Managing timeouts
Payment session concept
A "payment session" is the time spent by a buyer on the payment page.
The payment session begins as soon as the payment gateway receives the payment form.
The delay of payment session is 10 minutes (except for certain payment methods).
- sufficient to enable each buyer to make his or her payment
- fixed in time: it is not reset on each user action
- non-modifiable: it is fixed by the payment gateway due to technical constraints.
After this delay, the payment session times out and the session data is purged.
Expiration of the payment session
In some cases the payment session will expire while the buyer has not completed the payment.
Most frequent cases:
- Once redirected to the payment page the buyer realizes that it is time to go to lunch, for example.
An hour later, the buyer decides to continue his or her payment and clicks on the logo corresponding to his or her payment method.
The buyer's payment session has already expired, the payment gateway displays an error message indicating that it was disconnected due to an extended period of inactivity.
The buyer then has the opportunity to click a button to return to the merchant website.
The return to the shop is done via the URL specified by the merchant:- in the vads_url_return field transmitted in the payment form
- in the "Return URL to the merchant website" field in the buyer's Merchant Back Office, no vads_url_return field is transmitted in his or her payment form
- Once redirected to the payment page, the buyer closes the browser (by mistake or because he or she no longer wants to make the payment).
Notification in case of session expiration
It is possible to notify the merchant website in case of expiration of the payment session.
To do so, the merchant must configure and enable the Instant Payment Notification URL on cancellation notification rule (see chapter Setting up notifications in case of abandoned or canceled payments).