Paypal error: Sorry - your last action could not be completed

Safari requires that the user specifically clicked a "submit" button. Meaning that you can not use any javascript onload events to submit the form and redirect the user to paypal.com page. There are 2 workarounds (at least these worked for me):

1. add <input type="submit" value="Click here to proceed"/> right before the closing </form> tag.

2. change your form method to GET instead of POST (<form method="get"...) - not recommended but still, works for me.

Cheers,

Ivo

Hi everyone,

I have my site with an iframe, inside of which resides another website, over which I have no control. That site runs Paypal and has problems. How do I overcome this problem by adding some html to my site (to my iframe)?

Thanks
vdd

Hi All,
My website has been developed on OScommerce. I am using the WPP PayPal module and I suddenly start getting the Paypal "sorry - your last action could not be completed" error for my website. Any help from a web rockin' expert or someone who had this problem will be much appreciated.

Please note - I didn't make any change to the script.

Please help!

We added the code to "break out" of the frame but we are still getting blocked by Paypal. How can we paste the code into the source code of Web Easy 7?

Hey everyone; It's not PayPal's fault, it's the built-in security in the Internet Explorer i-frame implementation. PayPal doesn't have any control over this "feature".

The solution is to add 'target="_top"' to your <form> tag. This will cause the PayPal site to open in the top-level frame, instead of inside the frame/iframe.

ie: <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">

When I try to make a payment using Paypal I receive the following error.

We cannot process this transaction because there is a problem with the PayPal email address supplied by the seller. Please contact the seller to resolve the problem. If this payment is for an eBay listing, you can contact the seller via the "Ask Seller a Question" link on the listing page. When you have the correct email address, payment can be made at www.paypal.com.

Any Suggestions?

I was having the problem until I added https://paypal.com to trusted sites in internet options, security....it is the only change I made and it worked. Hope it helps.

I tried signing in but get that "sorry - action could not be completed error" crap...I followed the directions and still have the problem. I even contacted them via their contact thingy and the automated person is completely USELESS!!! Like I don't know my log in info!!

I was having the same problem on a solar led flashlight e-commerce site I am developing. I tried everything that everyone was suggesting and could not fix. I finally fixed the error by re-installing Internet Explorer.

Try adding target="_top" as well

It had nothing to do with frames. It seems to be a cookie thing. Don't bother clicking the logo or trying the logout button, it won't work.

The solution, in Firefox, is to click Tools/Options.../Privacy/Show Cookies.

Then enter "Paypal" in the search box

Then select all of them and click "Remove Cookie".

Then close out of all those option windows (Close/Cancel)

Then Paypal will work again.

Same problem. Can't log in. An attempt to log in sends me to a password change page. If I follow it, it sends me to "your last action could not be completed", and then back to the pw change page.

I can't even email them through their contact link because guess what? I need to be signed in to contact them and I can't sign in because it keeps sending me to the password change page. WHAT THE HELL.

I had URL forwarding on, and it was messing up my PayPal button. I used an onLoad javascript to "break frames". Works now!

I can't login, I guess I have to delete my cache or something. I'll try it in a virtual machine as well. I wonder if my customers are having the same problem? How can a multi-million dollar company make such a stupid mistake? My customers will have to use another form of payment when purchasing their products from me.

I emailed them a while ago to tell them this was happening to me, and they didn't know why. It happens to me on Firefox no matter what I do, but on safari if I clear my cache and open Paypal it will usually work the first few times I try to access the site. Then I need to clear the cache again, or close safari entirely and re-start it. It's especially annoying because I run an online store and need to access Paypal to print my shipping labels. The "open in a new window" doesn't work for me. Even if I log in directly to Paypal -- not clicking on a third-party link -- I still get that error message.

I can't even login to Paypal to pay my Paypal credit card bill not alone see if I have cash in my account. WTF

It's been giving me a message saying sorry your last action could not be completed, and I haven't been able to successfully use my card on any site within the last 2 months. It's really bugging me what do I do? :[

Help me for God's sake! I want to buy a rapidshare account and I can't right-click the pay now button. This error just keeps coming "Sorry — your last action could not be completed"

Make sure the <form>...</form> that points to Paypal for your item isn't inside <table></table> tags, and make sure that there is nothing else between <form></form> tags that's non-PayPal.

Cheers
Piotr

I am just adding a Pay Now button to my Google website which uses frames. I have added the necessary HTML code to open a new page, but even when I right-click on the button it doesn't offer me that opportunity. Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Jane

I did lots of research, but your recommendation to 'open in a new window' helped me to solve my problem. I did not update the source code, but went to my page, clicked on the form properties for the button, and selected New Window. Saved, published, and it worked!

Thanks, and bless you.

If you have 0 balance in your Paypal account (and have a backup credit card), but you select in your checkout preferences to use Paypal money first... the current transaction will go south on you until you put money in or use the credit card first at checkout.

This had my hair falling out for 2 days until I stumbled upon that option buried in my account preferences.

This is of course not a merchant-side problem, I guess... just for those who have both a CC and cash in the account. Lovely, isn't it?

Confirmed problem with frames also. Had a domain that was aliased using a frame "mask" and it screwed up Paypal. Removed frame and it's all good.

