Intermittent 3D Secure failure with Card Processing

Hello,

I am investigating an intermittent checkout issue on a production WooCommerce store using WooCommerce PayPal Payments.

Environment:

• WordPress: 7.1.2
• WooCommerce: 11.1.2
• WooCommerce PayPal Payments: 4.1.3
• PHP: 8.3.33
• HPOS: enabled
• Checkout: classic checkout
• Shipping integration: Sendcloud / Shop2Shop service points
• LiteSpeed Cache is active
• Stripe is also available as a separate payment gateway

For safety, PayPal and “Debit or credit cards” through PayPal have now been disabled on the live checkout while this issue is being investigated. Issue

Two customers reported a very similar problem:

• they went through the payment process;
• after returning to the website, the cart was still full;
• no WooCommerce order appeared in the dashboard;
• no corresponding completed PayPal transaction was visible to the merchant.

One customer explicitly used PayPal.

The second customer believed they had paid by credit card, but based on the checkout interface they most likely used the “Debit or credit cards” option provided by WooCommerce PayPal Payments (Advanced Card Processing / card fields).

I then performed a controlled series of tests. Results

The general WooCommerce checkout appears to be working correctly:

• Stripe + standard GLS shipping: successful
• Stripe + Shop2Shop service point: successful
• PayPal + GLS: successful
• PayPal + Shop2Shop with a selected service point: successful

The intermittent problem was reproduced with “Debit or credit cards” through PayPal.

During one failed test with card processing and standard GLS shipping:

1. PayPal card fields accepted the card information.
2. The bank requested additional 3D Secure authentication.
3. The checkout did not successfully complete the 3DS/payment flow.
4. No WooCommerce order was created.
5. The cart remained active.
6. No capture was recorded.

The PayPal Payments server log shows that the initial request to:

POST /v2/checkout/orders

returned HTTP 200.

However, on the failed attempt, there was no subsequent normal sequence that I see on successful transactions:

• no association with a WooCommerce order/custom_id;
• no final capture request;
• no WooCommerce order creation.

I also checked the WooCommerce HPOS database directly.

There is no hidden, pending, failed or otherwise unlisted WooCommerce order corresponding to the failed attempts. The failed PayPal identifiers are not present in wc_orders_meta and were not found in the WooCommerce session table either. Successful comparison tests

The same “Debit or credit cards” PayPal method can also work successfully.

I completed several successful test transactions, including:

• card through PayPal + Shop2Shop;
• card through PayPal + Shop2Shop + a full 3D Secure challenge.

In the latest successful test, the 3D Secure challenge was displayed by the issuing bank, authentication was approved, the PayPal flow completed, WooCommerce created the order, the Shop2Shop service point was preserved, the customer was redirected to the order-received page, and the cart was emptied.

This means that the failure is intermittent rather than a permanent failure of Advanced Card Processing.

I captured a HAR for the successful 3DS transaction and also have:

• WooCommerce PayPal Payments debug logs;
• browser console logs from failed attempts;
• database query results;
• WooCommerce order comparison data.

I can provide sanitized extracts if required. Separate checkout validation issue

I also found a second, reproducible issue involving third-party checkout validation.

When Shop2Shop is selected, a service point is mandatory.

With Stripe, attempting to place the order without selecting a service point is blocked before payment.

With PayPal, however, the PayPal flow can already be initialized before WooCommerce eventually returns the validation error asking the customer to select a service point.

No capture occurs in this situation, but an external PayPal order can already have been initialized before the checkout validation stops the process.

Ideally, mandatory WooCommerce/third-party checkout validation should complete before the PayPal payment flow is initialized. Questions

1. Is there any known intermittent issue in PayPal Payments 4.1.3 involving Advanced Card Processing and 3D Secure on the classic WooCommerce checkout?
2. Is there any additional PayPal Payments logging that you recommend enabling to identify why a card/3DS flow sometimes stops after the initial PayPal order creation but before the WooCommerce order is created?
3. Is there a recommended way/filter/hook to ensure WooCommerce checkout validation, including third-party shipping/service-point validation, completes before PayPal initializes its external payment/order flow?
4. Could this behaviour be related to the interaction between PayPal Hosted Card Fields / 3DS and checkout refreshes, or should I investigate JavaScript optimization/caching as a possible conflict?
5. Would you like me to provide a sanitized HAR and the PayPal Payments debug log for a failed/successful comparison?

For now I have disabled both PayPal payment methods on the production checkout to prevent additional customer issues.

Thank you for your help.

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