'payer_email' => 'CUSTOMER3@yahoo.com',
  'option_name1' => 'Originating Domain',
  'option_name2' => 'Customer IP Address',
  'txn_id' => '49G45524852342357',
  'payment_type' => 'instant',
  'last_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'receiver_email' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'payment_fee' => '0.88',
  'receiver_id' => 'SAMZ435T7ZKGG',
  'txn_type' => 'web_accept',
  'item_name' => 'Lord Jornaru and Akylios',
  'mc_currency' => 'USD',
  'item_number' => 'sp:1251:8760',
  'residence_country' => 'CA',
  'handling_amount' => '0.00',
  'transaction_subject' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payment_gross' => '14.95',
  'shipping' => '0.00',
  'ipn_track_id' => 'AMk1thYQzPn10ZUsgyo3jg',
  's2member_log' =>
  array (
    0 => 'IPN received on: Tue Oct 4, 2011 2:49:33 am UTC',
    1 => 's2Member POST vars verified through a POST back to PayPal®.',
    2 => 's2Member originating domain ( `$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]` ) validated.',
    3 => 's2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept` ) for Specific Post/Page Access.',
    4 => 'Specific Post/Page Confirmation Email sent to: "HIDDEN" <CUSTOMER3@yahoo.com>.',
  ),
  'subscr_gateway' => 'paypal',
  'hours' => '8760',
  'sp_ids' => '1251',
  'ip' => '184.148.175.199',
)

paypal-rtn.log

Code: Select all

WordPress® v3.2.1 :: s2Member® v111003
Memory 13.21 MB :: Real Memory 13.50 MB :: Peak Memory 13.33 MB :: Real Peak Memory 13.50 MB
www.riftstrats.com/?s2member_paypal_return=1&tx=1BR12271SG406991P&st=Completed&amt=14.95&cc=USD&cm=www%2eriftstrats%2ecom&item_number=sp:1251:8760
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.220 Safari/535.1
array (
  'mc_gross' => '14.95',
  'invoice' => '4e8a6f3b48aec~68.49.149.112',
  'protection_eligibility' => 'Ineligible',
  'payer_id' => 'VEHL6RX8RY688',
  'tax' => '0.00',
  'payment_date' => '19:28:46 Oct 03, 2011 PDT',
  'payment_status' => 'Completed',
  'charset' => 'windows-1252',
  'first_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'option_selection1' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'option_selection2' => '68.49.149.112',
  'mc_fee' => '0.73',
  'custom' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payer_status' => 'verified',
  'business' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'quantity' => '1',
  'payer_email' => 'CUSTOMER1@gmail.com',
  'option_name1' => 'Originating Domain',
  'option_name2' => 'Customer IP Address',
  'txn_id' => '1BR12271SG406991P',
  'payment_type' => 'instant',
  'last_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'receiver_email' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'payment_fee' => '0.73',
  'receiver_id' => 'SAMZ435T7ZKGG',
  'txn_type' => 'web_accept',
  'item_name' => 'Lord Jornaru and Akylios',
  'mc_currency' => 'USD',
  'item_number' => 'sp:1251:8760',
  'residence_country' => 'US',
  'handling_amount' => '0.00',
  'transaction_subject' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payment_gross' => '14.95',
  'shipping' => '0.00',
  's2member_log' =>
  array (
    0 => 'Return-Data received on: Tue Oct 4, 2011 2:28:56 am UTC',
    1 => 's2Member POST vars verified through a POST back to PayPal®.',
    2 => 's2Member originating domain ( `$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]` ) validated.',
    3 => 's2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept` ) for Specific Post/Page Access.',
    4 => 'Transient Tracking Cookie set on ( `web_accept` ) for Specific Post/Page Access.',
    5 => 'Redirecting Customer to the Specific Post/Page.',
  ),
  'subscr_gateway' => 'paypal',
  'hours' => '8760',
  'sp_ids' => '1251',
  'ip' => '68.49.149.112',
)

WordPress® v3.2.1 :: s2Member® v111003
Memory 13.20 MB :: Real Memory 13.50 MB :: Peak Memory 13.32 MB :: Real Peak Memory 13.50 MB
www.riftstrats.com/?s2member_paypal_return=1&tx=49G45524852342357&st=Completed&amt=14.95&cc=USD&cm=www%2eriftstrats%2ecom&item_number=sp:1251:8760
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)
array (
  'mc_gross' => '14.95',
  'invoice' => '4e8a7422b6ff6~184.148.175.199',
  'protection_eligibility' => 'Ineligible',
  'payer_id' => 'EPD45GHAEFV48',
  'tax' => '0.00',
  'payment_date' => '19:49:28 Oct 03, 2011 PDT',
  'payment_status' => 'Completed',
  'charset' => 'windows-1252',
  'first_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'option_selection1' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'option_selection2' => '184.148.175.199',
  'mc_fee' => '0.88',
  'custom' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payer_status' => 'verified',
  'business' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'quantity' => '1',
  'payer_email' => 'CUSTOMER3@yahoo.com',
  'option_name1' => 'Originating Domain',
  'option_name2' => 'Customer IP Address',
  'txn_id' => '49G45524852342357',
  'payment_type' => 'instant',
  'last_name' => 'HIDDEN',
  'receiver_email' => 'veevpidgin@gmail.com',
  'payment_fee' => '0.88',
  'receiver_id' => 'SAMZ435T7ZKGG',
  'txn_type' => 'web_accept',
  'item_name' => 'Lord Jornaru and Akylios',
  'mc_currency' => 'USD',
  'item_number' => 'sp:1251:8760',
  'residence_country' => 'CA',
  'handling_amount' => '0.00',
  'transaction_subject' => 'www.riftstrats.com',
  'payment_gross' => '14.95',
  'shipping' => '0.00',
  's2member_log' =>
  array (
    0 => 'Return-Data received on: Tue Oct 4, 2011 2:49:38 am UTC',
    1 => 's2Member POST vars verified through a POST back to PayPal®.',
    2 => 's2Member originating domain ( `$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]` ) validated.',
    3 => 's2Member `txn_type` identified as ( `web_accept` ) for Specific Post/Page Access.',
    4 => 'Transient Tracking Cookie set on ( `web_accept` ) for Specific Post/Page Access.',
    5 => 'Redirecting Customer to the Specific Post/Page.',
  ),
  'subscr_gateway' => 'paypal',
  'hours' => '8760',
  'sp_ids' => '1251',
  'ip' => '184.148.175.199',
)

