PayPal checkout error: We’re sorry. Things don’t appear to be working at the moment

« Return to PayPal Payments Standard Shopping Cart

When a buyer proceeds to checkout with PayPal, they may see this error message:

We’re sorry
Things don’t appear to be working at the moment
Please try again later
 

That is a generic error message, which could be caused by at least a few different things we're aware of:

• Your PayPal account settings may be requiring "encrypted" PayPal button codes, which would definitely be the problem if the error page URL shows &code=EWP_SETTINGS at the end;
• If this happens when testing your own purchase buttons, note that PayPal won't let you "pay yourself", so you can't test checkout with the same PayPal account you'd be using to receive the payment, nor with a card issued in your own name;
• PayPal "guest checkout" for card payment without a PayPal account also won't work with any card that's already linked to a PayPal account—in this case, the buyer can just log into their PayPal account that already has their preferred payment card linked to it;
• The buyer may be located in a country that PayPal does not support—see PayPal's list of supported countries here;
• You may have an incorrect PayPal Email address entered in your E-junkie profile settings:
  • In this case, PayPal checkouts from your E-junkie shopping cart may show this error after the buyer logs into PayPal, and the error page URL may also show &code=BAD_INPUT_ERROR at the end;
  • However, E-junkie Buy Now buttons for PayPal might not show the error, though the payment would ultimately wind up stuck in Unclaimed status with PayPal;
  • If you change your email with PayPal, take care to also update the PayPal Email to match, which you can do in your E-junkie Dashboard under Manange Seller Account > Edit Profile > Your PayPal Email;
  • The PayPal Email you enter in your E-junkie Profile should match the email address you use to log into PayPal, or you could use a secondary email you've added to your PayPal account and Confirmed with PayPal.

Aside from those known issues, the error may otherwise indicate a problem with your PayPal account, so you would need to contact PayPal to sort that out.

---