IPN operations/history

The IPN History page on the PayPal website enables you to verify and troubleshoot IPN messages. Use the IPN History page to determine the status of IPN messages, view message details, and to resend them, if necessary, as described in these procedures:

• View IPN messages and details
• Resend IPN messages

View IPN messages and details

Use the IPN History page on the PayPal website to view IPN messages sent to your listener URL from PayPal, and to request that messages be resent.

1. Select the IPN messages to review. You can specify a date range, delivery status, and PayPal transaction ID. The following example shows search results for a specified date range.

   

2. Review the IPN History search results, which contain the following information:

   • The date and time that PayPal created the IPN message.

   • Whether this IPN message was the original message or whether it was resent, which is indicated in the Date/time created column.

   • The IPN message ID assigned by PayPal.

   • The current status, which is one of the following values:

     • Sent - PayPal sent the message to your IPN listener.

     • Failed - PayPal did not receive an acknowledgment to the message.

     • Queued - PayPal is ready to send the message.

     • Retrying - The message was resent between 1 and 15 times and PayPal continues to resend the message.

     • Disabled - The message will not be resent because the merchant's account has been disabled.

       Note: If you requested that PayPal resend the IPN message and the status is not updated for the attempt, resending is appended to the status. For example: Failed - resending.

   • Your server's response to the HTTPS POST that delivered the IPN message to your listener. For more information about these codes, see RFC 2616: Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1.

   • If the message is related to a PayPal transaction, the ID of the PayPal transaction associated with the message.

3. To see more information about an IPN message, click on the message ID. The IPN details page opens as shown in this example:

   

   In addition to the information on the IPN History page, the details contain the following information:

   • Whether this IPN message was the original message or whether it was resent.
   • The last time the message was resent.
   • The URL on which your listener was running when the message was sent.
   • The number of retries before the message was successfully acknowledged.
   • The type of IPN message.

Resend IPN messages

Use the IPN History page to request that PayPal resend one or more IPN messages. You can search the IPN message history for the messages that may need to be resent, and then select them.

1. To resend IPN messages, mark one or more messages and click the Resend selected button as shown in this example:

   

2. To send the message to the current profile URL instead of the URL associated with the message, check the box for To send an IPN again to a profile URL. If you do not select this option, PayPal sends the message to the same URL to which the original message was sent, which is not necessarily the current profile URL.

   You may receive a confirmation notice alerting you to the possibility that you will receive duplicate messages. Click Confirm to resend; otherwise click Cancel.

   

3. Check the status for resent messages. The status indicates that PayPal is resending the message until it actually has been resent as shown in this example:

   

4. Check the HTTP response code field in the IPN details page for resent messages.

   When the message is sent, your server's response to the HTTPS POST is used to update the HTTP response code field in the IPN details page. A value of 200 indicates that your server successfully received the IPN message. Other values typically indicate a server configuration error for the server that hosts your IPN listener. For more information about these codes, see HTTP Status Codes. If you do not see a response code, you should check that your sever is running.