Completed Order Email doesn’t Contain Download Links

On some WooCommerce installs you can experience the following issue: when a customer purchases a downloadable product, the Complete Order Email doesn’t contain any download link for the customer to download purchased products. Here is how the email looks like in that case:

WooCommerceOrderWithoutDownloadLink
No Download Link In Completed Order Email

While it should look like this:

OrderEmailWooCommerce
Download Link included In Completed Order Email

Missing SQL Table

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This happens because a SQL table called wp_woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions is missing in your database.

When activating WooCommerce, a few new SQL tables are added in your database. You can find the list of all tables here. But this process can fail sometimes if the WordPress SQL tables prefix is too long: the table name can’t contain more than 64 characters.

The following table describes the maximum length for each type of identifier in the database. Please note that the maximum length for table is 64:

Identifier Maximum Length (characters)
Database 64
Table 64
Column 64
Index 64
Constraint 64
Stored Program 64
View 64
Alias 256
Compound Statement Label 16

The WordPress SQL Table prefix is defined during WordPress install, and is stored in the file called wp-config.php.

How to solve the issue?

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To solve this issue, there’s only one single solution: renaming the WordPress SQL table prefix.

You can do this using a plugin from the WordPress.org plugin directory.

Or you can do it manually. In that case you need to rename all tables names using a tool like phpMyAdmin, reduce the table’s prefix, and update the prefix value in wp-config.php. When you’ve done this, deactivate WooCommerce and re-activate it. Don’t worry you won’t lose any data, and re-enabling WooCommerce should force it to create missing SQL tables.

If you’re not familiar with how this is done, you can search for a guide on changing the WordPress database Prefix.

Please create a backup of your database and of your site before doing such actions. 

Note: we recommend you to define a WordPress SQL Table Prefix containing less than 20 characters to avoid any potential issue.

Questions and support

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Do you still have questions and need assistance? 

This documentation is about the free, core WooCommerce plugin for which support is provided in our community forums on WordPress.org. By searching this forum, you’ll often find that your question has been asked and answered before.

If you haven’t created a WordPress.org account to use the forums, here’s how.

  • If you’re looking to extend the core functionality shown here, we recommend reviewing available extensions in the WooCommerce Marketplace.
  • Need ongoing advanced support or a customization built for WooCommerce? Hire a Woo Agency Partner.
  • Are you a developer building your own WooCommerce integration or extension? Check our Developer Resources.

If you weren’t able to find the information you need, please use the feedback thumbs below to let us know.

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