PayPal Donations For vBulletin 3.5.0

Sorry Guys...I have disappeared from vB coding completely for the time being...RL is paying me $35/hour to ignore it lol. Hope you understand why I haven't been around...

Paypal Donations For vBulletin 3.5
Version 2.02b

Hack Provided and coded by )O( Cloudrunner )O( of The Noble Pagan.
Release version: 2.02b
Release Date: 03 July 2005

Change Log

Paypal Donations 2.02

• Fixed Bug introduced with the installer for the tables from 2.01
• Added Who's Online Support Plugins For Donations Script

Paypal Donations 2.01

• Fixed a small bug in the display of the top / last donors on the donate page.

Paypal Donations 2.00

• Ported system over to vBulletin 3.50
• Added ability for the installer to install template edits automatically
• System installs plugins automatically
• Fixed some minor bugs that were present in 1.07 of the 3.0.7 vBulletin donations system.

Special Thanks

Special Thanks goes to the following people, without their support, this would never have happened:

dsboyce8624
guvner
SLeeeper
And all of the Alpha Testers that helped out with this Hack!

I couldn't have done it without you all, Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

What Paypal Donations Is:

Paypal Donations is a complete system that controls donations and how they are received via backend interfacing between your vBulletin server and Paypal's payment gateway server. The beauty of this marriage of servers is quite simply automation of the donation process as well as security of the transactions for both you, the administrator, and your users. With the Paypal donations system installed on your forums, you will be able to bring in that much needed income to not only keep your forums alive, but also to help defer costs of doing so to the users of your site without having to bug everyone and beg for money.

This seamless integration of Paypal as your backend payment processor not only provides your user with a well known and safe payment processor, but you are saved the hassle of opening a merchant account with your banking institution as well as saves you time in the process as it takes only a few short minutes to sign up with Paypal if you are not already an account holder there.

System Requirements

OS: vBulletin 3.5 (if you are running this already, then your server has the required installation, GD libraries are required, as well as CURL capabilities for this system to work)

Things To Do Before Installation

Direct File Edits To vB Resident Files: 1 (needed to group templates in AdminCP)
File Uploads: 34 (Of which 18 will be deleted after installation, leaving a total of 16 Files on your server)
Direct Database Queries: None, the installer does these for you
Direct Plugin Installation: None, the installer does these for you
Direct Template Modification: None, the installer installs all new templates, and modifies the resident templates as needed

The uninstaller will remove all modifications (to include the templates) should you decide to remove the system from your server.

How To Install / Upgrade Paypal Donations

Installation and Upgrading are as easy as a human like me could make it. Simply upload all the files from the archive to your server keeping the folder hierarchy intact and then point your browser to the installation file. On most servers it will be one of the following:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/admincp/donations_install.php
• http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admi...ns_install.php

Just follow the prompts from there folks, the installer does all the database, template, plugin, phrasing, and settings automatically for you!

If you ever decide to remove the system, just upload the install files and folder again and run the installer and choose uninstall. The uninstaller will remove any and all modifications that it did to your files, database, and templates automatically as well. Its as easy as you can get!

Time to install: less than five minutes depending on your upload speed.

Steps To Perform After Installation

1. You must make sure that you have either a Business or Premiere account with Paypal.
   1. If you do not, then you will need to upgrade your Paypal account to that level before this system will work.
2. You must have Paypal's IPN (Instant Payment Notification) turned on in your Paypal Profile.
   1. You do not need to have it pointing at any particular file for this system to work as the system will tell Paypal where to send the IPN to credit your users and notify you of the transaction.
3. You will need to run through the donations settings at the end of the installer and make sure that you have all the required information in there.
4. Please note that this system can be placed into test mode (default setting is ON when system is first installed).
   1. This setting tells the system whether to speak with the real Paypal Server for transactions or with Paypal's Sandbox (testing) server. If you wish to test the system before going live you will need to have access to Paypal's Sandbox server, you can sign up for access there at: http://developer.paypal.com.
5. You will need to input your Paypal Account Email into the settings
6. You will need to input the full URL to your donate.php file so that your users can make it back to your site after payment
7. You will need to input the full URL to your ppverify.php file so that Paypal can send your IPNs to you and your system can process the information and give your users credit for the donation

License

Originally Posted by Brandon J. Briggs aka. Cloudrunner

As the original author of the Paypal Hacks for vBulletin 3.0.x and 3.5.x I give full authorization to modify, recode, compile and/or reverse engineer the paypal donation hacks to any and all fully licensed members of vBulletin.org. I also give permission to fully distribute any derivative works that are created due to this authorization without need of providing credit or other means of recompense.

