Problems with payment gateways
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My buyers have been experiencing failed payment issues when checking out on woocommerce. The payment gateways I’m using is Stripe and Woopayments. There are also options to pay by Applepay, Google Pay and Link. I do believe it’s issues with the payment gateways and not card issues because this happens on a daily basis.
How can I troubleshoot to check which of the payment gateways I’m using is buggy and causing these issues?
The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]
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Hi @thecottonshoppe,
I understand how frustrating daily payment failures must be for your business. Let me help you systematically troubleshoot this to identify which gateway might be causing issues.
One thing worth flagging right away: WooPayments is built on Stripe under the hood, so running both WooPayments and the Stripe plugin simultaneously can cause conflicts, including unexpected payment failures. If you’re using WooPayments as your primary gateway, it’s generally recommended to deactivate the standalone Stripe plugin to avoid overlap.
That said, here are the best steps to diagnose what’s happening:
- Go to WooCommerce → Status → Logs and look for entries from
stripeorwoocommerce-payments. The error messages there will usually point directly to the cause, whether it’s a card decline, an API authentication issue, or something else entirely. - Log into your Stripe account and review the failed payment events under Payments → All payments. Each failure includes a decline reason (e.g. “insufficient funds”, “do_not_honor”, “card_velocity_exceeded”) which helps separate card issues from gateway issues
- If you have WooPayments and Stripe both active, try temporarily disabling one to see if failures stop. You can also use the Health Check plugin to test in a conflict-free environment without affecting live customers.
To help us dig deeper, could you share your System Status Report? Go to WooCommerce → Status → Get system report, copy it, paste it at pastebin.com, and share the link here. That will show us your plugin versions, active gateways, and any potential conflicts.
Looking forward to your response so we can narrow this down!
Hi
Thank you for your reply. I have created a copy of my system log at https://pastebin.com/qdpkm0SZ. Kindly review and let me know if you find anything! In the meantime, I will deactivate my payment gateway for stripe and monitor if the situation improves.
Just to clarify, under Woocommerce -> Settings -> Payments -> Stripe, there are options for Express Checkouts (Apple Pay / Google Pay & Link by Stripe). Shouild I deactivate all of these as well?
Hi @thecottonshoppe,
Thanks for sharing the system report and for already taking action on the Stripe plugin. That’s a great first step!
On your question about Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link:
Yes. Since you’re deactivating the standalone Stripe plugin for testing, those Express Checkout options will go away along with it as they’re all part of the Stripe plugin. You don’t need to disable them separately. WooPayments also has its own Apple Pay and Google Pay support, so your customers will still have those options through WooPayments during the test period.
From your system report:
A couple of things worth keeping an eye on while you monitor: you have the Amelia booking plugin active, which has its own payment processing layer. If any of the failed payments are coming through Amelia’s booking flow rather than the standard WooCommerce checkout, that’s a separate area to investigate. Also, CleanTalk (anti-spam) is active. In rare cases this can interfere with checkout form submissions, so if failures continue after the Stripe change, it’s worth temporarily disabling it as part of conflict testing.
Monitor for a day or two with just WooPayments active and let us know if the failures continue or stop, that’ll tell us a lot.
Looking forward to hearing how it goes!
Thanks for the speedy replies! I have already deactivated the stripe plugin, so let’s see how it goes! Does woopayments have options for express checkout using Applepay or Google Pay on the product page like Stripe? I had tried to initiate a checkout but I don’t see Applepay & Google Pay at the standard checkout either. While we monitor the status, pls share with me how to get Applepay & Google Pay to work with Woocommerce.
To reply to your other questions about Amelia. No, the current issues with failed payments are not from Amelia Checkout, they are from the standard checkout in Woocommerce. FYI too, I have set my Amelia bookings to be completed via Woocommerce checkouts, so let me know if this is an issue?
Hi @thecottonshoppe,
Does woopayments have options for express checkout using Applepay or Google Pay on the product page like Stripe?
Yes, you can enable it following this guide: https://woocommerce.com/document/woopayments/payment-methods/#express-checkout-methods.
I have set my Amelia bookings to be completed via Woocommerce checkouts, so let me know if this is an issue?
