Paypal doesn't fire webhook on BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.CANCELLED in sandbox

Question

I haven't tested in live, but currently I have a webhook subscribed to the following events

• Billing subscription cancelled
• Billing subscription created
• Billing subscription re-activated
• Billing subscription suspended
• Billing subscription updated

I'm receiving Webhook events for CREATED but nothing is being sent when a user cancels the subscription from their PayPal dashboard.

Is this expected behavior? is there another event I should be subscribe to to capture that user action?

Answer 1

Is there a debug id that you can share so we can trouble shoot?

Thanks, Usha

Answer 2

From Paypal support (I still don't understand why the BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.CANCELLED doesn't fire when a user cancels from their dashboard, similar issue here: BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.CANCELLED does not fire upon user action? )

"But surely users subscribing via the button is the most common method of subscribing (how else would they subscribe?). The IPN route seems like a completely non-developer-friendly one (seeing as there isn't even simulator events for it)"

If you integrate a solution which is not based on our REST API's and want to receive HTTP notifications, you need to use instant payment notification (IPN). The IPN simulator may not provide a method of simulating the events, but you can create subscriptions in our sandbox environment and setup a sandbox business account with IPN and test cancelling the subscriptions, which will generate an IPN for the cancellation. We have a sandbox testing guide available here if you're not familiar with that environment and want to get started.

"So why would webhooks ONLY fire for API-based subscriptions (and why would a business website subscribe users using the API rather than the simple button)? What is the logic behind this?"

It depends on the integration and needs of the individual business. Some businesses only use our REST-based API solutions for their complete integration, from checkout payments to subscriptions and logically, this makes sense to them to only have to use one set of API's for their complete integration. Other business only want / need a more simple solution such as using buttons and as these are legacy solutions which are not REST-based, they use our legacy HTTP notification service which is instant payment notification (IPN).