Anyone else having trouble printing Paypal labels the past 2 days?

[forester_studios]

Hi -  Just wondering if anyone else is having trouble printing Paypal labels the past 2 days?  I tried yesterday and again today to print a label for a package and got the unable to print at this time message.  I'm just wondering if Paypal is having issues again or maybe it is a problem in the address itself.  Think I will just fill out a customs form at the P.O. and pay there.

[forester_studios]

Actually I just printed a label today to the USA with the classic view and it worked perfectly once I entered the buyers phone number.  Just enter it in the box under the address. 

Strangely it still says the phone number is optional as it always has, but obviously it has become mandatory this past week.  It would have been nice if Paypal had notified it's customers by email about the change but I guess that would make too much sense. 

[momcqueen]

What format did you use? 1 (111) 111-1111 or 1 111 111 1111 or 11111111111 or some other combination of the way a phone number may be entered?

[momcqueen]

1-111-111-1111?

[forester_studios]

Reread my post.  As I stated I entered the buyers phone number.  Their actual phone number.  No need to make one up.

[momcqueen]

I'm Not suggesting you did. I'm asking what format you used. Was there brackets and dashes or none. Entering the actual buyer phone number didn't work for me. I tried that yesterday afternoon long before you posted this. Please show your work.

[forester_studios]

Sorry, I can't show my work as I don't have any screen capture software on my computer at present as my update of Firefox broke the one I used for years (incompatible add on). 

It appears when I reread your post that you are possibly entering too many digits in the phone number info. I entered the standard ten digit number.  For example - 123 456 7890.  It looks like you entered eleven digits with an extra long distance 1.  Hope that makes some sense.

The easiest way to get the number is to click on the "order details" on the sold items page.  That will show the buyers address and underneath it their phone number.  Just copy and paste the number shown and it should work.  That is the way I did it.

I'm just reporting what worked for me to try and help other sellers who are wondering why paypal classic suddenly  stopped working for them.  It sure would have been nice if paypal had emailed their customers about this update to avoid all the confusion it caused. 

[around_again_records]

Don't know if this will help, but I've just been putting my number in with no dashes brackets or spaces. Today I did al zeros with no formatting and that worked too 0000000000

I use the new view in Paypal.

[momcqueen]

I was using the buyer's phone number as it was provided on their eBay Sales Record where it showed as three separate fields. I think I tried every combination I could think of but perhaps I did not and skipped the one with no spaces or brackets or dashes. I'll try that next time. Thank you.

[around_again_records]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
I would suspect the data field is re-set to an insufficient size for the programmed type size.

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I think you are right. I had the same problem today with expedited parcel to Canada. The 3rd field from the top where is says expedited Parcel and the large field with the Postal code both get the tops cut off.

I have Acrobat version 9 and when I check for updates from the help menu in the program it says "No Updates are Available"
I'm using Firefox for my PayPal labels and it is also the latest version. I switched to Firefox for labels when a change was made a few months ago and I could no longer print labels in Explorer.

Is anyone else having this issue. So far it has only been with expedited Canadian labels. I've printed a Light Packet and Small Packet and they print fine.

Also, what is the best way to get this resolved - call PayPal, call Canada Post, try still another browser.....

[momcqueen]

I printed many domestic postage labels through PayPal shipping since your post and had none of that show. I'm on a Mac so I use Safari and then Acrobat Pro. I'd try another browser while calling PayPal Shipping. All they can do is log the report. Pitney Bowes is the company that does this in conjunction with Canada Post as part of PayPal's service to us. If I understand it correctly.

[pjcdn2005]

I also entered the numbers without any spaces and didn't have a problem. The buyers phone number was in view sales record but I just entered 0's. You would think that when the phone number was available it would also move it over to the shipping label info automatically.  It's a pain to go back and forth.  

I printed 2 international light packets labels last night and entered 0's in both cases.  There is no phone number showing on either label though.  I wonder if that is because I used 0's or because CP doesn't actually require the ph # with LP?

[pjcdn2005]

I printed an expedited Canada label and everything was showing on the label.  I think that when I first started using the newest label version a few months ago I had to change the parameters to print using 80 or 90% instead of 100.

[pjcdn2005]

I did have one problem last night...

On the classic label set up, it does specifically tell you when there are more than the max amount of characters per line.  On the new version it just says problem with address so you have to figure out what the problem is.

[pocomocomputing]

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@around_again_records wrote:

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
I would suspect the data field is re-set to an insufficient size for the programmed type size.

---

I think you are right. I had the same problem today with expedited parcel to Canada. The 3rd field from the top where is says expedited Parcel and the large field with the Postal code both get the tops cut off.

I have Acrobat version 9 and when I check for updates from the help menu in the program it says "No Updates are Available"
I'm using Firefox for my PayPal labels and it is also the latest version. I switched to Firefox for labels when a change was made a few months ago and I could no longer print labels in Explorer.

Is anyone else having this issue. So far it has only been with expedited Canadian labels. I've printed a Light Packet and Small Packet and they print fine.

Also, what is the best way to get this resolved - call PayPal, call Canada Post, try still another browser...

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Check your browser print setup margins option. The default is usually 0.75 inches for top, bottom, right, left margins. It may have been changed to larger numbers over time.  What happens is the PDF label is generated with a set physical size and it is larger than the space between the margins in the browser. So whatever does not fit is chopped off.

I set my margins to 0.5 inches all around to give the most space when printing anything from my browser. Please note this is a browser print setting and does not affect other programs like Word, Excel, which has their own printer settings.

Post back what your browser settings are and if this tip works. It has helped a few members over the years, the last being rose-dee with Internet Explorer chopping off her Expedited Parcel bar codes on the right making the bar codes not work right when scanned at the post office.

[momcqueen]

Good, practical and explicit advice.

[usedautopartsmanitoba]

Works perfect, Haven't been able to print labels since last week. Entered 999-999-9999 as phone number and it printed my label. Thanks for the suggestion.

[ay656]

Canada Post told me that they now require the phone to ship to about 25 foreign countries, but they couldn't tell which ones. Printing labels without a phone number doesn't work on the Canada Post web site neither. Why? Totally idiotic.

If you put up a dummy phone number, what's the guarantee they don't throw your parcel away as undeliverable?

[4311c51011]

I have not been able to print shipping labels for the last few days, and am receiving the message that "PayPal shipping is unavailable"  

I have contacted PayPal and they told me that their "security" is blocking me. No answer as to why this is happening. They said that they would forward my issue to their IT department.

In the meantime myself and the rest of us experiencing this issue are off to the post office to fill out labels!

[4311c51011]

Success!!!

I too have been able to print my labels using the "classic view" by entering the buyers phone number. I will call PayPal today and update them on this issue that has been driving us all crazy!

[momcqueen]

I think PayPal CSR are just providing rote answers.

We've determined here the generic 'PayPal shipping is not available' is resulting from blank or incomplete or incorrect buyer phone numbers.

Every eBay Sales Record that I have shows a buyer phone number; if you enter 10 digits (no 1 or brackets or spaces or dashes) the postage label purchase will process and print even using Classic.