topic Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout in Integration and Testing

SIM Relay Response Timeout

pat1234 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:22:34 GMT

I am encoutering an issue in which a user receives a timeout error about 1 out of 10 transactions. The response form only returns a simple html page with success or failure message. There are no links to javacsript/css/images in the response page. I checked the server logs and there isn't any record in the apache logs of an attempted post request. I have tried processing credit card transactions myself on the live site and get a response from 1-2 seconds.

I looked through knowledge base and made some changes based on suggestions but still receiving the occasional timeout error.

Any suggestion? Maybe Apache/PHP post settings for faster response?

Thanks,

Pat

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

stymiee — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:56:06 GMT

Have you checked your Apache logs to see if any errors are being recorded? I'd say that's a good place to start investigating this.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

pat1234 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:30:30 GMT

Yes I checked the both the site logs and error logs for apache. There isn't any post request from auth.net within that timeframe. I do see post requests from auth.net for the successful transactions (obviously).

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

shpeace — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:48:42 GMT

I had a couple of those yesterday too. The transaction seems to go through as normal (all looks okay at merchant interface), including posting to Silent Post URL, with that script executing just fine. I get a "Transaction Error Notification" email saying "Your script timed out while we were trying to post transaction results to it." I test page, check error logs, run a transaction. All seems fine.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

pat1234 — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:37:12 GMT

My client's hosting is on Amazon cloud which is not PCI compliant so I am stuck using the SIM solution (otherwise I would use AIM). I started reading about DPM (Direct Post Method) and may try to implement that solution maybe it will solve the timeout issues plus it should provide for a better user experience.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

bob_b — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:01:11 GMT

A possible fix ...

I have also recently experienced these intermittent relay response timeouts. Sometimes it works fine and other times the customer receives the script timed out message. I also checked our server access logs and found that there is no record of any attempt by the authorize.net server to retrieve the response page. The web server error log does not show any errors. When I put the URL of the response page in a browser, the page is displayed quickly and correctly, and there is an entry in the server access log that indicates that the page was retrieved. I also have the correct URL in the list of relay response URL's on the authorize.net settings page. Since the relay response works fine some of the time, I believe I have all the correct settings in place.

I have also observed that the script timeout error occurs when there has been no online payment for an extended period of time (approximately 1 hour). If online payments occur fairly often, then they all seem to work fine.

I may have found a fix for this issue. Since it appears that the authorize.net server does not even try to access the response URL in all of the cases where the script timeout occurs, I thought maybe it is a DNS lookup timeout on the authorize.net end that is causing the problem. The time-to-live setting for the response URL domain was set at 1 hour. Yesterday, I changed this to 1 week, and have not been able to generate a script timeout error since then. That's not a very long test period, but I was always able to generate the timeout error if I waited one or two hours between tests previously . I'll keep checking on it for a few days and see if it continues to work properly. If this is in fact the solution, I don't know why the authorize.net server seems to have trouble doing a DNS lookup on our site. I've never noticed any delay when I do a lookup.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

pat1234 — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 01:19:55 GMT

I currently setup the relay response to show a receipt page with a success or failure. I am using the silent post url to write the transactions to the database and/or send e-mail.

So far the silent post url has been working without issue but the user still receives the occasional timeout error. I will look into TTL settings hopefully that will solve the issue.

Thanks for your input.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

eclair — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 08:59:25 GMT

Thanks for this suggestion... I'm experiencing the same issue... Many times the initial transaction will fail to get a response, but if I keep testing it, each and every time starting from the 2nd transaction seems to work properly.

Definitely think Authorize.net needs to look into this ASAP. In the meantime thanks for the suggestion on the TTL.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

bob_b — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:37:11 GMT

An update:

I've been testing my payment form, which uses the SIM method, on and off the past few days and have been unable to cause a relay timeout error. So it does seem that changing the DNS TTL value from 1 hour to 1 week made it work much more reliably. I suppose a timeout will occur the first time the payment form is used after the one week point, but that sure beats multiple times each day. I have reported this to authorize.net support and supposedly they are looking into the cause.

The weird thing is that we have two other domains with DNS set up at the same provider (godaddy) as the domain that is experiencing the problem, and these two domains are hosted on the same server as the problem domain, but we have not experienced any problem with these. Three domains all set up the same way, hosted on the same server, all using the SIM method. One has this timeout problem, the other two do not.

Bob B.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

pat1234 — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:17:53 GMT

Our DNS is handled by godaddy as well. We changed the TTL over the weekend and I ran through a declined transaction that timed-out. Every transaction afterwards has not receive any timeout errors so far. The transaction volume is greater during the week so I will have a better idea if this solves the issue later this week.

