Hi @ojasya,
Glad you reached out. I can help you with that.
Your issue here is caused by some caching happening somewhere in the process. If you’re not familiar with caching, it’s a method of saving server resources by storing copies of a page or site, so that the next visitor’s visit doesn’t trigger a call to the server at all, they just get the copy that was saved.
We put together this deep dive into what caching is and how it can cause problems: https://givewp.com/documentation/resources/caching/
Caching works really well for speeding up sites, but when a saved copy of the site has sensitive information in it (like donor info) it’s important that GiveWP not share that with the next visitor.
In order to verify that my hypothesis is right here, we need to exclude any asset loaded by GiveWP from the cache.
Caching is handled differently on various sites and web hosts, and most of them allow for excluding specific URLs or parts of URLs from caching. At the very least, you should exclude the following slugs from caching:
/donations/
/donation-confirmation/
/donor-dashboard/
Also, the following query strings:
give-embed=donor-dashboard
giveDonationFormInIframe=1
Your host or the caching plugin/solution you are using can help with that. Some of them may require what’s called a “wildcard” like /donations/* to capture all subdirectories under the /donations/ folder.
You can also temporarily disable caching on the site to confirm that the uncached site isn’t showing the problem.
Also, something is breaking the PHP session on the site. GiveWP uses PHP sessions to ensure that donors only have access to their own donation data (among other things). We have a detailed document that explains what a PHP session is, and how you can troubleshoot broken sessions: https://givewp.com/documentation/core/frequent-troubleshooting-issues/understanding-troubleshooting-user-access/
If donors are getting the message you mentioned, it’s almost always an indication that the caching happening on your site on that page is pulling over the session from a previous visitor.
While fine-tuning cache falls outside the scope of the support we’re able to provide, your success with online donations is our number one priority, and we’re happy to provide any tips.
You can also test this on your end by trying to make a donation using a different browser or in a private/incognito browser window.
Keep me posted.
