Troubleshooting

Almost every Pack Orders question traces back to one of a few causes — an order that isn’t in a packable status, a permission the user doesn’t have, or a Pro feature that isn’t switched on. Here’s how to read the symptom and fix it.

Try this first. A lot of “it’s acting strangely” symptoms — a tick that won’t save, a screen showing stale data, a badge that’s out of date — clear up the moment you clear your cache (browser and any caching plugin/CDN) and log out and back in. It refreshes the security token and the page, and costs nothing to rule out before digging deeper.

“There’s no checklist, or the Packing badge is just a dash”

Pack Orders only acts on orders in a packable status. Out of the box that’s Processing and nothing else — so an order in Pending payment, On hold or Completed shows a dash in the Packing column and won’t open a checklist. That’s deliberate: the column stays quiet until an order is actually ready to pack.

• If the order should be packable, move it to Processing.
• If you pack from other statuses too (say On hold for bank transfers), tick them under Packing → Settings → Order statuses.

“I can’t see Pack Orders, or I can’t tick items”

Every Pack Orders screen and every tick requires the edit_shop_orders capability — the same permission WooCommerce uses to manage orders. Administrators and Shop managers have it; an Editor, Author or Customer does not, so for them the Packing menu and the order checklist simply aren’t there. Give the user a role that can manage WooCommerce orders and it appears.

“Ticking an item doesn’t stick”

Every tick is saved over the WordPress REST API, secured with a one-time nonce. Anything you saved before a failure stays saved. What you see tells you what happened:

• The tab sat open too long. The security nonce expires after a while. Pack Orders refreshes it and saves the tick for you automatically, so there’s nothing to do.
• “You have been logged out”. Your login dropped, for example after logging out in another tab. Press Reload, log back in, and carry on.
• “Could not reach your site — not saved.” The phone lost its connection. Check your Wi-Fi or signal and tick the item again.
• A cache or security layer is in the way. A plugin or CDN that caches /wp-json/ for logged-in users, or strips the X-WP-Nonce header, will block the write. Clear the cache, then exclude the REST API from full-page caching for logged-in admins so it doesn’t come back.

“My screen still turns off while packing”

• The setting is off. Keep screen awake is Off by default — choose 2, 5 or 10 minutes under Packing → Settings.
• You’re on iPhone and haven’t tapped yet. Safari only allows it after a tap, so it starts from your first tick on the page.
• Low Power Mode is on, which can stop the phone staying awake.
• The site isn’t on HTTPS, or the browser is old. It needs HTTPS and a recent browser (Safari on iOS 16.4+, Chrome on Android); otherwise it quietly does nothing.
• You’re on a different screen. It only works on the packing checklist and the pick list, not the order list.

“An order is stuck / won’t let me finish it”

That’s the Awaiting stock flag doing its job. A single item flagged awaiting marks the whole order blocked, so it can’t accidentally ship incomplete. Tap the item’s clock again — or use Reset all — once the stock is in, and the order returns to normal packing. Nothing is “stuck”; it’s waiting on you to clear the shortfall.

“An order vanished from the Pick list” Pro

Same cause, by design: the pick list hides any order with an awaiting item until it’s unblocked, so you never gather stock you can’t ship. Clear the flag (or mark the re-ordered stock received) and the order rejoins the list automatically.

“The Suppliers, Re-order or Pick list screens aren’t there”

Those are Pro features and only appear with Pro active. A free install has Packing, Awaiting stock and Settings; Pro adds the Pick list and Re-order list, the supplier directory under Products, and the backorder cards on Settings. If you’ve bought Pro but don’t see them, check the licence is activated for this site.

“Auto-flag isn’t flagging a backordered item” Pro

The auto-flag rule is deliberately narrow. Run through its three conditions:

• The toggle is off. Tick Auto-flag backordered items as awaiting on Settings and save.
• The product isn’t really on backorder. It flags on the product’s live stock status of On backorder — a product that merely allows backorders but is still in stock is left alone.
• You’d already touched the item. It only flags items still untouched; anything already packed, flagged or resolved is never changed.

Auto-flagging happens as an order enters a packable status. For orders already sitting in your queue when you switched it on, run the one-time Backfill existing orders scan.

“A product isn’t grouping under its supplier” Pro

On the re-order list, items group by the supplier set on each product. A product has one supplier — check it’s assigned via the Supplier column or Quick Edit on the Products screen. Anything unassigned still appears, gathered under an Unassigned group, so nothing is ever lost — it just isn’t grouped with a named supplier until you assign it.

“The plugin won’t activate”

Pack Orders needs WooCommerce active — on WordPress 6.5+ it won’t even activate without it. The full requirements are WordPress 6.5+, WooCommerce 7.0+ and PHP 7.4+; it works with both High-Performance Order Storage and the legacy order storage. If activation is blocked, install or update WooCommerce first, then activate Pack Orders.

That’s the end of the guide. For the technical side — data model, REST API and hooks — see the Developer docs, or check what’s new in the Changelog.