hi Sakic
i'm having a problem with the crediting.
i'm testing vodes on a live site, using paypal's sandbox (business account).
sandbox shows payments go through, i get redirected to the vodes page saying 'You have succesfully made the payment...' but credits don't get added.
the log shows only the first of the 4 payments i've made, although no crediting has been done on that first payment.
what should i check?

i've recreated the sandbox account properly this time (i was using another paypal account).
i've tested your suggestion and i get a blank page in both cases (with and without sef) - no errors.
the payments are now stuck in paypal: the sandbox mail says they are under revision for up to 24 hours, but they've been there for 3 days now, and i've not received any confirmation nor i can see any confirmation mail on the sandbox.
i'm looking at their forums, unless you know the answer already as to why sandbox is not going ahead in processing the payments?

The notification URL is already set in HTML so you don't have to add it specifically. Why are the payments held in PayPal is up to PayPal, the component has nothing to do with that. So check with PayPal.

ok, got it working now.

phoned up paypal, apparently the transaction revision only happens if you enable "payment review" for your sandbox account, as i did. so once you disable that (it's disabled by default) it all goes smoothly:
at transaction end paypal sends vendor and email notifying the payment, vodes sends user an email thanking for the purchase, and record gets stored in vodes' logs!

is it correct that Vodes does not automatically increment the user credits, but it has to be done manually by admin once the paypal notification is received?

regarding the log, it stores info in this fashion:

mc\_gross => 20.00 protection\_eligibility => Ineligible payer\_id => KPYRD9VNRRHAG tax => 0.00 payment\_date => 00:41:11 Mar 08, 2010 PST payment\_status => Completed charset => windows-1252 first\_name => Meex option\_selection1 => Gipp mc\_fee => 1.03 notify\_version => 2.9 custom => payer\_status => unverified business => store@astore.com quantity => 1 verify\_sign => A9ghrB-KOzfQ8dNUfIeQwiWVP83NAZpXTbWtqxdwxv0GhwEeMoFFQgRo payer\_email => info@meex.com option\_name1 => username txn\_id => 6FN24844RU930033M payment\_type => instant last\_name => Meexsur receiver\_email => store@astore.com payment\_fee => receiver\_id => ZFE4UEDCC5GFL txn\_type => web\_accept item\_name => Vodes mc\_currency => EUR item\_number => 1 residence\_country => UK test\_ipn => 1 receipt\_id => 5061-7420-1921-5245 handling\_amount => 0.00 transaction\_subject => Vodes payment\_gross => shipping => 0.00 tmpl => component layout => empty

is it possible to turn that into an array (if it's not already) so that i could generate a nicer display of the data?

yes, you're right, it credits... i've got to fix my tweaks, i couldn't notice 'cos i've a tweak that changed 10 to 0.1...

what about the other question, Sakic?
is there any way to turn the log data $this->escape($row->log) in /com_vodes/views/logs/tmpl/default.php into an array (if it's not already) so that i could generate a nicer display of the data?

This problem was plaguing me as well, but in the time it took for my login to get approved, I got it resolved.

I noticed something in the sandbox "Test Email" logs; a warning that my email address (for my sandbox test account for the vendor) was not yet confirmed, and that payment would be sent when it was confirmed...

Our records indicate that this email address is unconfirmed. In order to receive your pending payment, you must first confirm your email address.

The "Email" gave me a link within sandbox to confirm the email address, which was useless (it seems a lot of sandbox fails! - Not Vodes' fault, but PayPal's).

So I figured it out...

In Sandbox, click on "Test Accounts", then click on "Enter Sandbox Test Site" and login using your vendor's credentials.

Then, go through the "normal" process of confirming an email address; click the word "Profile" and you'll see "Email".

Now, again, Sandbox fails the whole thing, but once you've sent the confirmation email, you'll find it back in your sandbox under "Test Email" (you won't actually get an email, but you'll find it there).  The email is titled "Activate Your PayPal Account!"

If you copy and paste the link for the activation, it will likely fail (as it did for me), but if you go back to your Profile -> Email tab, you'll see that the account is indeed confirmed, and you can start receiving payment (and therefore, Vodes simply starts working).

Again, to clarify, the problem is with PayPal, NOT Vodes.  So if you have this problem, go easy on the guy who put some great work into this system.

Now that I've figured that out, I'm flying.  My site is looking sick!

Cheers,
Robbie