The customer reaches checkout and the shop jams: the button does nothing, an error appears, the payment method is missing, or the payment goes through and the order never shows. It is the page that costs most in lost sales, and the hardest to diagnose, because it joins the site, the plugins, the server and the payment service. The way to master it is to ask where the problem happens before you touch anything.
Where to start
| 1 |
Reproduce the error. Make the purchase yourself, in a private window, and write down exactly what appears and at which step. “Checkout does not work” helps nobody; “the button keeps spinning after I choose bank transfer” does.
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| 2 |
Open the browser’s developer tools (F12) and look at the console. A red JavaScript error usually explains a button that does not respond.
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| 3 |
Test without plugins. Deactivate everything except WooCommerce and use a default theme. If it works, switch them back on one at a time. It is the slowest method and the one that works most.
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Read the logs. WooCommerce keeps its own logs, in the Status area of WooCommerce, and PHP has its own. See where the PHP error log is.
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The symptom, and where to look
| Symptom |
Where to look |
| The place-order button does nothing, or keeps spinning |
Browser console, plugin conflict, page cache. |
| Error processing the order, or a blank page |
The PHP error log: memory, maximum time or a missing extension. |
| The payment method is missing |
Whether it is enabled, whether it has country or minimum-amount restrictions, and whether its plugin is up to date. See connecting a payment method to WooCommerce. |
| No shipping available for the address |
The shipping zones. See shipping and delivery rates in WooCommerce. |
| The customer pays and the order stays “pending payment” |
The payment service’s reply is not reaching the shop: certificate, firewall, or a wrong return address. |
| The cart empties by itself |
Cookies and cache; or the shop switches between www and no www mid-purchase. |
| A padlock with a warning at checkout |
Mixed content. See the padlock that will not turn on. |
Not every payment method is available everywhere, and what your shop accepts is not the same as what we accept for our own services. For what each of our brands accepts for its services, see payment methods; for your shop, the list is the one from the payment service you chose.
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The checkout page may be the classic one or the block one. Some plugins only work with one of them. If a payment method or an extra field vanished after an update, this is where to start looking.
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The test purchase fails and you cannot find the cause? Send us the shop address, the time of the test and what appears on screen.
Open a support ticket
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