Setting PayPal return URL and making it auto return?

You have to enable auto return in your PayPal account, otherwise it will ignore the return field.

From the documentation (updated to reflect new layout Jan 2019):

Auto Return is turned off by default. To turn on Auto Return: Log in to your PayPal account at https://www.paypal.com or https://www.sandbox.paypal.com The My Account Overview page appears. Click the gear icon top right. The Profile Summary page appears. Click the My Selling Preferences link in the left column. Under the Selling Online section, click the Update link in the row for Website Preferences. The Website Payment Preferences page appears Under Auto Return for Website Payments, click the On radio button to enable Auto Return. In the Return URL field, enter the URL to which you want your payers redirected after they complete their payments. NOTE: PayPal checks the Return URL that you enter. If the URL is not properly formatted or cannot be validated, PayPal will not activate Auto Return. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the Save button.

IPN is for instant payment notification. It will give you more reliable/useful information than what you'll get from auto-return.

Documentation for IPN is here: https://www.x.com/sites/default/files/ipnguide.pdf

Online Documentation for IPN: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/ipn/gs_IPN/

The general procedure is that you pass a notify_url parameter with the request, and set up a page which handles and validates IPN notifications, and PayPal will send requests to that page to notify you when payments/refunds/etc. go through. That IPN handler page would then be the correct place to update the database to mark orders as having been paid.

Sample form using PHP for direct payments.

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">
    <input type="hidden" name="upload" value="1">
    <input type="hidden" name="business" value="you@youremail.com">

    <input type="hidden" name="item_name_' . $x . '" value="' . $product_name . '">
    <input type="hidden" name="amount_' . $x . '" value="' . $price . '">
    <input type="hidden" name="quantity_' . $x . '" value="' . $each_item['quantity'] . '"> 
    <input type="hidden" name="custom" value="' . $product_id_array . '">
    <input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="https://www.yoursite.com/my_ipn.php">
    <input type="hidden" name="return" value="https://www.yoursite.com/checkout_complete.php">
    <input type="hidden" name="rm" value="2">
    <input type="hidden" name="cbt" value="Return to The Store">
    <input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="https://www.yoursite.com/paypal_cancel.php">
    <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
    <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
    <input type="image" src="http://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but01.gif" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - its fast, free and secure!">
</form>

kindly go through the fields notify_url, return, cancel_return

sample code for handling ipn (my_ipn.php) which is requested by paypal after payment has been made.

For more information on creating a IPN, please refer to this link.

<?php
// Check to see there are posted variables coming into the script
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] != "POST")
    die("No Post Variables");
// Initialize the $req variable and add CMD key value pair
$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
// Read the post from PayPal
foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) {
    $value = urlencode(stripslashes($value));
    $req .= "&$key=$value";
}
// Now Post all of that back to PayPal's server using curl, and validate everything with PayPal
// We will use CURL instead of PHP for this for a more universally operable script (fsockopen has issues on some environments)
//$url = "https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr";
$url = "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr";
$curl_result = $curl_err = '';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $req);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "Content-Length: " . strlen($req)));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
$curl_result = @curl_exec($ch);
$curl_err = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$req = str_replace("&", "\n", $req);  // Make it a nice list in case we want to email it to ourselves for reporting
// Check that the result verifies
if (strpos($curl_result, "VERIFIED") !== false) {
    $req .= "\n\nPaypal Verified OK";
} else {
    $req .= "\n\nData NOT verified from Paypal!";
    mail("you@youremail.com", "IPN interaction not verified", "$req", "From: you@youremail.com");
    exit();
}

/* CHECK THESE 4 THINGS BEFORE PROCESSING THE TRANSACTION, HANDLE THEM AS YOU WISH
  1. Make sure that business email returned is your business email
  2. Make sure that the transaction�s payment status is �completed�
  3. Make sure there are no duplicate txn_id
  4. Make sure the payment amount matches what you charge for items. (Defeat Price-Jacking) */

// Check Number 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$receiver_email = $_POST['receiver_email'];
if ($receiver_email != "you@youremail.com") {
//handle the wrong business url
    exit(); // exit script
}
// Check number 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ($_POST['payment_status'] != "Completed") {
    // Handle how you think you should if a payment is not complete yet, a few scenarios can cause a transaction to be incomplete
}

// Check number 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$this_txn = $_POST['txn_id'];
//check for duplicate txn_ids in the database
// Check number 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$product_id_string = $_POST['custom'];
$product_id_string = rtrim($product_id_string, ","); // remove last comma
// Explode the string, make it an array, then query all the prices out, add them up, and make sure they match the payment_gross amount
// END ALL SECURITY CHECKS NOW IN THE DATABASE IT GOES ------------------------------------
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Homework - Examples of assigning local variables from the POST variables
$txn_id = $_POST['txn_id'];
$payer_email = $_POST['payer_email'];
$custom = $_POST['custom'];
// Place the transaction into the database
// Mail yourself the details
mail("you@youremail.com", "NORMAL IPN RESULT YAY MONEY!", $req, "From: you@youremail.com");
?>

https://i.stack.imgur.com/e6MVS.png

For further reading refer to the following links;

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/pdn/howto_checkout-outside

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_html_Appx_websitestandard_htmlvariables

hope this helps you..:)

one way i have found:

try to insert this field into your generated form code:

<input type='hidden' name='rm' value='2'>

rm means return method;

2 means (post)

Than after user purchases and returns to your site url, then that url gets the POST parameters as well

p.s. if using php, try to insert var_dump($_POST); in your return url(script),then make a test purchase and when you return back to your site you will see what variables are got on your url.

Sharing this as I've recently encountered issues similar to this thread

For a long time, my script worked well (basic payment form) and returned the POST variables to my success.php page and the IPN data as POST variables also. However, lately, I noticed the return page (success.php) was no longer receiving any POST vars. I tested in Sandbox and live and I'm pretty sure PayPal have changed something !

The notify_url still receives the correct IPN data allowing me to update DB, but I've not been able to display a success message on my return URL (success.php) page.

Despite trying many combinations to switch options on and off in PayPal website payment preferences and IPN, I've had to make some changes to my script to ensure I can still process a message. I've accomplished this by turning on PDT and Auto Return, after following this excellent guide.

Now it all works fine, but the only issue is the return URL contains all of the PDT variables which is ugly!

You may also find this helpful

I think that the idea of setting the Auto Return values as described above by Kevin is a bit strange!

Say, for example, that you have a number of websites that use the same PayPal account to handle your payments, or say that you have a number of sections in one website that perform different purchasing tasks, and require different return-addresses when the payment is completed. If I put a button on my page as described above in the 'Sample form using PHP for direct payments' section, you can see that there is a line there:

input type="hidden" name="return" value="https://www.yoursite.com/checkout_complete.php"

where you set the individual return value. Why does it have to be set generally, in the profile section as well?!?!

Also, because you can only set one value in the Profile Section, it means (AFAIK) that you cannot use the Auto Return on a site with multiple actions.

Comments please??

on the checkout page, look for the 'cancel_return' hidden form element:

set the value of the cancel_return form element to the URL you wish to return to: