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How to troubleshoot common WooCommerce issues

Andy Thorne
How to troubleshoot common WooCommerce issues

WooCommerce is a great plugin to have. However, errors can be disruptive to your business. Here we will share some common WooCommerce issues and solutions so you can overcome these problems and have a beautiful and functional eCommerce platform.

1. Out of date plugins/themes

Keeping your plugins and themes up to date is an essential part of keeping your site performing well, as well as improving the security of your site. If you think that your plugins or themes might be out of date, go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to WooCommerce > System Status.

Any necessary updates or notifications will be in red so you know these will need to be updated. This will see your store’s functionality returning to normal, keeping your storefront looking and behaving as it should.

2. Plugin/Theme conflicts

screenshot of wordpress themes

Plugin and theme conflicts are one of the largest issues for WordPress users.

You may be surprised to learn that this is one of the largest issues associated with WordPress site issues.

Third-party plugins can create the most issues.

The likelihood of plugin conflicts occurring can be reduced by lowering the number of plugins that you have running, as your site can become cluttered with code that could be buggy and conflict with other plugins.

If you think you might have a plugin conflict, you will want to go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and deactivate plugins that are not associated with WooCommerce.

Third-party plugins can create the most issues.

Go through and reactivate each plugin, in turn, to locate the one causing the issue.

If you have a theme conflict, go to Appearance > Themes and choose a default theme. Once this has been activated, you will see if the error is still occurring. If not, it is likely a theme issue and your developer can help you out.

If the issue does not go away, it is likely to do with your plugins.

3. Product image sizes are wrong

screenshot of WooCommerce product settings

Stretched and blurry images may be losing you customers.

Are you noticing that your product images are displaying improperly?

This can cause you to lose customers. If the images look stretched or blurry, you probably have a problem with image sizes.

Match your theme’s image sizes and your WooCommerce sizes to be the same default size.

Then you can change your default image dimensions (for single product images, catalogue images or product thumbnails), by going to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Display.

This should help you to be able to upload images that suit your dimensions. You can read more tips about product images best practices in our article.

4. Hosting configuration is wrong

illustration of cloud hosting

A WooCommerce-specific hosting environment can help solve some issues.

If your theme and plugin check has come back with nothing, then your hosting configuration may be wrong.

In this case, you should get in touch with your host and check whether the issue is common. If not, you may wish to upgrade to a hosting environment that is specific to WooCommerce.

5. Cache issues

illustration of cache

Regularly clear your website’s cache to prevent it from slowing down.

A cache stores data on your website. It can help your site to load faster – however, if you do not clear your cache, it can slow down your website and therefore damage your customer experience.

Images and pages might not load properly.

A caching plugin can help your website to load more successfully, however, the best way to take care of this is by clearing your cache when making major website changes.

6. Digital downloads link not appearing in customers’ email

illustration of missing downloads link

A simple fix for missing digital download links…

A common reason why digital goods may not be appearing in customer emails is a table conflict in your MySQL database.

To fix this, you will need to reduce the length of your table prefix to less than 64 characters, allowing digital products to be delivered to your customers more reliably.

7. Checkout issues

illustration of shopping trolly

Checkout issues are ecommerce store owners’ worst nightmare!

Checkout issues can lose you valuable sales.

In the first instance, check that your payment gateway is properly configured with your online store.

You will require an SSL or TLS certificate in order to give your customers a smooth checking out process.

 

While problems such as cache issues or plugin and theme conflicts are likely to happen at some point, there is no need to let them ruin your day. Many common WooCommerce issues can be easily fixed with a little bit of understanding and troubleshooting.

However, if you find that your website keeps encountering issues, then it might be time to reach out to professionals.

Factory Pattern is a digital agency with a difference – we focus on web design, marketing and UX so that you can enjoy a fully functional and beautiful website. Get in touch with us to see how we can help your business reach new heights.