REST Sync API - Payments do not show up until several HOURS later

[Nimja]

This is just one example, every transaction appears to follow the same pattern of taking *at least* 4 hours before they are visible.

I got a verification (by email) of a new donation, with transaction ID; XXX123 - Timestamp: 6 June 2018 at 07:30:42 GMT+2

I can see this transaction in my activity log when I login to PayPal.

I CANNOT see this transaction, wither with:

https://api.paypal.com/v1/reporting/transactions?transaction_id=XXX123

This just returns 0 results.

Or with:

https://api.paypal.com/v1/reporting/transactions?start_date=2018-06-04T07%3A05%3A01%2B00%3A00&end_date=2018-06-07T07%3A05%3A01%2B00%3A00&fields=all&page_size=300

This returns results of other donations that are more than 4 hours old.

Why does it take so long to show up in the SYNC API results?

[fozzle]

I am seeing the same issue. The latest data I can retrieve as of writing this, for instance, is over 8 hours old. If I try a start date greater than that, I am met with a a 400 "Data for the given start date is not available" error. One can see that the 'last_refreshed_datetime' matches is extremely old on the response if I make the `start_date` at the very start of the UTC day.

The documentation says:

• It takes a maximum of three hours for executed transactions to appear in the list transactions call.

And this is clearly a lie. I am less concerned with how long it takes and more concerned about having a RELIABLE, ACCOUNTABLE time delay with which I know I can reconcile against the PayPal gateway.

[padington]

Hello,

did anybody find an explanation or, better yet, a solution for this problem?

It makes testing very difficult... and leaves me doubting that I understood the reporting services and its parameters.

Best regards

padington

[johanneslietz]

I'm seeing this problem, too. In the transactions response the timestamp in last_refreshed_datetime is now over 8 hours old and the transactions that I created today are not visible.

I'm wondering if this is only in the sandbox API, or in the live API, too?

[w2p]

we too are facing this issue...

Returned data is over 12 hours old...

Any suggestions on how to retrieve the live payments instead?

[tobfr]

Same problem, data is 14 hours old (latest update on friday evening, now it's saturday noon)... Any solutions yet? I need the email of the buyer, which unfortunately is not included in the paypal emails, otherwise I could simply read out paypal mails

[WebCF]

I faced the same issue. I found a little "trick" which displayed the result earlier: Append an "&sync_mode=false" to your query. This made the wanted transactions visible 🙂

[p4yp4y]

I am still having this problem. I can not get the transactions as of Mar 7, (3 days) . I have contacted tech staff but not got answered yet. Nobody says anything. Nobody tries to solve this problem. Why am I not getting expected results allthough  I am doing everything by sticking to documentation

[wdantzler]

I am also having this issue with the REST API beginning with transactions from March 7, 2020.

[joelconv]

 Like p4yp4y said there seems to have been something up this weekend since March 7th and I'm getting the "Data for the given start date is not available." message which I have had in the past occasionally and just fixes itself when (I assume) someone fixes a problem at the back end.

I too agree with all the other comments about the timing of the transactions being visible to the API.  I had historically used the old SOAP API where transactions appeared at the time you can see them in Paypal and when you get the instant payment notification.  The devs at paypal pushed me to use rest API, but I immediately noticed that they were about 4 hours out of synch.  I told them to which they insinuated I was incorrect or that the timing would converge overtime as it upped it's polling frequency (like some magic machine learning).  I couldn't be bothered arguing so just kept running with both APIs in the background, the old SOAP API still remaining faithful to this day.  I only use the rest api to maintain a shadow copy of the transactions for cross comparison in the hope that one day the transactions are delivered in a timely manner (it also provides me with the balance at the end of a transaction that the old SOAP API doesn't)