Error saving customer. Reason: Invalid string:

Hi @lisaportus,

I understand how confusing this must have been for you considering you were able to checkout while the user can’t. I know this can be frustrating but be rest assured we’re here to assist.

The error message about the email needing to be at most 20 characters indicates that there is a restriction on the email field length somewhere in your WooCommerce setup. Normally, WooCommerce doesn’t limit email addresses to such a short length, so this is likely caused by a plugin, custom code, or your theme that’s enforcing this limit.

To better understand your setup and help troubleshoot, could you please share your WooCommerce System Status Report? You can find it by going to WooCommerce → Status → Get system report → Copy for support. Paste the report on gist.github.com and share the link here.

This information will help identify any plugin or configuration that might be causing the issue. Looking forward to your response!

Hi @lisaportus,

Thanks for sharing the System Status Report and for the extra details. I completely understand how confusing this must be, especially since checkout works fine for you but not for the customer who reported the issue. That type of inconsistency can definitely make things harder to pin down.

Just to help narrow things down further, could you let us know when this issue was first reported? Was it after a recent update to WooCommerce or any other plugins? Also, has it happened to just this one customer or have other customers reported similar issues?

From the message the customer saw, it looks like something on your site is enforcing a 20-character limit on the email field, which isn’t standard WooCommerce behavior. Based on the list of active plugins, one possibility is the Password Strength Settings for WooCommerce plugin. It’s not designed to affect the email field directly, but custom security-related plugins can sometimes introduce unexpected validation rules.

I tried placing a test order on your site using an email under 20 characters, but I wasn’t able to complete checkout since a credit card is required. It would be helpful if you could try replicating the error yourself using the same email the customer provided, or test with other long email addresses to see if the issue comes up again.

If the issue persists after that test, I recommend doing a quick plugin conflict test. You can do this by deactivating all plugins except WooCommerce, switching to the default Storefront theme, and testing the checkout again. If it works without issues, gradually reactivate your plugins one at a time to identify what might be introducing the limit. There’s a step-by-step guide on how to do that here: https://woocommerce.com/document/how-to-test-for-conflicts/#deactivation-and-testing.

Let us know what you find after trying that. I’ll be happy to continue helping from there.