Facebook for Woocommerce Plugin – Common Setup Issues

Something I forgot to add…

Is it normal that roughly 24-hours after initially syncing my Woocommerce with Facebook that according to my Facebook Business Settings my products are still uploading?

I have a feeling that this may be linked to either the Warnings mentioned above or possibly the Policy Violations also mentioned above.

I did fix the Policy Violation stuff earlier today (probs about 3 hours ago now) but I don’t think the sync has gone through yet as the wording on the product hasn’t changed yet.

I thought the syncs were happening every hour? If not, how frequently is it done? Can the sync be done manually?

Thanks again…Sara

Hey @muggles,

It’s great to hear you’re enjoying the use of our plugin. Our developers have worked hard to improve it and add new features, and it’s so great to hear that this hasn’t gone unnoticed! There is a lot to pick apart here, so let me take things one by one to make sure we don’t miss anything!

> PRODUCTS NOT SYNCING
This could well be due to an existing catalog. What the plugin will do automatically is create a new catalog and attempt to link this to your shop page for you. If the catalog has previously been created manually, there’s a high chance that it was already linked to your shop page. In this instance, the catalog is created, and the sync can still happen, though the shop page doesn’t know about it as it isn’t linked up!

This can look like the products aren’t syncing as the shop page remains empty, when in fact, the products have synced but the shop and new catalog aren’t connected!

Deleting catalogs and reconnecting should re-run through the connection process so usually solves this. Sounds like you’re all set here!

> FACEBOOK DYNAMIC ADS POLICY VIOLATION
You’d think that a Beer Stein might be more deadly than a butter knife wouldn’t you? ?? In any case, it sounds like these might have fallen foul of the Facebook Commerce Policy as you mentioned. Sounds like you’ve sorted this out too, great job!

> SYNC WARNINGS
Thanks for all the research you did here, yes indeed, we’d expect to see most of these warning at this time. The google_product_category requires a substantial implementation to be used, as Google have a large set category list that can only be used. Custom categories do not count. Our product team would like to know how merchants would like this to work so they can review this for a future release.

For instance, would it be better to manually choose the categories and enter them for each product? Or would it be better to map the existing WooCommerce categories and map them to the list of Google categories? The latter would allow you to use the WooCommerce categories as normal but perhaps loses some flexibility on per item settings.

In any case, the google_product_category is on the roadmap, though I can’t see if or when it will be implemented yet. It shouldn’t affect the display of products in your store, though it may slightly reduce the effectiveness of ads, as some merchants have mentioned.

The other errors here are due to the parsing that Facebook does of the file, they look for a variant_label and variant_value for all products, yet we only provide these in the file for variable products! That means any simple products will be showing this notice and can be ignored.

The one warning I’m not sure about is “Incorrectly Formatted Property: “variant””. If you can provide more info on what product this is, or what the feed file included for this column, I can take a closer look!

> PRODUCT VARIATION IMAGES
I’m afraid we don’t have a way to bulk update this value at this time. However, the setting which controls this is a metakey value saved against the product. Therefore it should be possible to use a SQL statement to do a blanket update for ALL products, and then perhaps it would be easier to switch the values on any which should use the variation image instead.

If you’d like us to look into this further, please could you raise a support request via our support form? We’ll need access to the site, and preferably, a staging site to verify the SQL statement works as you’d hope.

> PRODUCT CATEGORIES VS FACEBOOK PRODUCT COLLECTIONS
I think you have the answer to this now from the other topic here on the forums, but for clarity sake and for anyone else playing along at home, at the moment there isn’t an option to create collections for adjusting the shop display. This seems to be due to using the Facebook Business Extension API (the pop-up window that runs the setup) in the plugin. For some reason, this prevents the creation of collections compared to if the shop was configured manually.

Our product team are looking into this and reaching out to Facebook to see what can be done, and if we can automatically create collections based on the existing WooCommerce categories. We have not heard back yet, and there are no plans on the roadmap just yet, though it’s certainly on our radar! Thanks again for adding your vote for this feature.

