PayPal accounts, testing and sandbox

38
votes

I have a UK PayPal business account. I'm currently developing a website payment system to make payments to this account using Express Checkout.

My PHP code thus far is working and I'm able to connect to the sandbox and set and express checkout. Next stage is to redirect the user to the PayPal sandbox to make a test payment.

Its at this point that I'm stuck. I can't create a 'personal test' account for using as the 'client' on the PayPal sandbox.

I'm trying like this:

  1. Visit developer.paypal.com
  2. Login
  3. Select 'Applications'
  4. Select 'sandbox account'
  5. Select 'Create Account'
  6. Select Country as 'United Kingdom', account type 'Personal', valid email address (not associated with any other paypal account), password, first name, last name, bank verified = yes, card type = visa.
  7. Click create account.

I then receive the following message:

We're sorry but something went wrong.Please delete this account and try again.

When it says 'delete this account', I don't know what it actually means, as it hasn't created a new personal account with the details I've just entered (at least not one that I can see anywhere). I've even tried creating a new business account to create this personal account from, and that has made no difference.

Is anyone else experiencing problems? I'm a little stuck. Could I use my 'real' personal PayPal account for testing on the sandbox without risk of losing any real money to the test business account I have setup?

6
paypalpaypal-sandbox
When creating the account does an email automatically pre-fill or do you manually enter the email address? If it's pre-filled it bypasses our email validation tests and can cause the error if the email address is already being used. Try deleting the email address and entering a new one. This should cause the email to go through our checks and let you know if it can be used. If you are entering an email and it says it's valid, please contact me via my details in my profile and provide a screen show including the sign up page for the test account. - PP_MTS_Matt

6 Answers

62
votes

OK, to answer my own question as I've got to the bottom of this.

First of all thanks to those who've provided answers and comments.

So, in my particular case the problem turned out to be that my password was too simple. On the form, the hint next to the password field is '(8-20 characters)'. So, as it was a test account and I was trying to keep things simple, the password I used was 'test password'. As requested, its between 8 and 20 characters, so that should do jus fine thank you! Or not as the case may be. I suddenly got a hunch that this could be the issue and tried a alternative. Again, a dictionary word, but with a few digits after it, and again, it worked. I then tried again with exactly the same details, but a slightly different email address (I'm using testN@mycompany... where I increment N and a simple password again, it failed!

The entire implementation and particularly error reporting on this form needs a serious overhaul.

So thanks PayPal, you wasted a good bit of my time on this client project, simply because the implementation of this form is absolutely terrible. Here is another example: Put a none integer value in the PayPal balance field, for example 200.00 and submit the form... You'll get blown out to the previous page where you are shown the error relating to the none integer value. At which point the form is completely reset and you have to start the whole process over again, instead of editing just one field.

Again, thank to everyone who has responded on this forum, very impressed. Not so impressed with the entire PayPal sandbox environment however, seems more than a little unpolished, I've found so many bugs...

Cheers

:wq

33
votes

Same thing happened to me.

To solve:

PASSWORD must contain a symbol(s), number(s), upper-case character(s).

I also set the STARTING BALANCE to < $1000.00

I've had success with each account following the above, hope it helps!

5
votes

As of November 2016 (3 years after this question was asked), problem still exist. Here is what I had done to successfully create both the test personal and business account:

  1. use a new email address (can be fictional, no real will be sent but you can get the emails from developer site -> sandbox -> accounts -> notifications). also set your account to use plain text in case you saw garbage message which was base64 encoded incomplete message.

  2. always stick with US as your country, I tried my own country and it didn't worked

  3. password, I used 9 characters, with first character a symbol, then a mix of uppercase, lowercase and number.

  4. type in 100 for the USD

  5. Leave the remaining options untouched, no name, (personal: yes,discover,visa), (business: yes,visa)

Finally..... this works and the account is available from the drop down box when you create new app

3
votes

I was able to reproduce this issue using a UK account. The issue is caused by saved form data being populated into the email address field during test account creation. If you change the email address to something different when creating the personal account, it will allow you to create it successfully. You can also clear out all form data in your browser to resolve the issue. I have reported this issue to our sandbox team and will be sure to update this question as soon as the issue has been fixed.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you run into any other issues.

Thanks!

3
votes

i've had the same problem. Finally solved it. I had to credit the account with only $100

2
votes

With regard to the answers so far, I don't think its anything to do with the email address or previous data being retained. I've been experiencing this bug since the weekend.

I've recorded a video of me filling out the form in Safari and linked it below. All I have ever used Safari for prior to this is to download Chrome. I filled out the form with an email address I'm sure hasn't been used and I still get the exact same error. I have no answer, but hopefully this helps direct the people who do towards the right one.

Here's the video.

Edit: I may be misunderstanding the email field and it may need to be a valid email address, but even when I enter a valid email I've never used with PayPal before I get the same error. I thought I'd point that out to keep the discussion moving forward.