The first log file has customers 1, 2, and 3. The second log file only has customers 1 and 3. Customer 2 is the person who reported not receiving an email.

If there's any other information I can provide you please let me know. Thanks!

[VeevPidgin]

Also, if this means anything, in my inbox the PayPal email had a subject line of:

Code: Select all

Payment received from CUSTOMER2@yahoo.com

The majority (but not all) of other purchases appear as:

Code: Select all

Item #sp:1251:8760 - Notification of Payment Received from FirstName LastName (email)

[Cristián Lávaque]

Thanks for the data, Veev. I'm emailing Jason asking him about this.

I see in your IPN log that they are being sent the email, and some are getting it, so your server seems to be fine. Did Customer2 look in his spam folder or checked the inbox again a bit later?

[VeevPidgin]

He claims not to have received an email at all, and I did ask that he check his spam folder. He originally contacted me asking how long it normally takes to receive an email, and this was about an hour after he purchased it.

Again, unfortunately I cannot verify with 100% certainty that he didn't receive the email (since I can't view his inbox), but this seems to be a reoccurring theme and I have no real reason to doubt him. I haven't spoken with him since, but I did just check my rtn.log file again and do not see his email address anywhere.

[VeevPidgin]

Happened again just FYI, can provide logs if needed. Looking at my email inbox, I've received 10 emails for selling this page. The 8 emails titled:

"Item #sp:1251:8760 - Notification of Payment Received from FirstName LastName (email@gmail.com)"

all worked, the 2 emails titled:

"Payment received from email@hotmail.com"

both did not work.

[Cristián Lávaque]

The email titles you mention, are those the ones sent to you by PayPal?

Yeah, I'd like to see the logs entries. x'ing out private info, could you post the entries related to the two transactions that didn't work?

[VeevPidgin]

You seem to have private messages disabled. Do you have an email where I can send you these logs? I was just going to send the whole thing to you privately and not worry about editing any information.

[Cristián Lávaque]

http://s2member.com/contact

[Jason Caldwell]

You might want to have a look at this thread.
~ What version of PHP are you running please?
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14957#p44759

[VeevPidgin]

I'm currently using PHP 5.2. I'm going to try upgrading it to 5.3 since that thread mentions it should resolve this problem, and I'll let you know if it helps.

Thanks for the support.

[VeevPidgin]

Just a quick heads up: The problem happened again this morning, with PHP 5.3 in use.

This was before I upgraded to s2Member v111011, where I noticed some mentions of email related bugs in the change log. If it happens again (in v111011 with PHP 5.3), I'll come back with more detailed reports, including the log files.

Thanks.

[Jason Caldwell]

OK. Thanks for the update.
Yea, hopefully s2Member v111011 fixes this. I believe it will. But please keep us updated and we'll have another look should problems persist.

[VeevPidgin]

I am sorry to report that the problem is definitely still persisting (in v111011 with PHP 5.3).

I have sent you both of my log files via your contact form.

The most recent example of it not working is dlm***@hotmail.com (*** censored for privacy for this thread). His email address can be found in paypal-ipn.log, but not paypal-rtn.log.

I am not sure what other information I can report, other than that the people who do not receive an email are always signified by the automated PayPal email (to my inbox) having a different subject line (with no mention of the s2Member item number).

Also, one person I asked that experienced this problem said he was using a Visa card and was paying as a guest (without a PayPal account). I'm not sure if this is related or not.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for the follow-up.

I've just finished reviewing your log files and it appears that everything is being processed properly by s2Member, it's just the email itself which is failing to reach its destination.

We identified a couple more edge cases with wp_mail() that were addressed in the release of s2Member v111017+, so you might give that a shot and see if this helps you.

If nothing gives, I would start looking at your other plugins. In particular, do you have any plugins installed that supplement the default wp_mail() function in any way?

If you're running an SMTP mail plugin for WordPress, you might want to review this section of your Dashboard in the latest version of s2Member. See: s2Member -> General Options -> Email Configuration -> IMPORTANT notice.

( click to enlarge )

[VeevPidgin]

Thanks for the feedback, and sorry for the slow reply.

The only plugin I have that may interfere with wp_mail() would be "Subscribe to Comments Reloaded". I'm not really sure if it would have a negative effect or not.

With that said, I've had no reported problems in the last 15 purchases or so, so I'm wondering if the problem resolved itself with s2member updates.

My "email from address" is currently set to noreply@riftstrats.com -- I'll try changing it to my actual email address to see if that helps as well.

Thanks for your help.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for the follow-up.

With that said, I've had no reported problems in the last 15 purchases or so, so I'm wondering if the problem resolved itself with s2member updates.

Yes, that's very possible. There were some updates recently that resolved issues in edge cases related to the wp_mail() function. Please keep us posted. Thank you!