> Is it normal that roughly 24-hours after initially syncing my Woocommerce with Facebook that according to my Facebook Business Settings my products are still uploading?
No, this doesn’t sound typical! The current version of the plugin should generate a feed file in your store every 15 minutes, and Facebook should retrieve this file for syncing once per hour. You can see the current schedule set in the catalog manage by navigating to Product Feed Sources and double-checking the replace schedule.

You mention they are still uploading, could you let me know what you mean by that? Is it that there are some products that haven’t yet appeared in the catalog? Or are you seeing a progress bar somewhere on the Facebook site?

Any further information you can share here would be great for me to take a closer look!

I think we got them all? ?? If I’ve missed anything off, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Cheers!

Simon.

Hi Simon @skyverge

Thanks so much for your feedback. Apologies that it has taken me so long to respond.

To quickly run through everything, I finally managed to get hold of Facebook Support and had a very long detailed chat with them that was very interesting. I don’t have time to put everything down here now as I have an appointment I have to get to, but as soon as I’m back, then I will give you detailed feedback.

In the interim though, I will need to send you some screenshots and I can’t do that here. Do you have an email address that I can perhaps use to send them to you?

Thanks so much and chat soon ??

Regards
Sara

Hey @muggles,

I hope the appointment goes well! You can reach us directly by raising a support request via our support form, this won’t let you immediately attach images, though I’ll reply as soon as I see it come in which will let you attach it to the email as normal.

If they aren’t particularly private images, then you could also use an image sharing service like pasteboard.co or imgur.com.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,

Simon.

Hey @maximestd,

Apologies for not responding in my last reply!

Thanks for the screenshots. It looks like the views are from the Event Data Sources and Product Data Sources, which we have seen show some different numbers before.

When you click the Produits link on the left hand side, are you still missing products for this view as well?

Cheers!

Simon.

Hi @skyverge sincere apologies for not replying sooner – Life got in the way LOL

As I mentioned the other day, I had a very interesting chat session with Vladimir from Concierge Facebook Support regarding everything I mentioned in my initial post that pertained specifically to Facebook. I’m going to give feedback from this chat below, but will also be giving updates on anything that is still not working 100%:

PRODUCTS NOT SYNCING – SOLVED
Refer initial thread and replies above.

FACEBOOK DYNAMIC ADS POLICY VIOLATION – SOLVED
The sync that occurred after I fixed the wording of the 2 products involved in the Policy Violations, did pull the correct wording through to Facebook, but the 2 products were still blocked. I couldn’t find anywhere where I could report this issue to Facebook, but after I reported it to Vladimir, he got them to review the 2 products and that issue is now 100% resolved. Just FYI, I got confirmation of this within 24-hours from Facebook.

SYNC WARNINGS – NOT SOLVED, BUT NOW IGNORING
Vladimir confirmed what you advised and said that while the Missing or Invalid Information will lower the quality of the catalogue it should not prevent items from being added to the catalogue. He would still recommend that we fix the warnings to be sure that everything is working properly.

My current/updated warnings are now listed as:

A product is missing a field: “google_product_category”
170 items
I’m ignoring this warning for now

A product is missing a field: “variant_label”
66 items
I’m ignoring this warning for now

A product is missing a field: “variant_value”
66 items
I’m ignoring this warning for now

Incorrectly Formatted Property: “variant”
2 items
In answer to your request for more detail above, I did have a look at this warning. The warning was given in connection with the DZX031000 – Picnic Sets product and when you look at it in more detail it states the following (apologies but I can’t give you a screenshot here so this may take some figuring out on your part):

