Venmo error prompt “Something’s not right”

Hi @elvismdev,
Glad you reached out. The error you are seeing: 501 Something's not right, is a server error. It means the server doesn’t recognize the request method or have the functionality to complete the request (the request being access to Venmo). I would recommend reaching out to your hosting provider and letting them know you are having trouble running payments with Venmo. Make sure to reference the error you are seeing. They should be able to give things a look and make some adjustments for you.

One note: this 501 error is what is called a "cacheable error". In some cases implementing the GiveWP caching exclusions helps, so I'm including those below:

The fix here is a bit technical, so I’ll include as much detail as possible here, but you may need to reach out to your web developer or web support person to implement the recommendations I’ll be talking about below.

If you’re not familiar with caching, it’s a method of saving server resources by storing copies of a page or site, so that the next visitor’s visit doesn’t trigger a call to the server at all, they just get the copy that was saved. Basically instead of the site needing to recreate the page from scratch, it sends up a copy which allows it to load faster.

We put together this deep dive into what caching is and how it can cause problems: https://givewp.com/documentation/resources/caching/

Caching works really well for speeding up sites, but when a saved copy of the site has sensitive information in it (like donor info) it’s important that GiveWP not share that with the next visitor. If GiveWP is not convinced that the browser requesting the data is the correct one, it defaults to not showing the data.

Caching is handled differently on various sites and web hosts. This could mean a caching plugin, or caching could be in a security solution. Hosting providers also have settings for caching at the server level, and they can help make adjustments for you there. Most caching solutions have a setting or section for excluding specific URLs or parts of URLs (called “slugs”) from caching. At the very least, you should exclude the following slugs from caching:

/donations/
/donation-confirmation/
/donor-dashboard/
*any page with a donation form on it

Also, the following query strings (if your caching solution has a setting for them):
give-embed=donor-dashboard
giveDonationFormInIframe=1

Your host or the caching plugin/solution you are using can help with that. Some of them may require what's called a "wildcard" like /donations/* to capture all subdirectories under the /donations/ folder.

Some folks prefer to customize the URLs to their site pages, so you may find that your URLs don’t have the slugs mentioned above, even though they contain the same content. In cases like those, we recommend whitelisting the page, not just the slug, that way the pages with those essential pieces of information are still excluded from caching. This is especially important for URLs of pages with donation forms on them.

One helpful tip: Check in with your hosting provider. Most hosts have caching at the server level, and they will be able to adjust this for you.

If you have any questions about this let me know, I’m happy to help.

Hi @elvismdev,
I hopped in for another look today, and the Venmo button is working: https://imgur.com/a/wVsiPZd

Did you make some changes here?

If you are still seeing the issue, Cloudflare would be the right spot to look. You’ll want to watch out for cache, async and deferred scripts and minification/image optimization. But, let’s hold off on that. If the button is working, we don’t need to dig any further.

Let me know what you see, and if you have questions just let me know.

Hi @elvismdev,
I’ve been testing this and so far I’m not able to replicate what you are seeing.

We have seen one issue with Venmo that might be a factor. Depending on the type of PayPal account you have, some organizations are required to set up a Venmo Charity Profile in order to accept donations. PayPal/Venmo customer support can clarify this, but the general rule GiveWP’s support team has encountered is that organizations designated as charities on the PayPal side must have a corresponding charity profile at Venmo. This process can take up the 3 business days to before your organization can use Venmo with GiveWP.

I can’t be certain this is your issue, I’ve not seen it hand-in-hand with a 501, but it is worth a look.

Outside of that, I need to be able to replicate this issue to dig any deeper. If you have some very specific steps to replicate, I’m happy to give it another go on a sandbox. I do want to help set expectations – if I’m not able to replicate, that would leave me relatively stuck. That being said, I’m happy to dig in as much as I can until we hit that point.

Keep me posted here, I’m happy to help as much as I can.