Just in case someone stumbles on this and has the same problem, I was unable to resolve it. Instead, I went the cURL route, and it worked beautifully. I am not sure why the difference, but it solved the problem. Since I had no experience with cURL, it was a learning curve for me, but I made it through.
Here is my code that worked: I connect through a glob.inc.php, search that for more info.
PHP Code:
// STEP 1: Read POST data
// reading posted data directly from $_POST causes serialization issues with array data in POST
// read raw POST data from input stream instead.
$raw_post_data = file_get_contents('php://input'); //read-only stream that allows you to read raw data from the request body. Result is a string...
$raw_post_array = explode('&', $raw_post_data); //put the string into an array
$myPost = array();
foreach ($raw_post_array as $keyval) {
$keyval = explode ('=', $keyval);
if (count($keyval) == 2)
$myPost[$keyval[0]] = urldecode($keyval[1]);
}
// read the post from PayPal system and add 'cmd'
$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
if(function_exists('get_magic_quotes_gpc')) {
$get_magic_quotes_exists = true;
}
foreach ($myPost as $key => $value) {
if($get_magic_quotes_exists == true && get_magic_quotes_gpc() == 1) {
$value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
} else {
$value = urlencode($value);
}
$req .= "&$key=$value";
}
// STEP 2: Post IPN data back to paypal to validate
$ch = curl_init('https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr'); //initialize the curl session, and store it in object $ch
//below are the options applied to $ch
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1); //pretty obvious, sets http version. paypal requires 1.1
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1); //tells curl to do a regular post (the 1 option indicates 'true'
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1); //maybe someone can explain, manual states 'TRUE to return the transfer as a string of the return value of curl_exec() instead of outputting it out directly.'
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $req); //finally, the data we are posting. Parsed above in the foreach statements
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 1); //set to true here to verify paypal certificate
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2); //could use help here. paypal states 1 to check the existence of a common name in the SSL peer certificate. 2 to check the existence of a common name and also verify that it matches the hostname provided. In production environments the value of this option should be kept at 2 (default value).
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FORBID_REUSE, 1); //closes the connection as soon as it is finished processing without pooling data
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Connection: Close')); //adds connection close to header
// In wamp like environments that do not come bundled with root authority certificates,
// please download 'cacert.pem' from "http://curl.haxx.se/docs/caextract.html" and set the directory path
// of the certificate as shown below.
// curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CAINFO, dirname(__FILE__) . '/cacert.pem');
if( !($res = curl_exec($ch)) ) { //and, we execute the cURL with all options set as above and log an error if it comes back empty. Should return 'VERIFIED'
// error_log("Got " . curl_error($ch) . " when processing IPN data");
curl_close($ch);
exit;
}
curl_close($ch);
// STEP 3: Inspect IPN validation result and act accordingly
if (strcmp ($res, "VERIFIED") == 0) {
// assign posted variables to local variables
$item_name = $_POST['item_name'];
$item_number = $_POST['item_number'];
$payment_status = $_POST['payment_status'];
$payment_amount = $_POST['mc_gross'];
$payment_currency = $_POST['mc_currency'];
$txn_id = $_POST['txn_id'];
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
$payer_email = $_POST['payer_email'];
$payment_date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($_POST['payment_date']));
$memid = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['custom']); //our users ID
// check whether the payment_status is Completed
if ($payment_status=='Completed'){
// check that txn_id has not been previously processed
$txn_id_check = mysql_query("SELECT 'cknum' FROM 'members' WHERE 'cknum'='".$txn_id."'"); //cknum is a field specific to my db.
if (mysql_num_rows($txn_id_check)!=1){ //we don't already have that txn_id stored
// check that receiver_email is your Primary PayPal email
if ($receiver_email == 'yourpaypalemail@here.com'){
// check that payment_amount/payment_currency are correct
if ($payment_amount == 'your amount' && $payment_currency == 'USD') {
// process payment
//add values to database members table
$log_query = mysql_query("UPDATE members SET receipt='Yes', Amount='$payment_amount', paytype='Paypal', cknum='$txn_id', paid_thru='$payment_date' WHERE memid='$memid'"); //or whatever our sql statement is, or an email string, or whatever you want to execute.
}
}
}
}
} else if (strcmp ($res, "INVALID") == 0) {
// log for manual investigation
$memid = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['custom']); //our users ID
$log_query = mysql_query("UPDATE members SET receipt='No', cknum='INVALID' WHERE memid='$memid'");
}
?>
I really hope this helps someone.
TB