paypal IPN returns pending_reason: unilateral

13
votes

My PayPal IPN scripts runs very well. When I test with my sandbox account it, the payment is made instantly, however when I use my client's business email, I got payment_status as 'Pending', with pending_reason as 'unilateral' in the IPN log call.

My client's email is confirmed at PayPal. So can anyone tell me why I am getting this issue?

4
paypalpaypal-ipn

4 Answers

19
votes

pending_reason=unilateral means that the email address of the payment recipient has not been registered with PayPal. For the full list of pending reasons, see the PayPal IPN documentation.

Check the email address for typos, and double-check with your client that they truly have registered their address with PayPal (they may not understand what this entails).

14
votes

Only accounts made in www.sandbox.paypal.com exists when testing on www.sandbox.paypal.com. So you can't use live accounts for testing, because they don't exist within the sandbox site. You should create the accounts at developer.paypal.com

4
votes

I had this problem - I was sending PayPal my "live" payer_email, when I changed it to the business email in the sandbox it worked. same as my live email with ****[email protected]

0
votes

Double-check if your Paypal primary email address has been confirmed. For me this error happened when my client's email wasn't confirmed yet, of all things!