CBSubs Stripe recurring payment issues and change credit card number onsite

Hi guys,
We've had multiple issues with CBSubs and they've seemed to be issues that we've notified you all of that continue to happen. We've waited on sending this message because we couldn't quite figure out what was causing such issues. We can now confirm a few things, we can also confirm that we are literally losing customers as a direct result of CBSubs bugs. Please see the following and help us to resolve because we have unhappy clients which is unfortunate because it is a reflection on our company not yours.

1. Multiple users have upgraded to different plans (the price is less but it's still considered an upgrade via CBSubs) with a pro rated amount before the expiration of the initial plan. The first month worked fine however their payment for the next month was deducted from their account and updated in Stripe, but CBSubs is never updated and shows them as expired.
2. I've just deleted all of one of those customers subscriptions entirely because I wanted him to start fresh (his payment went through but CBSubs expired). So I deleted all his subscriptions and provided a 100% discount code for the first month only since it was technically already paid for. His invoice said 0.00, then 49/month as expected, however when we looked back in their user profile it showed it as not being paid & not set to auto recurring (I had to manually "Pay Now" in our backend for his account to become active, so very concerned there will be yet another problem for this user next month). I then looked in our backend CBSubs and sure enough it was set to manual (not auto recurring). I triple checked the plan and it is set to always subscribe the users to auto recurring. I then checked Stripe & it was set to auto renew there also. The problem lies with CBSubs
3. We've asked many times regarding the changing of credit cards onsite and repeatedly told you would start on the API in the future. We completely understand everyone is busy, however you've provided us with the "only" option(s) and one was to change it on the Stripe account. After doing that a few times it caused so many issues and the users accounts would expire and we'd have to try to offer exceptional customer service and explain the issue. Later we were told not to do this....

All in all there are a few issues that are causing our business a problem and we're happy to work closely with you guys to get them resolved. While you may not be hearing this from others, perhaps it is because we use your product extensively and in depth. However the bugs are there and we'd like to help get them worked out for the sake of our own business transactions and customer service!
Please let us know what we can do to get these items figured out and resolved.
Yes, we're using the latest version of CBSubs 4.3.0+build.2018.11.12.17.24.17.6436fbca5

It would seem that some problems lie within the Stripe gateway communication along with the items mentioned above. Thanks

I've also just noticed something else that may be related. I check the baskets and looked for the user as per above. Their basket was showing as "Pending" payment status. This is even after I had manually paid it for them as mentioned above. I then did a search for all "Pending" baskets and found several that were definitely paid.

Both 1 and 2 sound like you do not have Webhooks configured. If Webhooks are not configured CBSubs will not be notified of recurring payments. It will have to attempt to use its internal scheduler to check if a renewal payment was made, which only works off set intervals and can result in a user being expired. Ensure you have configured Webhooks in Stripe and confirmed you see notifications in CBSubs > Notifications from Stripe marked as IPN.

3. We've asked many times regarding the changing of credit cards onsite and repeatedly told you would start on the API in the future. We completely understand everyone is busy, however you've provided us with the "only" option(s) and one was to change it on the Stripe account. After doing that a few times it caused so many issues and the users accounts would expire and we'd have to try to offer exceptional customer service and explain the issue. Later we were told not to do this....

We've been through this multiple times. This isn't being implemented for CBSubs Stripe until the functionality exists in core CBSubs, which it does not. I've also stated multiple times Stripe should not be configured to retry as it can cause user-error and by that I mean the user expires, renews manually, then retry causes another renewal. Just let it cancel the subscription and they can renew with their new card to avoid any issues. This can be configured in Stripe > Settings > Billing Settings as part of the Retry rules setting.

I've also just noticed something else that may be related. I check the baskets and looked for the user as per above. Their basket was showing as "Pending" payment status. This is even after I had manually paid it for them as mentioned above. I then did a search for all "Pending" baskets and found several that were definitely paid.

This absolutely sounds like you do not have Webhooks configured. This means Stripe is never notifying CBSubs of the payment changes. I will be making Webhooks mandatory in next release (the gateway will fail to function without webhooks API parameters).

krileon wrote: Both 1 and 2 sound like you do not have Webhooks configured.

Webhooks is configured properly and is active with Mode = Live in the Stripe dashboard. Also we have lots of notifications with IPN as the type.

krileon wrote: We've been through this multiple times. This isn't being implemented for CBSubs Stripe until the functionality exists in core CBSubs, which it does not.

