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PayPal Sandbox to test site

by Mike Murphy
8 replies
Maybe I'm just daft, but I'm trying to do a test purchase on one of my sites and someone mentioned I use PayPal Sandbox to buy the product from myself and then issue myself a refund but as far as I can tell, the sandbox is all internal and doesn't allow any external actual purchase use.

True or false?

Thanks,
Mike
#paypal #sandbox #site
  • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
    Both?

    You purchase a product from Test Account 1 from Test Account 2. No real money changes hands so you don't need to refund anything. Unless you want to test refunds.

    It will be easier an faster if you 1) have a friend make a few penny purchases or 2) setup a personal account and use it as the buyer account.

    I always do 2 and just refund everything when I'm done testing.

    Garrie
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnny Slater
    The PayPal sandbox can be a bit confusing when you first start working with it.

    You need to set up two accounts inside the sandbox, one for the merchant ( a business account) and one for the buyer ( a personal account.)

    You need to have both accounts set up and verify the personal account so that it can send money. One thing that confuses most people is that when you create a sandbox account you don't get the verification email sent to your real email address. There is a special place on the sandbox page to view all the emails that are sent to the test accounts and you just have to open the email there and click the validation link.

    Once you have the accounts set up you just make sure you PayPal button submits to sandbox.paypal.com instead of paypal.com like normal. The purchases work the same in the sandbox as they do with the live PayPal account, the only difference is no real money moves from one account to the other. This means you don't have to worry about refunding the money since there was no real money moved.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
      I think the part I had buggered up was that the PayPal link on my webpage goes right to my actual PayPal account.

      So if I read Johnny Slater's comments properly, I should modify said webpage so that the paypal button goes to the sandbox account, click it to buy and run through the buying process and then change it back when I'm done testing right?

      I could have a friend do a test purchase, but I'd kind of like to see the process that my customer will be going through.

      Thanks
      Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author stevenh512
    Yeah, you need to change the PayPal button to use your sandbox account, and you also need to make it connect to PayPal's sandbox server rather than their live server.

    If you're using IPN to verify transactions (and you should be), you'll also need to modify your IPN script to communicate with the sandbox server rather than the live server.

    The URL your button and IPN script should be pointing to for the live server is:
    www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr

    The URL for the sandbox server is:
    www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
    Ok, when I make the buyer account in the Sandbox and I have my PayPal button go to the sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr

    and then I go click the PayPal button (after saving and uploading the page), all I get is an "500 Internal Server Error"

    Where am I going wrong here? Wife is starting to ask why I didn't pay some one to do this. How does that teach me to do it? I'll pay someone later on when I know how to do it myself!

    Thanks
    Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnny Slater
    Without seeing the button code there is no way of knowing what is causing your error.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
      I found a guide here " assets.webassist.com/how-tos/paypal_sandbox.pdf " which is basically what I did to setup my account but the report falls short when it comes to actually testing my site.

      When I go to my site and click buy and enter the username and password, I get an error that says to check the user name and password. I assume this is because the username isn't actually live but rather just a sandbox account.

      So how do I actually test the site as if I were the customer?

      Thanks,
      Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author n7 Studios
    Mike,

    Best take a look at the developer documentation, depending on which Paypal service you're trying to integrate with (full list included in the URL below):

    https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?c..._documentation
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