BTW, handy tip:
If you use any of the other payment services we support7 for direct card payment*, you can temporarily disable the PayPal checkout option in your shopping cart until PayPal resolves the issue at their end.

To disable PayPal checkout in your cart, from your E-junkie Dashboard go to Manage Seller Account > Edit Profile > More Payment Options, then untick the box to Show PayPal in shopping cart and click the green Submit button to apply changes.

Then when we update this forum post to confirm PayPal has informed us they've fixed the issue, you can simply go back in there and tick that box again to re-enable the PayPal checkout button in your shopping cart.

* If you're not already using one of those but would like to, Stripe7 seems to be the quickest to get approved for at their end, then integrating that with your E-junkie account only takes a minute or two.

This afternoon we inquired again on that ticket we opened with PayPal MTS about this issue (Case # 12440024), asking for a status update or ETA on a resolution. They replied an hour ago, but only to confirm their Devs are still working on the issue but do not yet have any estimate for how soon it will be fixed.

Thanks for that workaround tip!

Sellers who want to try that can edit each product and tick the box to Require buyer's shipping address in the product settings; if you don't see that while editing your product, make sure the box is ticked to Show Advanced Settings at the top of the product settings screen.

We infer this workaround means the problem may only affect transactions that do not require any shipping address, so we've added that to our ticket with PayPal MTS in hopes that may help them identify and resolve the reason for the problem.

The two problems are unrelated. The UPS Ground issue occurs in our shopping cart when the buyer attempts to calculate shipping charges before they proceed to checkout, whereas the PayPal issue sporadically occurs at any point after the buyer has clicked through to PayPal checkout, usually on the PayPal checkout site itself when they click the final Complete Purchase button there to actually pay.

Latest word from PayPal MTS so far is that their developers are still working on fixing the problem at their end.

Still no status updates from PayPal MTS today so far.

I don't think hassling their support agents about it further will help, as they're certainly already harried (just as we are) from the massive volume of complaints they must be getting about it, and they're not the same people responsible for actually fixing the problem at their end, who must be feeling considerable pressure from their colleagues in support and management as well.

I did happen to find this thread in PayPal's own community forum, by which we can see that many other merchants using other ecommerce platforms entirely (or even using PayPal's own purchase button codes) are being affected by this same problem, starting last week and continuing right up to today:

Paul, have emailed you just now as you requested.

Still no updates from MTS so far today.

We've started noticing some mentions that the problem might only affect buyers who try to pay with their PayPal account, but it's not clear if this is consistent or just coincidental, as the PayPal checkout problem itself is sporadic, affecting some purchase attempts but not others.

As such, you might advise affected buyers to try the Pay with Debit or Credit Card button (or this may say Guest Checkout in some scenarios) on the PayPal checkout site, rather than logging into their PayPal account to pay. The availability of that card-payment option on the PayPal checkout site depends on your own PayPal account type and settings; see details here4. However, note that card-payment option will only work with cards that are not already linked to a PayPal account.

We're also noticing some mentions that the "require shipping" workaround may no longer work for some sellers, and other sellers have now reported that our Buy Now buttons for PayPal are working for them when the PayPal checkouts for their Cart buttons weren't working, so that may be something else to try.

Again, it's not clear if these findings are consistent or just coincidental due to the sporadic nature of the problem, along with PayPal probably testing various changes at their end to try fixing the problem, but just thought we'd pass along those tips in case it might help anyone.