Draft orders disappear

  • Resolved bvedgie

    (@bvedgie)


    1 month, 2 weeks ago

    Hello,
    Using WC 10.4.3., we can see for weeks that draft orders created by hand simply disappearing from the BO after some days (hours ?) and post_id reused as if the orders had never existed.
    There is no hint in the scheduled options about any archiving or anything.

    Can you assist please?
    Please, don’t tell me “Please update to latest version and see what happens.” …
    Thanks

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Sai (woo-hc)

    (@saivutukuru)

    1 month, 2 weeks ago

    Hi @bvedgie,

    Thanks for reporting this, that definitely isn’t expected behavior.

    A couple quick clarifications so we can narrow this down:

    • Are these orders saved with the WordPress post status “draft”, or as a WooCommerce status like Pending payment?
    • When they disappear, do they go to Trash first, or are they completely gone?
    • Is HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) enabled on your site?

    WooCommerce doesn’t automatically delete manually created orders, so if the post ID is being reused, that usually means something is actually deleting the record (plugin, cleanup routine, or server-level task).

    Could you confirm the points above and whether you’re using any database cleanup/optimization plugins?

    We’ll take it step by step from there.

    Thread Starter bvedgie

    (@bvedgie)

    1 month, 2 weeks ago

    Hello Sai,

    1. Draft.
    2. Nothing in the Trash or nowhere. Completely gone.
    3. No HPOS.
    4. We use WP-Rocket and Redis but they never had any impact on this previously.

    Thanks for your help.

    Plugin Support shahzeen(woo-hc)

    (@shahzeenfarooq)

    1 month, 2 weeks ago

    Hi there,

    Thanks you for the clear explanation I understand how alarming it can be to see manually created draft orders disappear unexpectedly.

    What you’re observing is actually default WooCommerce behavior. WooCommerce runs a scheduled daily cron job called woocommerce_cleanup_draft_orders, which automatically deletes draft orders that are no longer considered active. Because these draft orders are removed from the database, their post_id values can later be reused, which makes it appear as if the orders never existed. For more details you can use this guide: https://woocommerce.com/document/managing-orders/order-statuses/#draft-order-status

    At the moment, there’s no setting in WooCommerce to disable or configure this cleanup process, and it isn’t treated as an archive the orders are permanently deleted as part of routine maintenance.

    If you need to keep manually created orders for longer periods, the recommended approach is to create them with a different status, such as Pending payment, instead of leaving them as drafts. Orders with that status are not affected by the cleanup job and will remain available until you take further action.

    I hope this clarifies what’s happening. Let us know if you have any follow-up questions or need guidance on alternative workflows.

    Plugin Support Kay U a11n

    (@kingsleyinfo)

    2 weeks ago

    Since we haven’t received any updates from you, I’ll mark this as resolved for now. If you need further assistance, you’re welcome to start a new thread.

    We’d love your feedback – please leave us a review: https://ww.wp.xz.cn/support/plugin/woocommerce/reviews/

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.