PayPal checkout not loading: no window opens

Pressing the PayPal button starts a chain. The button asks your server for an order, and then PayPal's window opens for that order. Some browsers treat a window opened after a delay as unwanted and block it, even though the buyer did press a button. The buyer sees no window, and often no message, because a blocked window is a quiet event. Some buyers have allowed pop-ups for your site and some have not, so the same button can work for one and fail for the next.

• Check that the PayPal button appears on the checkout page, on a phone and a laptop, before you press it.
• Press the button in a private window and watch for any notice from the browser that a pop-up was blocked.
• Open the browser console on the press and look for a script that failed to load, or a refused request to a PayPal address.
• Confirm the client ID on the live page belongs to your live account, not a test environment.
• Try a usual order, then one in a currency your account may not accept, and compare what each window shows.

The button is drawn by a script from PayPal, loaded with the client ID for your account. If the script never loads, the space where the button belongs stays empty or shows a placeholder. An ad blocker, a privacy setting or a content policy on your site can refuse the script's address. A client ID from a test environment on a live page is another cause, and that one loads without any error, then fails when the buyer presses. Check the button's place on the page as well, because a theme can hide it on small screens while the script itself works.

When the buyer presses, the page normally asks your server to create the order, then opens PayPal's window with that order. Two things can go wrong here. The browser may block the window, because it opened after a delay that the browser did not link to the press. The window may open to an error instead, because PayPal refused the order, for an amount or currency the account does not take, or because the cart request failed before any order existed. A blank window and a window showing a PayPal error are different faults, and they lead to different fixes: the page code in the first case, and the account settings in the second.

Each run loads the checkout, looks for the PayPal button, and presses it the way a buyer would. The report records whether the button appeared, whether a new window opened, and the console errors and failed requests logged at the press, with a screenshot of the checkout after it. The run then stops at the payment step. It does not log in to PayPal or pay with an account, so a buyer's card or PayPal balance is never part of the test. If the button appears and the window opens in the run, the next place to look is the PayPal side of your account.

Changing the currency, the store's country, the client ID or a checkout plugin can stop the button for buyers, with no visible change in your own browser. Rerun the same simulated buyers after each change, on a laptop and a phone, and confirm the window opens in every run. Keep a note of which client ID the live page uses, so a change made in a test setup cannot quietly reach your buyers.