Problem with recurring Stripe payments

Resolved teece
(@teece)

1 year ago

Hello Flexible Subscriptions team!

I am testing subscription payments with Stripe payments through a plugin called Payment Plugins for Stripe WooCommerce, by Payment Plugins, with Stripe in sandbox mode using test cards, trying a daily subscription as a test. All plugins & themes fully updated.

The initial payment goes through without a problem, but when the second payment is due, the payment fails with the below error:

“Recurring payment for order failed. Reason: You passed an empty string for ‘payment_method’. We assume empty values are an attempt to unset a parameter; however ‘payment_method’ cannot be unset. You should remove ‘payment_method’ from your request or supply a non-empty value.”

I tried using a different payment platform (WooPayments in test mode), however this also is not working for the second payment, after succeeding for the first – in this case, a new order is created in the pending state but no payment request appears to be made, with other notes reading: “Manual renewal order awaiting customer payment.”

I’m planning to use the Stripe plugin if possible rather than WooPayments.

Thanks in advance for your help!

TC

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

Plugin Support krzysztofskorupa
(@krzysztofskorupa)

1 year ago

Hi,
thank you very much for your contact.

At this moment, we fully support Stripe from WooCommerce.
For this moment, I can suggest you to change the payment plugin.
However, I make no secret that we will consider making it compatible with the plugin you mention.
I will let you get in touch then, okay?

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me.
Regards,

Thread Starter teece
(@teece)

12 months ago

Hi again Krzysztof,

I have switched to using ‘WooCommerce Stripe Gateway’ (Stripe that comes with WooCommerce) as you suggested, but we are still having the same issue we had with woopayments (both in test mode and in live mode).

I am testing using a daily subscription.

The initial order goes through with Stripe without any problems, but the first renewal order is created 24 hours later without making any payment request through Stripe (an order appears in my dashboard as ‘pending payment’ but when I check Stripe dashboard there is no failed payment error, nor any event that have come through). It’s seems like an order is created but no payment request is made.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Plugin Support krzysztofskorupa
(@krzysztofskorupa)

12 months ago

Hi,

thanks for contacting me.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to hint here what this could be caused by and we would have to look at it from the store level.

Please contact us here :

https://wpdesk.net/get-support/?subject=Pre-sale

In the body of your request you can put a link to the forum thread, it will be easier for us to find the related thread .

You can still try to update the plugin to the latest version, as 1.5.1 we solved a problem and maybe it will also help with you.

Greetings,

PaulDaisy
(@pauldaisy)

11 months, 4 weeks ago

I am having the same exact issue. When I used Payment Plugins for Stripe WooCommerce by Payment Plugins, I could see that payment tokens were saved for the customer. In Dev mode in Stripe Sandbox I saw the failed POSTs from the renewal attempts that POSTed with empty “payment_method”:

“off_session”: “true”,”payment_method”: “”

I switched to Stripe from WooCommerce. Unlike the Payment Plugins gateway, it uses Stripe Test mode instead of sandboxes, and I have not yet had a Renew event to see how that works. Will let you know tomorrow.

CosyDan6
(@cosydan6)

11 months, 3 weeks ago

I am having the exact same problem with with your subscription plugin using the same stripe payment plugins.

The initial payment goes through without a problem, but when the second payment is due, the payment fails with the below error:

“Recurring payment for order failed. Reason: You passed an empty string for ‘payment_method’. We assume empty values are an attempt to unset a parameter; however ‘payment_method’ cannot be unset. You should remove ‘payment_method’ from your request or supply a non-empty value.”

Also the subscription is then placed on HOLD

I’ve performed numerous tests and get the same results every time.

Are you going to publish a fix for this.

Plugin Support krzysztofskorupa
(@krzysztofskorupa)

11 months, 3 weeks ago

Hi, I have forwarded this topic to the developer for analysis. Let me get in touch when I have more details or the problem is solved.

Regards,

ficusmedia
(@ficusmedia)

10 months, 3 weeks ago

Got the same error. Do you have any feedback from development team?

CosyDan6
(@cosydan6)

10 months, 3 weeks ago

Over a month since I posted here and heard nothing.

I’ve ditched the flexible solutions and used Sumo Subscriptions instead.
Plugin Support krzysztofskorupa
(@krzysztofskorupa)

10 months ago
Hi,
thank you for your patience.

I would like to inform you that there is a new version of the plugin that should fix the payment issues.

1.6.0 – 2025-06-17
- Added full support for the new WooCommerce Block Cart and Checkout interfaces.
- Improved integration and compatibility with various payment gateways.
- WooCommerce WooPayments is now explicitly disabled when a Flexible Subscription is in the cart due to incompatibility.
- Added compatibility with WooCommerce Gift Cards.
- Fixed a critical error that could occur with product variations that did not have a price set.
- Corrected scheduling of subscription payments and cancellations, ensuring they occur at the correct times regardless of timezone settings.
- Improved the logic and reliability of subscription expiration handling.
I would appreciate your testing.
Regards,