Reoccurring Square Connection Issue

Hi @thekatbrady ,

Thanks for reaching out! I understand you’re seeing an error in your email stating: “There may be a problem with your connection to Square.”

This issue was known in earlier versions of the WooCommerce Square plugin but was resolved in version 4.6.1. You can review the release notes here: WooCommerce Square 4.6.1 Release.

If you’ve already updated to the latest version of the plugin, we’d like to take a closer look at your setup. Could you please share your System Status Report? Here’s how to find it:

1. Go to your WooCommerce dashboard and navigate to WooCommerce > Status.
2. Click Get system report and then Copy for support.

Once you have the report, please paste it into a code block in your reply or upload it to pastebin.com and share the link with us.

Let us know once you’ve done that so we can assist you further!

Hi,

I am currently using version 4.8.4 of the pluggin. I keep my pluggins updated weekly and updated to 4.6.1 in April. So this issue has occurred since the update.

Can you provide me with an email to share the pastebin link with? I’d rather not post it here. Thank you.

Hello thekatbrady,

Thank you for your reply.

There is no private way to share the System Status Report with us.
You may post it at https://quickforget.com and share a link with me.

Once I have more information, I will be in a better position to assist you further.

Looking forward to your response. ??

https://quickforget.com/s/d4f25e3cef427e952c8266ca03edf33e951ac4d3bda9eab9

Hi @thekatbrady ,

Thanks for sharing the SSR – it’s really helpful.

After reviewing your SSR, it looks like you might be using a security plugin like Defender: by WPMU DEV – 4.12.0, which could be causing conflicts with the Square connection.

Sometimes, the Square plugin itself automatically refreshes connection tokens at specific intervals.. However, if the automatic refresh fails, errors like this can occur. To investigate, could you check if there are any pending or failed actions related to Square in WooCommerce > Status > Scheduled Actions?

Additionally, please ensure that opcache.save_comments is enabled on your hosting server. This setting is necessary for the plugin and product sync to work properly, and a failed sync could be triggering this error. We’ve seen many cases where this was the root cause of the connection issue.

For further troubleshooting, you can also follow this guide to investigate the issue more thoroughly: WooCommerce Square Troubleshooting Guide.

Please check and let me know if this helps!

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by Jonayed (woo-hc).

Hi,

Thank you for the information. Do you have any guidance or suggestions of steps to prevent this conflict between my security plugin and Square? I did not see information on this in the Troubleshooting documentation.

I can confirm that opcache.save_comments is enabled.

There are two types of actions that I see have failed recently. wp_mail_smtp_queue_process has failed frequently in the past two months starting around the time that I installed “Anti-Spam by CleanTalk” to deal with Spam account creation. action_scheduler/migration_hook has also failed a few times but not as often.

Hi @thekatbrady ,

Thanks for confirming that the PHP module is enabled!

Do you have any guidance or suggestions of steps to prevent this conflict between my security plugin and Square?

We’re not entirely sure if the security plugin is causing the issue. However, if deactivating the security plugin resolves the problem, it would indicate that the plugin is the source of the conflict. Security plugins can sometimes block or modify the API requests that Square depends on, which might explain the issue.

To address this, I recommend reviewing your security plugin’s settings and whitelisting Square’s API endpoints. Many security plugins also log blocked requests, so it’s worth checking those logs for any entries related to Square. If you’re unsure how to adjust these settings, reaching out to the plugin developer for guidance can be very helpful.

Regarding the failed actions you mentioned, they don’t seem directly related to the connection issue between WooCommerce and Square. To resolve the warning, I suggest the following steps:

1. Disconnect your Square account.
2. Clear your site’s transients by going to WooCommerce > Status > Tools and selecting “Clear transients.”
3. Reconnect your Square account and check if the issue persists.

Reconnecting often helps resolve these kinds of problems.

Let me know how it goes or if there’s anything else I can assist you with!

We’re not entirely sure if the security plugin is causing the issue. However, if deactivating the security plugin resolves the problem, it would indicate that the plugin is the source of the conflict. Security plugins can sometimes block or modify the API requests that Square depends on, which might explain the issue.

I had asked about the security plugin because you had mentioned possible conflicts in your previous response. From your response:

After reviewing your SSR, it looks like you might be using a security plugin like Defender: by WPMU DEV – 4.12.0, which could be causing conflicts with the Square connection.

My question was what can be done to test for or prevent these conflicts. Especially since now you don’t seem certain of this path, I’m not going to test by disabling my security plugins as that would leave my site vulnerable.

To address this, I recommend reviewing your security plugin’s settings and whitelisting Square’s API endpoints. 

Do you have a list of those endpoints available?

Many security plugins also log blocked requests, so it’s worth checking those logs for any entries related to Square. 

Unfortunately there isn’t a log for this plugin.

To resolve the warning, I suggest the following steps:

Thank you for repeating these steps. I already have this information and have done it each time it has occured.

The issue is that it keeps happening and I need to find a way to make it stop. Hence why I asked about how to mitigate potential conflicts.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by thekatbrady.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by thekatbrady.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by thekatbrady.

Hello,

What occurs when the security plugin is disabled? Can you verify if the issue is being resolved by disabling that plugin, or does the plugin still display the message regarding the connection?

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the issue is intermittent not consistent. Also the security plugin is critical and not something we are willing to disable for a test when it isn’t certain this is the issue. What other things can be explored before that? If it is the security plugin, which is a widely used one, what would be the steps to mitigate?

Gotta admit that it seems like we are going in circles here instead of yall answering me directly.

Hello thekatbrady,

Thank you for contacting WooCommerce support.

I understand your concern about the intermittent issue and the importance of your security plugin.
Since disabling it on the live site isn’t an option, you could create a staging site and try connecting WooCommerce Square there with Sandbox mode.

On the staging site, keep only WooCommerce and WooCommerce Square active to rule out any conflicts with other plugins. Security plugins can occasionally block communication, so this will help determine if it’s related.

Looking forward to your response. ??

Hi,

We haven’t heard back from you in a while, so I’m going to mark this as resolved – we’ll be here if and/or when you are ready to continue.