Forbidden (403) when trying to connect to ShipStation

Hi there @designelixirllc ??

Thanks for reaching out about this. Let’s troubleshoot it together!

Forbidden (403) when trying to connect to ShipStation

This specific error message is addressed in the documentation, linked here. In summary, these are the places to check:

• Security plugins
• Caching plugins
• ?Whitelist ShipStation IPs
• Cloudflare (it appears the site is behind Cloudflare’s proxy service)

Therefore, as a first step, let’s make sure all of these are set-up as required, to allow communication between ShipStation and the site.

The staging site and live site have the same authentication key

To change the Authentication Key, please go to your WordPress option page here:?https://yoursitename.com/wp-admin/options.php?and look for a field that’s called?woocommerce_shipstation_auth_key. Then scroll down and hit the Save Changes button. Once you’ve done that, please reactivate the ShipStation Integration plugin and reconnect the ShipStation account.

Further details can be found linked in the documentation, linked here.

I trust that points you in the right direction. Let us know how it goes!

Hi @anastas10s, sorry for the delay and thanks for your help troubleshooting.

I tried removing the Authentication key, and when saving the settings my site gets an error, “Settings save failed”.
I’ve disabled security plugins and caching plugins multiple times, with no improved results.
I tried whitelisting “ship12.shipstation.com” domain on both our security plugin, and Cloudflare. Interestingly enough, Cloudflare doesn’t seem to be picking up any connections to our domain when I try to re-establish the store connection. I’ve seen on some other help posts for this issue that there are ShipStation IP addresses (formatted like this: 00.000.000) that should be whitelisted. Should I be whitelisting those versus the ship12.shipstation.com, and where can I find them if so? It seems like they could be different depending on the account.

Another issue I’m seeing is on the ShipStation side – when I try to refresh the orders, it returns this:

When I look at the Shipstation XML date feed of the live site versus the staging site (which has no problems connecting to the plugin) the data isn’t formatted, instead its a long string. I saw the ShipStation plugin requires DOMDocument to be enabled, could this be the cause of the malformed data, and the potential connection issue? It doesn’t seem to align with a 403 error code, but seems off.

Thanks, let me know what you think

Hi @designelixirllc,

You’ve done a great job in troubleshooting so far.

where can I find them if so? It seems like they could be different depending on the account.

The domain you’ve whitelisted is correct, but it’s also a good idea to whitelist the IP addresses. You can find the list of IP addresses to whitelist by contacting their support.

• https://community.cloudflare.com/t/how-to-whitelist-shipstation-url/317595
• https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026138071-Common-Store-Errors
• https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025853072-Troubleshoot-New-Store-Connection-Issues

I saw the ShipStation plugin requires DOMDocument to be enabled, could this be the cause of the malformed data, and the potential connection issue?

If the data feed is not formatted correctly, it could indeed be causing the issue. The ShipStation plugin does require DOMDocument to be enabled, so please ensure that it is. If you’re unsure how to do this, you may need to contact your hosting provider for assistance.

I tried removing the Authentication key, and when saving the settings my site gets an error, “Settings save failed”.

If you’re still getting an error when saving the settings after removing the Authentication Key, it might be worth trying to change the key directly in the database using a tool like phpMyAdmin. Please remember to backup your database before making any changes.

If the above steps don’t resolve the issue, it might be necessary to do a full conflict check. This involves deactivating all other plugins and switching to a default theme like Storefront to see if the issue persists. If it doesn’t, reactivate everything one by one to find the source of the conflict. More info: https://woo.com/document/how-to-test-for-conflicts/

Please let us know how you get on with these steps. We’re here to help!

I appreciate you following up! I did finally solve the problem, it was Cloudflare all along (as suggested) but instead of just whitelisting the IP addresses, I also had to create “IP Access Rules” on top of filtering them from our firewall.

Thanks for your help!

Hi @designelixirllc!

We are glad you found a solution to this topic; thank you for sharing it with the community.

I’ll mark this thread as resolved now. If you have any further questions, I recommend creating a new one.

Cheers!