Incorrectly Formatted Property: “variant”
2 items
2Products Affected
Line
id
title
variant
description
price
721
DZS031000_21010
DZX031000 – Picnic Sets
type:Picnic Set 1 – Plate, Utensil Set & Mug/Picnic Set 2 – Plate, Utensil Set, Mug & Placemat:Picnic Set 1…See more
Picnic Set 1 includes a 14cm Polymer Plate, Polymer Utensil Set and a 6oz White Espresso Mug.
269ZAR
722
DZT031000_21011
DZX031000 – Picnic Sets
type:Picnic Set 1 – Plate, Utensil Set & Mug/Picnic Set 2 – Plate, Utensil Set, Mug & Placemat:Picnic Set 2…See more
Picnic Set 2 includes a 14cm Polymer Plate, Knife, Fork & Spoon Polymer Utensil Set, a 6oz White Espresso Mug and a Mousepad that can be used as a placemat.
299ZAR

I did a search on the error and I believe that it pertained to an Invalid Character in my Attribute Name. I had a “/” and a “&” in the Attribute Name. I have now removed those characters, so we will see what happens when the next sync goes through. I found this article which is what led to me changing the Attribute – https://shopify.flexify.net/facebook-product-feed-app/troubleshooting-faq/

It’s great to know that you guys are aware of these issues Simon and thanks again for being on the ball and letting us know that this is on your roadmap. To answer your question, personally, I think I’d prefer to load the Google Category manually, but possibly from some sort of drop down list or a list with a search function of some sort. I don’t like the idea of losing flexibility that you mentioned above.

However, having said that, I can understand if you guys decide to map the existing WooCommerce categories and map them to the list of Google categories as I’m sure there are lots of websites out there with HUGE product bases and to go and edit each one individually it going to be a time consuming pain. Ideally we need the option of the mapping to update existing products and then the flexibility of choosing for each individual product as they get loaded, but I highly doubt that is going to happen.

Other than that, as these warnings are not delaying/interrupting the sync, I’m quite happy to wait for you guys to make a decision on how you are going to sort this out – Thanks again for all your efforts ??

PRODUCT VARIATION IMAGES – PLEASE ADVISE
Vladimire from Facebook has advised that unfortunately there is no possibility of arranging the parent image to used unless you go and actually select it as mentioned above. He did advise that we request this feature by giving feedback on it to: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/268228883256323

I haven’t done this yet, but I will get onto it soon and will also fill in your support form as mentioned above.

In the meantime, I’m going to reinstall one of the plugins I mentioned and see if this will sort out this issue for me. I’ll try and give you feedback after the next sync to advise if it worked or not.

PRODUCT CATEGORIES VS FACEBOOK PRODUCT COLLECTIONS – PLEASE ADVISE
Vladimir from Facebook, basically just copied and pasted the Facebook Help section on this issue which basically advises that they are transitioning to Facebook Shops and that he hopes that in near future, a lot of features will be added.

Hopefully they will come back to you on this soon Simon.

I did have another look at this on Facebook and it looks like when you link your store, the Collections option in the Facebook Shop is no longer accessible. I think the closest option now is Product Sets. I’ve had a look at this but firstly, I get the impression that this is only going to group them for adverts and not in the shop itself and secondly, I haven’t actually been able to get it to work yet LOL. I’ll keep trying ;-).

In the meantime, I’m just glad that all my products are in my Facebook Shop without me having to go and manually load everything again. I’m sure the grouping/order will be sorted out in time. I’ll be patient ??

PRODUCT UPLOAD / PRODUCT UNDER REVIEW – 3-4 DAYS POST INITIAL SYNC
I do still have one more issue and that is that my products still appear to be uploading after approximately 3-4 days now and a lot of my products are still under review in the shop.

When you go to Woocommerce/Settings/Integrations/Facebook for Woocommerce and you click on Manage Connection, it comes up with the Facebook for Woocommerce/Facebook Business Settings window. In that window – Facebook Page, Facebook Pixel, Your Products and Ad Setup all have green ticks to show that everything is finished and correct. Under Advanced Options though, it states the following:

Your Products
101 Products in your inventoryView
Uploading…

Why would this still be saying “Uploading” after such a long time?