I am releasing this authorization in the hopes that someone will be able to carry on the work that was begun.

Final words

You will need to add a link somewhere in your navigation system for vBulletin pointing your users to the donations page (if you installed the vBadvanced Module then you have a link on the home page, but you might want to add one in the nav bar as well), as well as setting up your paypal account to give IPN responses to you, you can do this in your Paypal Profile under Instant Payment Notification.

To play in PayPal's Sandbox you will need to be registered with their developer network and setup a few sandbox accounts to play with the sandbox properly. I have throughly tested the sandbox functionality, and it is working until they decide to change coding standards again.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy this hack, Please feel free to send feedback to tnp@noblepagan.com !

Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

P.s. Should you feel the need to donate to me in thanks, I will not stop you , in fact I will say thank you and that your support is greatly appreciated. If you do donate to me for this hack, I will give the recognition here as well as on The Noble Pagan. You can find my donations page here (also works as a demo site should you feel the need to check it out):

The Noble Pagan Donation Page

[Neo_obs]

I am having the same problems. I know I talked to sinisterpain about this on MSN and he didnt know what it was exactly either.

I have done everything to try and fix the problem but it just doesnt want to work anymore. The funny thing is on my developer forum it works but on our live forum it doesn't

BTW just wondering what is the addy like for your forums

mine is just www.xxx.com/ppverify.php
while my test forum is www.xxx.com/test/ppverify.php

could it be that we cant use our root directory?

[sinisterpain]

Originally Posted by Neo_obs

I am having the same problems. I know I talked to sinisterpain about this on MSN and he didnt know what it was exactly either.

I have done everything to try and fix the problem but it just doesnt want to work anymore. The funny thing is on my developer forum it works but on our live forum it doesn't

BTW just wondering what is the addy like for your forums

mine is just www.xxx.com/ppverify.php
while my test forum is www.xxx.com/test/ppverify.php

could it be that we cant use our root directory?

I use the forum root www.yourdomain.com/forum/ppverify.php
If paypal does not find the confirmation script or is not allowed access it will not write the member information to the database, but you will see the payment going through your paypal account since the first step in the process for members is going to your paypal account to complete the transaction.
I have had the hack running on my site for a year with only one problem which was due to my playing with the confirmation scripts to try adding subscriptions.
I know the Paypal hack works less a few functions that require fixing, and everyone has different server configurations as well as hacks. In your case it does not make any sense to me why it would work on your test server and not on your live server since they both share the same database. This can only lead me to believe that some configuration is different between the two and it could be the link to the ppverify file and how it is called in the donation settup or on the paypal site.

[badboyz]

Database error in vBulletin 3.6.5:

Invalid SQL:
INSERT INTO phrase (`phraseid`, `languageid`, `varname`, `text`, `phrasetypeid`) VALUES ('', '-1', 'settinggroup_donations', 'PayPal Donations', '5000');

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'phrasetypeid' in 'field list'
Error Number : 1054

someone help me please

[sinisterpain]

Originally Posted by badboyz

Database error in vBulletin 3.6.5:

Invalid SQL:
INSERT INTO phrase (`phraseid`, `languageid`, `varname`, `text`, `phrasetypeid`) VALUES ('', '-1', 'settinggroup_donations', 'PayPal Donations', '5000');

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'phrasetypeid' in 'field list'
Error Number : 1054


someone help me please

You can not use the authors install files there is an post for a donations.zip in the threads. It has the xml file to do the import of the hack.

