dev3 ·
On my WooCommerce store, clicking Place Order spins forever or shows "Sorry, there was an error processing your order". It worked last week. Where do I start?
#woocommerce#checkout#debugging
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How do I troubleshoot WooCommerce checkout that hangs on "Processing" or shows an error?
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dev3 · Accepted answer
Checkout is an AJAX call to ?wc-ajax=checkout. Find out what that request returns.
1. Look at the response. Open browser DevTools > Network, click Place Order, and select the checkout request. (If your checkout page uses the Checkout block, the request is wc/store/v1/checkout instead.) A JSON response with an error message is a validation or gateway problem. HTML, a 500 or 403 means a server or security layer issue.
2. Check the logs. WooCommerce > Status > Logs lists fatal-errors and gateway logs. Also read wp-content/debug.log (see the white screen topic).
3. Isolate conflicts. Use Health Check & Troubleshooting to disable all plugins except WooCommerce and your gateway for your user only, with a default theme. Re-enable one by one.
4. Common causes
- A JS error from a minify/combine option or a caching plugin; exclude Cart, Checkout and My Account pages from page cache.
- The checkout page missing the shortcode
[woocommerce_checkout](or the Checkout block) or pages unassigned in WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced. - ModSecurity or a WAF returning 403 for the AJAX call.
- Gateway API keys in test vs live mode mismatch, or webhooks failing.
- SSL problems: mixed content blocks gateway scripts.
- Required fields from a plugin that the shopper cannot fill (hidden but required).
- PHP memory or execution time too low.
5. Test in a clean flow. Use a gateway sandbox, and check that WP-Cron works, because order status updates often depend on it.
Document what the network response says before changing settings; it almost always points to the cause.
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