Also, when you go to a lot of my products on my Facebook Shop it still states in the top right hand corner:

Your product is being processed
This usually takes a few minutes. We’ll notify you when processing is complete and your product is visible.

The product is there and it is visible as they say, but why would it still say that it is being processed 3 – 4 days later.

According to Vladimir from Facebook, this is just a glitch as he can see that the products are updating everyday and that there are no errors in the update process. He essentially advised me to ignore this and to check in the Data Source section of the catalogue to see how an update session went.

This is all good and well, but how do I get rid of the glitch?

@skyverge – Simon, do you have any suggestions regarding this?

Hope to hear back from you soon and thanks again for all your help and advice. Stay safe everyone.

Regards Sara

PS @skyverge – If you need the screenshots of anything, let me know and I’ll open a support request as you mentioned above. Thanks.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Muggles.

Hi @maximestd,

Facebook would take up to an hour to sync any changes made to the WooCommerce product, as the sync isn’t instant with the current version. Though we are hoping to bring this back with the new major release our developers are working on! It sounds like all your products have synced though based on the numbers, so I wouldn’t have thought the warnings would have been an issue. If you’re still having issues with the sync even now, after Facebook should have requested the latest data, please raise a support request via our support form so we can take a closer look!

@muggles, thank you SO much for writing all this information down, it’s truly appreciated. Hopefully, other merchants will find this too further down the line. A quick question, would you be able to let me know where you accessed Concierge Facebook Support? This sounds like it’s been very helpful for your questions, so I’d like to keep a note for other merchants to try this route when they hit a brick wall too! ??

An interesting note regarding the “variants” warning. Has this now resolved since it synced the latest data? Thanks for the kinds words too, I’ve added your feedback for our product team to review when looking at this again after the new release.

Thanks for sharing the information about the product images! As mentioned, if you would like me to look over the database and perhaps run some SQL to update this setting on the WooCommerce side, I’d be happy to. We’d need to share private credentials for this, so you’d need to raise a support request to use directly in this case.

This seems to match up with our testing too, re: collections. When the plugin is used to link to the shop, collections disappears. Connecting manually still allows collections to be used! As we’re using the Facebook API for the connection, there’s no clear reason why this might be. Product Sets, as you’ve mentioned, seems only applicable for Ads, so wouldn’t help with the display on the shop page I’m afraid. If I hear anything further, I’ll let you know. Perhaps this may fix itself with the new major release or new Shop rollout, as Vladimir mentioned!

I’ve seen this in my local testing on occasion too, where the storefront will display processing, yet, it doesn’t seem to be processing anything! The import has finished, and if I log out or view the shop using an incognito/private browser window, I see all products as expected. I’m afraid I don’t have any real suggestion here either as the processing of the products is handled within the Facebook Catalog, and isn’t part of our plugin. I can say that at some point, these notices were removed from my test store, so I’m not sure if this may happen for you too!

Apart from a glitch or two, and a few logged issues/enhancements, it seems like you’re all set then! Is there anything else I can help out with?

Cheers!

Simon.

Hey @skyverge I don’t mind opening a support request so that we can check things out, but I’m afraid it’s Monday and my blonde hair is showing…. How do I open a support request? I’ve had a look but can only find info on starting a topic. Can you point me in the right direction please?

Thanks and don’t laugh at me LOL, I really am blonde ??

Regards

Sara

Hey @muggles,

No problems at all! My fault for not including that link in my last reply! You can reach out to us by filling in our support form: https://www.skyverge.com/contact/?form_type=general

This will allow us to reply back directly and receive temporary credentials in private. If you let me know when you’ve done that, I’ll search our inbox for the message and keep an eye out!

Cheers,

Simon.

Done ??

Thanks @muggles! Just sent a reply back, let’s carry via email directly.

Cheers,

Simon.