Paypal sandbox CURL execution - " SSL connect error "

Question

I am getting "SSL connection error" as the response of thee below CURL execution for a PHP live website.

$ch     = curl_init('https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr');

$header  = "POST /cgi-bin/webscr HTTP/1.1\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Length: " . strlen($req) . "\r\n\r\n";  
$header .="Connection: close\r\n\r\n";  
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $req);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FORBID_REUSE, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Connection: Close'));
if( !($res = curl_exec($ch)) ) {
    curl_close($ch); // SSL connection Error
}

I tried both Live and sandbox URLs. But the error is same.

I tried by changing the CURL params like this as some forums was saying.

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION, 6);

But no luck :( .

$req is the result of below code.

$req = 'cmd=_notify-validate';
if(function_exists('get_magic_quotes_gpc')) {
   $get_magic_quotes_exists = true;
} 
foreach ($myPost as $key => $value) {        
   if($get_magic_quotes_exists == true && get_magic_quotes_gpc() == 1) { 
        $value = urlencode(stripslashes($value)); 
   } else {
        $value = urlencode($value);
   }
   $req .= "&$key=$value";
}

POST parameter are correct, I'm sure about it.

curl_getinfo is giving the below result.

[url] => https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
[content_type] => 
[http_code] => 0
[header_size] => 0
[request_size] => 1020
[filetime] => -1
[ssl_verify_result] => 0
[redirect_count] => 0
[total_time] => 0.220374
[namelookup_time] => 1.7E-5
[connect_time] => 0.080843
[pretransfer_time] => 0
[size_upload] => 855
[size_download] => 0
[speed_download] => 0
[speed_upload] => 3879
[download_content_length] => -1
[upload_content_length] => 0
[starttransfer_time] => 0
[redirect_time] => 0.220472
[certinfo] => Array
    (
    )

[redirect_url] =>

Also, curl_error($ch) is showing "SSL Connection Error". TSL is upgraded already and SSL version is ok.

  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION, CURL_SSLVERSION_TLSv1);

I tried by adding the above line , as this document says .

http://jmsliu.com/3511/paypal-ipn-ssl-connection-error-solution.html

But no luck.

Any help will be appreciated.

You have to provide more details on your issue. The best way is HTTP headers (both request and response's) output. Set CURLOPT_HEADER and CURLINFO_HEADER_OUT options with your CURL request, then post here the response content and the output of curl_getinfo call. — hindmost

Steffen Ullrich Steffen Ullrich · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-14T08:55:28

Site was working perfectly for the last 5 years...

In this case it might be that you are simply running an OpenSSL version which is too old. Paypal requires TLS 1.2 now. TLS 1.2 was added with OpenSSL version 1.0.1 in 03/2012, i.e. about 4 years ago.
For information on how to check which version of OpenSSL you are using see How to check if installed OpenSSL version is >= 0.9.8k.

Paypal sandbox CURL execution - " SSL connect error "

2 Answers