For now I'll just enter a declined tranasction every morning until this is resolved.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

joatmon — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:54:11 GMT

I experience this problem ocasionally also, one on the Dec 1st and 2 on the 4th most recently. There is never any server log entry for the relay response from Authorize.net when the error occurs. Although they have always denied it, I also am sure this is an Authorize.net issue.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

frudesigner2010 — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:29:49 GMT

I have also started having trouble with clients receiving this error. I confess that I don't understand how you changed the DNS lookup so it does not time out. Can anyone help a newbie?

Our site is hosted with 1and1 if that tells you anything.

thanks

Chris

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

TSdotNet — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:11:15 GMT

Of course if we could get someone to test it using an IP based wed address - therefore not requiring DNS, it would really help diagnose if the TTL is the issue.

Anyone out there have their own dedicated IP?

___________________________________
<-- Kudos is always welcome....
TSdotNet

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

TSdotNet — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:10:42 GMT

Chris, somewhere in your 1and1 control panel, presuming they hold the DNS records for your domain name, you will get access to the aname and mx records etc for your address.

In layman terms (and Im sorry if this is insultingly basic) its usually where you can configure subdomains - like developer.authorize.net as opposed to just authorize.net.

Within that area there should be a TTL specified against your records - that is a length of time in seconds that afterwhich the record is to be considered out of date, and therefore needing refreshed. A low TTL means that other DNS servers will constantly be contacting your hosting DNS server, needing refeshed. A high one means a low level of related traffic.

It also means though, that the external DNS servers refering to your domain (such as Authorize.net's) will be forced more regulary to update the records to your site - it is this effect that appears to be helping resolve the problem.

Here is a question for all you Jedi-server-admins out there - if we were all to set our TTLs to 1 sec (or at least a significant number of users) wouldn't that eventually cause more problems? If the DNS server being used to lookup the relay response domain started to grumble under heavy updating traffic - wont it impact just the same? (presuming this is the actual issue)

___________________________________
<-- Kudos is always welcome....
TSdotNet

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

bob_b — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:27:33 GMT

TSdotnet,

What I found was that increasing the DNS timeout made things work better -- I changed from 1 hour to 1 week. It seems that the problem is related to the first lookup after the cached DNS times out. The first lookup takes too long and the relay timeout error occurs. Subsequent lookups are from the cached value, so they are much quicker. I have not had a timeout error for several days now after making the DNS change. Still haven't heard back from authorize.net support after providing them with the details they asked for.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

TSdotNet — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:33:10 GMT

Bob,

that was exactly the direction I was thinking - and not that Im a DNS Guru by any means, but it seems very plausable that the update process could be 'limping' - so this would ease the pain. In my experience with clients and their websites, they have been very prone to abusing the TTL - for a number of reasons - setting it to 1 believing they can see their site go live asap - or whatever - and never changing it after its launched.

Kudos to you though for finding this!

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

milleamy — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:56:53 GMT

Bob,

We have been having the exact same issue. I am happy that you found something that could make it better, and I really appreciate your detailed post. We will see if increasing the TTL time will help. I think that Authorize.net really needs to address this problem, since it seems to be something that multiple users are experiencing.

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

frudesigner2010 — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 02:04:23 GMT

Thanks for the reply (and the basic information) tsdotnet. Unfortunately, 1 and 1 doesn't allow me to access the TTL (I called and spoke with a spectacularly unhelpful young lady). Is there a scripting method to change it on the fly?

Has anyone heard anything from Authorize.net?

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

TSdotNet — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:27:59 GMT

Unfortunately TTL is something that can only be set on the DNS server itself - have you considered moving where your domain name's authorative DNS servers? All you need is an external facing DNS server - doesn't matter who owns it - you then add the related DNS records to that server, and adjust your configuration on the domain itself to reflect the change. It really is not a hard one to do - as long has you know all the subdomains(if any) and related IP address(es) for the site itself.

Anyone here got their own DNS server?

___________________________________
<-- Kudos is always welcome....
TSdotNet

Re: SIM Relay Response Timeout

milleamy — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:26:10 GMT

Hello everyone--

I just thought I'd let you know that we changed the TTL setting from 3 hours to two weeks and that does help. Before, if three hours had elapsed since the last test it would time out. This morning when I tried it after an elapsed time of about 7 hours, it worked fine. So this does seem to be the key.

Does anyone know why Authorize.net's server is not able to do a domain name lookup in a timely fassion?