As a lot of people with WooCommerce on a .org site know, things may break. Sometimes conflicts arise when third party themes or extensions are used. Updates might break a custom feature or hook installed. An extension may not display how it should. You might experience slowdown. The possibilities are endless, but there are a few things that every user can try on their site to troubleshoot – these are the steps that WooCommerce support takes, verbatim, on every issue we receive. The process solves a giant majority of conflicts, so this might save you some time waiting in the support queue – at very least, it will give you the information we need to assist faster. 🙂
Check for Code Conflicts
This step is by far the most common issue or reason why something breaks. Here’s a quick step-by-step guide, though you can see a video linked below (in the Resources section):
- Go to WooCommerce > System Settings. There, you see all the vital information about your site. Some typical areas you’ll see issues are out of date plugins and in the template override section. A guide to updating safely can be found here, and information on template overrides can be found here.
- Ensure everything (WooCommerce, WordPress, and all extensions) are up-to-date.
- Disable all plugins aside from WooCommerce and the relevant (official) WooCommerce extension. Then, switch to an official theme like Twenty Twelve or Twenty Fifteen. See if the plugin works – if so, then slowly enable each plugin or theme you used until you find the one causing the conflict.
Utilize WooThemes Resources
There are a few resources to help you get started – be sure to give them a look as well.
- WooCommerce 101 Videos – “How To” videos that show every setting in WooCommerce and cover what switches do what.
- Troubleshooting 101 Video – Your first stop when there’s an issue – it’s a slightly more in-depth (and much more visual) version of the guide above.
- WooThemes Documentation – In-depth documentation for WooCommerce core, every single plugin we offer, and even some guides on common customization and issues. If there’s an answer, you’ll find it here.