--Steve

Using iframes...

Experienced the same behavior during development, but only when using IE. Applied the fix, target="_blank", and IE worked. That was several weeks ago...and now it no longer works. FF still works fine...so back to the drawing board.

An update. Thanks heaps for the clue, I made it work. The solution I had to apply was of course almost identical:

Some of the people above are users with the problem, not website owners.

People: this solution doesn't help you, because this workaround is something the website owner has to apply to their page!

I can't see how to apply the workaround.

The code I got from paypal doesn't have a plain link which I can set a target=blank in. The code from paypal is a form...

Thanks for the post... I hope someone can clarify!

I can log into my PayPal account, and I can send invoices from there just fine. I can see the list of people that paid, and as soon as I click
A) Add Tracking Info, or
B) Mark as Shipped or
C) Get Details,

from which page I also choose "Add Tracking Info", they all get me to the window where I can choose a carrier, enter tracking info and mark as processed, shipped or whatever.

As soon as I hit ok, I get the "sorry, we don't know WTF we're doing but thanks for being a valued customer" error. The browser can be FF3, Chrome, IE8, IE7 or IE6 on 3 different computers, XP or VISTA, and it does the EXACT same thing.

Of course their customer service hotline might as well just greet "Good morning Suckers, sorry you had to actually call us, what can we do you for today?".

So, it is now November and this problem still occurs. I used FF and IE and neither would let me right click to open in a new window, thanks for useless info.

I did notice that when I bought from someone on Ebay a couple days ago it was all ok'ed. Trying to buy today and last night from someone I was told that the seller uses a different payment service that indirectly brings me right back for Paypal again. It is something called Vendio. I'm guessing that Paypal is being stupid and blocking the exchange through there.

This is EXTREMELY frustrating seeing as I have wasted almost 2 hours trying to fix this problem and I have gotten nowhere.

WTF.

I lost thousands of dollars in revenue because people could not place and order through Paypal on my website...

IT IS BECAUSE PAYPAL updated its code without telling anybody...
Cause they stink...

https://www.paypal.com/cart/add=1&................
changes to

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr/cmd=_cart&add=1&.....

That's the fix dang gone it...
8-22-09..............

Tell me how that works...... I'm Mr. T.

We just deployed PayPal yesterday after a month of testing on Sandbox. Now, I discovered if the browser is anything but IE, the notorious message is displayed! No frames are used in our case!

We tested the functionality on Sandbox using many browsers(FF,Chrome,..) with no errors!

I'm a merchant and have been trying to send invoice reminders WITHIN MY PAYPAL ACCOUNT ON PAYPAL'S WEBSITE, and am getting the same error.

Paypal support's response?... "We know about the problem and we're working on it."

Apparently nobody ever taught their developers to work kinks out in a testing environment first. They just decided to go live with updates that don't work.

Yeeha!

I'm using Opera 9.64 and all my Paypal checkout pages result in the same error you guys are seeing: "Sorry, your last action could not be completed." Argghhh!!!! This is terribly annoying. I tried opening the link in a new window but that didn't seem to do the trick. Meanwhile, I'm simply having to conduct transactions in another browser.

I still find Opera to be completely superior overall, especially in terms of memory use, so I have no plans of switching, but I'm surprised this problem has existed for so long and no one is taking action!

I agree with the work around described in the 6-10-09 post.

I ran into this very frustrating problem on a number of very high volume sites where I have used PayPal (and the security key PIN device) fine in the past, specifically, shoebuy.com, supermediastore.com, and newegg.com.

PayPal help was not helpful. The stores had no idea what was wrong. The work around that I found by trial and error was to enter the "base" password (no pin), then enter the pin on the next screen. Very frustrating because the "your last action could not be completed" gives no clue as to what is broken.

It is not clear if this works because it forces you to a new window and is therefore part of the same "frames" problem, or if it is another independent problem. I don't suppose it matters if you can get it to work .

Have them login using their password in Paypal normally (not using the password123456 method normally used with the 6-digit security key) and then have them enter the 6-digit pin separately on the next page when asked.

I had this same problem but the pass + 6-digit pin was causing the issue and was resolved by entering both separately.

I've listed lots of forums, websites, read a lot of info about this error, but still can't fix it :/ . I've changed Firefox to IE and then to the latest 9.5 Opera - but still nothing. I'm loosing my client, and I don't know what to tell him. I've sent some messages to Paypal, but I haven't received any answers.

Someone, help me please :|

Thank You

I wasted time going through Paypal's help page but I found your article just like that by Googling the error message. Your help is a lot more useful. Thanks!

After using Opera 9.5 for a few days, I am quite happy with its performance. While a lot of people were really looking forward to Firefox 3, the Opera team released Opera 9.5 with much less noise and much more improvements.

How can I add target="_blank" in button?

I'm getting the "Sorry — your last action could not be completed" just going directly to Paypal.com.

Neither Firefox nor IE could login to Paypal!!

I've had this problem in versions 8 and 9 of Opera, and it's been a pain to open IE to complete payment - so thanks for the workaround!

I'm using version 9.62 of Opera on a Windows XP box and have just started getting this error with any site I try (3 different merchants). Looks like the evil PayPal doesn't like Opera anymore. Never used to have any problems.