Perhaps you should re-read my comment. I'm aware of this as stated above, however we continue to see many issues with CBSubs payments and this is a huge item so not sure why your tonality sounds frustrated when we're the ones having the issues and having to use workarounds to make things work. Here's a hypothetical (we run into this a lot):
A user is subscribed & wants to remain subscribed for service, they get a new credit card or need to change the one on file for whatever reason. They call or email with the change request during their subscribed period of time. This now means there is absolutely nothing we can do for them! As per your suggestion, we need to tell them there's nothing we can do other than to wait for their end of subscription and then they need to resubscribe OR we must put this on our calendar to contact them the day of their cancellation to walk them through the process. Please take a moment to imagine you all having to do this time and time again... the man power it takes and frustration from your clients...

I'm am being very respectful, I do ask that you take the time to put yourself in the shoes of the people paying for your product. I'm sure this would be a huge benefit for all of your users. We do not get any updates from you all so there is no need to repeat what has been said before when we ask about it, we're simply trying to keep updated on something that is of grave importance.

krileon wrote: I've also stated multiple times Stripe should not be configured to retry as it can cause user-error and by that I mean the user expires, renews manually, then retry causes another renewal. Just let it cancel the subscription and they can renew with their new card to avoid any issues. This can be configured in Stripe > Settings > Billing Settings as part of the Retry rules setting.

Yep, and that's exactly how we use it. See image attached.

krileon wrote: This absolutely sounds like you do not have Webhooks configured. This means Stripe is never notifying CBSubs of the payment changes. I will be making Webhooks mandatory in next release (the gateway will fail to function without webhooks API parameters).

Nope, not the issue. I'll be happy to send an image via pm if needed because it contains the URL.

I don't know why you're having so many issues with recurring payments not being marked paid. I've been testing recurring payments for the past several months successfully and others are also using it successfully. Does your site have some sort of security feature that could be blocking the IPN? For renewals that failed you should be able to see their webhooks within Stripe > Developers > Logs or by finding the renewal event in Stripe > Developers > Events and see if any webhooks have been attached.

What Stripe API version are you using within CBSubs Stripe and Stripe > Developers? The latest API supported at this time is 2018-11-08. I don't see any issues with 2019-02-11 regarding backwards compatibility, but you should not be using as it appears to have possible backwards compatibility changes that could break things. Will review testing and implementing support for 2019-02-11.

I recommend also checking CBSubs > History Log around the time the renewal should've came through as any failure to process the IPN should be logged there.

Perhaps you should re-read my comment. I'm aware of this as stated above, however we continue to see many issues with CBSubs payments and this is a huge item so not sure why your tonality sounds frustrated when we're the ones having the issues and having to use workarounds to make things work. Here's a hypothetical (we run into this a lot):
A user is subscribed & wants to remain subscribed for service, they get a new credit card or need to change the one on file for whatever reason. They call or email with the change request during their subscribed period of time. This now means there is absolutely nothing we can do for them! As per your suggestion, we need to tell them there's nothing we can do other than to wait for their end of subscription and then they need to resubscribe OR we must put this on our calendar to contact them the day of their cancellation to walk them through the process. Please take a moment to imagine you all having to do this time and time again... the man power it takes and frustration from your clients...

I'm am being very respectful, I do ask that you take the time to put yourself in the shoes of the people paying for your product. I'm sure this would be a huge benefit for all of your users. We do not get any updates from you all so there is no need to repeat what has been said before when we ask about it, we're simply trying to keep updated on something that is of grave importance.

I've no further comments about onsite credit card changes. I 110% agree the feature needs to be there. There is already a feature ticket in place to implement this. I do not have a time table. My recommendation is to simply tell your customers if they ask to simply change it on their next renewal otherwise your only option is to change it manually for them within Stripe, but that may or may not cause advertise behavior as I've not tested such a scenario.

Ok, latest CBSubs build updates CBSubs Stripe to support latest Stripe API version so you should be able to update the version at Stripe then be sure to also do so in CBSubs Stripe gateway settings. Please let me know if you still have issues with recurring payments after updating. In the mean time I've setup a couple more test subscriptions that will come through tomorrow so I can test more usages to see if there could be a problem somewhere.