[killugood9000]

Ok after loads of time I have figured it out. I must pay my respects to sinister for his help. These are my findings so listen up. first you must use the .xml and NOT the install script to upload this hack on your system. second when creating sandbox accounts make sure you create two. One to donate with and one for accepting the donations. Which ever sandbox account you use to accept payments with MUST be preimer or business account and MUST be verified and confirmed. Also your server files must be set up correctly. If you use CMPS as your homepage put the index.php for it in your public_html directory. Then you must have a forum directory in your public_html directory for your vbulletin board files. If your like me you will have to put any styles you have in both diectories. Your ppverify.php MUST be in your forum root, in the forum directory along with your donate.php. Then ensure all settings are correct in the admin cp for the donations. Especially your URL's. Remember to add your forum directory to your URL's.
Ok now that we covered that lets mention the module. I continually got a white page when my module was active. If this happens to you try turrning off GZIP HTML Output. Go to admin cp-->vboptions-->Cookies and HTTP Header Options-->GZIP HTML Output. If this fixes the problem your service provider likely allready runs this for you.
Thanks to Sinisterpain for his help in troubleshooting this addon. Its a great addon. Our members wher asking for donor recognition and this is a great start.

[Trana]

Has anyone figured out why the donor table is no longer being updated? Someone mentioned that Paypal made a change to their verification script, is anyone else having this problem? I have been manually putting in my donations for some time.

Thanks!

[sinisterpain]

Originally Posted by Trana

Has anyone figured out why the donor table is no longer being updated? Someone mentioned that Paypal made a change to their verification script, is anyone else having this problem? I have been manually putting in my donations for some time.

Thanks!

What type of paypal account do you have? What version of vb are you running? Have you tryed creating a sandbox account to test your donations. Is your ppverify file in the correct location and cmodded 755? Is your paypal IPN on and pointing to the correct directory?

[sinisterpain]

Originally Posted by killugood9000

Ok after loads of time I have figured it out. I must pay my respects to sinister for his help. These are my findings so listen up. first you must use the .xml and NOT the install script to upload this hack on your system. second when creating sandbox accounts make sure you create two. One to donate with and one for accepting the donations. Which ever sandbox account you use to accept payments with MUST be preimer or business account and MUST be verified and confirmed. Also your server files must be set up correctly. If you use CMPS as your homepage put the index.php for it in your public_html directory. Then you must have a forum directory in your public_html directory for your vbulletin board files. If your like me you will have to put any styles you have in both diectories. Your ppverify.php MUST be in your forum root, in the forum directory along with your donate.php. Then ensure all settings are correct in the admin cp for the donations. Especially your URL's. Remember to add your forum directory to your URL's.
Ok now that we covered that lets mention the module. I continually got a white page when my module was active. If this happens to you try turrning off GZIP HTML Output. Go to admin cp-->vboptions-->Cookies and HTTP Header Options-->GZIP HTML Output. If this fixes the problem your service provider likely allready runs this for you.
Thanks to Sinisterpain for his help in troubleshooting this addon. Its a great addon. Our members wher asking for donor recognition and this is a great start.

Your extremely welcome

[Trana]

Originally Posted by sinisterpain

What type of paypal account do you have? What version of vb are you running? Have you tryed creating a sandbox account to test your donations. Is your ppverify file in the correct location and cmodded 755? Is your paypal IPN on and pointing to the correct directory?

I have a Paypal Premier account, VB 3.6.4.

Everything was working with the 2.x donation release for the last YEAR, and all of the sudden the donations are not being credited properly (i.e. I get a donation, but it is not being recorded in the donor table).

Someone mentioned several pages back that Paypal had changed their format for notices, and that it broke the VB side of the exchange.

Any help would be appreciated.

[sinisterpain]

Originally Posted by Trana

I have a Paypal Premier account, VB 3.6.4.

Everything was working with the 2.x donation release for the last YEAR, and all of the sudden the donations are not being credited properly (i.e. I get a donation, but it is not being recorded in the donor table).

Someone mentioned several pages back that Paypal had changed their format for notices, and that it broke the VB side of the exchange.

Any help would be appreciated.

I believe if you set up a business account in sandbox and test it will work. I believe you need a business account to use the IPN function.