I've been successful setting up php + paypal + paypal PDT. It works perfectly. After payment from paypal it auto return to my website and my php script get $_GET['tx'] variable and successfully posting back to paypal for validation.
However, if my buyer don't wait for auto return from the paypal successful payment page, and they click the "Click Here to go back if it don't auto redirect" button to go back my website, I am not getting the $_GET['tx'] variable.
What should I do?
After the latest rounds of updates (starting around mid-March 2013) the auto-return does not function and if the user clicks manually on the return link, the $_GET['tx'] is not populated. There does not seem to be any way around this. Apparently all these features were either deprecated or broken on the latest "updgrades" to the PayPal sandbox.