PayPal Sandbox not updating order status

[PeteW1959]

Using PayPal Payments Standard, the site works just fine with live PayPal. A couple of years ago I had tested Magento with Sandbox and that too worked fine.

I am now trying to do some test transactions and have changed the settings to the Sandbox Merchant email, and set 'Sandbox Mode' to Yes.

The test customer is taken correctly to PayPal Sandbox, completes the transaction and receives the correct PayPal receipt email (into the Sandbox customer account). He is then taken back to Magento where he gets the 'Your order has been received' screen. However the order confirmation email is not sent (the test customer has a live email address to receive this into) and the transaction still stays as 'Pending Payment'.

As far as I know nothing has changed since I last used Sandbox, and this is now driving me crazy; I have spent literally days fiddling with Sandbox and Magento settings but just can't get it to work. Even more annoying when switching back to PayPal live everything works as it should!

[theMageComp · Accepted solution]

Hi @PeteW1959,

Here is how you can set this for the PayPal Sandbox for testing mode.

1. Go to – https://developer.paypal.com/
2. Login for merchant account details and then go to profile page for that merchant
3. You will see site menu and click on sandbox accounts – click create account
4. From here you need to create multiple accounts with dummy email address you’ve created in in control panel
5. Create merchant account and one buyer account
6. Allocate some amount of money for the merchant account and some amount for the buyer account so you can simply pay this for order on sandbox mode.
7. Go to https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/.
8. Log in using your test merchant account and then click on the profile.
9. On Profile page you will see Selling Preference / Tool – Click on the INstant Payment Notification Preference
10. Click on “Choose IPN Settings”.
11. Your Notification URL is going to be http://www.mystore.com/paypal/ipn
12. Click under “IPN messages” Receive IPN messages (enabled).Just Save and you’re done with it.

Above things are most considerable when you are setting your Magento Payment method as PayPal.

Source: http://www.yogisfunda.com/magento-paypal-order-status-pending-payment-setting-paypal-ipn-magento/

[PeteW1959]

Thanks for this, but it wasn't the PayPal config that was the problem.

I followed the link to your page where you mentioned that you had this problem when the store is in Developer mode, and that was my problem. Obviously I don't want the store live when it is going to Sandbox!

This is something that needs addressing in either Magento or PayPal Sandbox; no one would want to use Sandbox on a live store!

[etech007]

This was really helpful thanks