That’s great! That shouldn’t be an issue for now.
Let us know if you need anything else.
One more question about your earlier comment about CleanTalk (anti-spam). I’ve been getting email notifications from this plugin about some errors for the past few months, and they read like this:
Attention, please!
“Anti-Spam by CleanTalk” plugin error on your site “The Cotton Shoppe”:
*** Antispam disabled. Check access key in CleanTalk plugin options. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk. ***
I’m not really sure what’s causing this error, so do u think I should deactivate this plugin? By doing this, would it subject my website to more spams by bots etc?
Hi @thecottonshoppe,
I’m Serge from CleanTalk support. It appears that the Anti-Spam protection doesn’t currently work for your website. In that case, the plugin shouldn’t interfere with website forms. However, you can disable the plugin for testing. Unfortunately, I didn’t find your website in our database. To resolve any Anti-Spam issues, we recommend contacting us at [email protected] or via our private ticket system at https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open.
I’ve managed to get the express checkout for ApplePay and Google Pay up on the product pages and checkout page. However, I also just discovered another issue in the product pages. Under product description, there is a quantity option beside “Add to cart”. When you click on the + or – sign, the quantities increase by a double increment eg 2, 4, 6, 8 instead of 1, 2, 3, 4. I noticed there are double + & – signs too. Screenshot here for reference. Browsed other product pages with similar issues. Do you know if this is caused by any bugs or plugin conflicts?
Can you check your browser to see if you encounter similar issues as me?Hi @thecottonshoppe,
Thank you for the screenshot and the additional details. I can see what you mean here. The quantity selector is displaying two sets of plus and minus buttons, which would explain why the quantity is increasing and decreasing by 2 instead of 1.
Based on what I’m seeing, this is unlikely to be a WooCommerce core issue and is more commonly caused by a theme or plugin conflict where multiple quantity button scripts are being loaded on the same product page.
Could you please try the following:
- Temporarily switch to a default WordPress theme such as Twenty Twenty-Five (or test on a staging site if available) and check whether the duplicate buttons disappear.
- Perform a conflict test by disabling all plugins except WooCommerce and WooPayments, then re-enable them one at a time until the issue returns.
- Since I can see you’re using Elementor and the site appears to use additional frontend enhancement plugins, pay particular attention to any plugin that customizes product pages, quantities, AJAX add to cart functionality, or WooCommerce layouts.
That should help us narrow down exactly which component is responsible.
Hi
Thanks for the advice. I’m having a storewide promotion now, so I’m concerned if the tests above may affect the performance of the website and cause downtime? FYI the issue with the quantity buttons and problems affects Chrome on desktop only. The mobile site using IOS seems to be alright. Any idea why it’s affecting only the desktop and not mobile site?
Also to update, after deactivating the Stripe payment gateway 2 days ago, I haven’t had any more failed payments. So I think the earlier issues are caused by conflicts between Woopayments & Stripe.
Hi there!
Thank you for the update and for sharing those additional observations.
I completely understand your concern about running troubleshooting steps during an active promotion. Performing a theme switch or plugin conflict test on your live site could temporarily affect the customer experience, so if possible, I would recommend carrying out those tests on a staging site rather than on the production site. You can use the following plugin to create a staging site: https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/wp-staging/
Regarding the quantity issue appearing only in Chrome on desktop, that can sometimes happen when a theme or plugin loads different scripts depending on the device type or browser. Since the issue is not occurring on iOS/mobile, that suggests the problem may be related to desktop-specific JavaScript rather than the core WooCommerce quantity field itself. The duplicate quantity buttons visible in your screenshot still point toward multiple scripts or customizations affecting the same element.
As for the payment failures, thank you for sharing that information. While it’s interesting that the failed payments stopped after deactivating the Stripe Gateway plugin, we can’t conclusively determine a conflict between WooPayments and Stripe Gateway based on that observation alone.
Since the payment-related issue involves WooPayments and stripe gateway for woocomerce, I would recommend reaching out to the plugin support team for further assistance. They are very familiar with the plugin’s settings, payment flow, and known compatibility considerations, and will be in the best position to help investigate and troubleshoot the payment failures further.
- Go to WooCommerce → Status → Logs and look for entries from
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