createPaymentLink returned urls often 404

Questions
1

I’m building a new checkout flow with the Node.js SDK createPaymentLink function. As soon as the link is received I redirect the user to it. Fairly often (I’d say > ~50%) of the time, the link 404s. If I wait a short time and then reload the page, everything is fine.

It almost seems like the SDK is returning links before the page is publicly available.

Is this a known issue? It’s a blocker for me as I can’t be redirecting users to a page that’s going to 404. The only workaround I can think of is artificially delaying my redirect after the link is received.

2

:wave: Often time there are some asynchronous functions that happen on the Square side that can cause a slight delay. I’ve mentioned this to the team and they are looking into it. :slightly_smiling_face:

3

What’s your application Id and do you have some example links that you got the 404 with? :slightly_smiling_face:

4

Hey Bryan. Thanks for getting back to me and raising this to the appropriate team.

My application ID is sq0idp-_FTXysYP5BEOKhT2X6zO_Q

Here’s a payment link that I got to 404 before reloading: FMC Testing

I got that 404 on my 2nd try FYI.

5

So it worked on the first try and failed on the second?

6

No, I only tried generating payment links twice before I encountered the issue.

  • I generated a payment link, and the payment page loaded just fine.
  • I generated a second payment link, and that one 404’d. (The one linked above)

Sorry if I confused ya!

7

Okay, that makes sense. The team is going to look into this. :slightly_smiling_face:

8

Hey Bryan, any chance there’s an update on this? Just tried to reproduce this again and I got the error on my first try.

9

Hey @dtf, we’re still looking into this! We found something earlier today that we suspect may be related, but we’re still verifying. Thanks for your patience!

10

Hi @josh-square, I’m also experiencing this problem. Just wondering if there has been any progress on a potential fix.

Is there anything we do in the meantime? as in, being able to check if the link is ready before redirecting the users to it?

We could make a fetch() HEAD request till getting a 200 response but it’s blocked by CORS (as it probably should) but is there any Square API we could poll on or something?

11

Currently there isn’t any additional API to poll. The team did implement a fix for this. When was the last time you got the error? :slightly_smiling_face:

12

@Bryan-Square Glad to hear to hear of some movement on this. I just tried to reproduce this again. First attempt went well, second failed. :frowning: Here’s the link that was generated.

13

Hmm, okay I’ll let the team know. :slightly_smiling_face:

14

Thanks for the quick reply, @Bryan-Square. I’ve just started implementing this functionality this week, and have been getting the error since the start of the week.

15

Is there any progress on this. I’ve only just programmed the create payment link and I’m having to reload on about 50% of test transactions.

16

Do you have a recent link that you got the error with? :slightly_smiling_face:

17

The test was not on sandbox so the link is live. Is it safe to publish it here?

18

Yes, it’s safe to post here. Thanks for asking. :slightly_smiling_face:

19

hi @Bryan-Square, I got the error on this one Checkout API Sandbox Testing Panel

20

I assume this still isn’t fixed, as I am seeing the same problem. Not sure about how to work around this.