WooCommerce Square: Troubleshooting

Use this guide to diagnose and resolve the most common issues with WooCommerce Square. For each issue, follow the steps in order before contacting support.

Connection Issues

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Cannot connect WooCommerce to Square

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• You must be the owner of the Square account. This integration requires permissions that Square only grants to account owners.
• If you receive an ‘Unauthorized’ error, contact Square to verify your account ownership before retrying.

Business location not showing in settings

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In your Square account, confirm that you are the owner of the location in question and that you have completed Square onboarding.

Business location is greyed out

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• This usually indicates a communication issue between servers. Check whether a security or firewall plugin is blocking external requests.
• Under WooCommerce > System Status, confirm that cURL is installed.
• Verify your site’s SSL certificate is valid.
• Run a conflict test to rule out interference from a plugin or theme.

Product Sync Issues

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Products are not syncing

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• Check that all synced products have a SKU set in both WooCommerce and Square. SKUs are how the plugin matches products between systems.
• Verify the Square product is assigned to the same Location configured in WooCommerce > Settings > Square.
• Confirm your server supports background processing. Background processing is required to successfully sync product data between Square and WooCommerce. If your site fails, please contact your host to enable background processing/loopback connections. While some hosts may identify this as a security issue, there’s no security threat to using a loopback connection and, if done correctly, it won’t increase server usage. Quality hosts will mitigate increased server usage with rate limiting.

Sync is stuck

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Sometimes the syncing process could get stuck. When this happens, neither automatic nor manual sync will work. In cases like these, try the following troubleshooting steps:

1. Go to WooCommerce > Status > Tools.
2. Use Clear Square Sync to stop the current sync process.
3. Wait a moment, then try syncing again.

If clearing sync does not resolve the issue:

1. Go to WooCommerce > Status > Scheduled Actions.
2. Filter by Pending and In Progress.
3. Delete any stuck Square sync actions.
4. New actions will be created automatically.

Blank product variations in Square

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If a Square product has blank variation lines between populated ones (e.g., Small, [blank], Medium, Large), this can cause sync issues. Move any blank lines to the end of the variation list in Square.

Order Sync Issues

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Orders not syncing to Square:

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• Confirm your Square account is connected via WooCommerce > Settings > Square.
• Verify that the order sync feature is enabled in Square settings.
• Check that the order used the Square payment gateway.

WooCommerce status not updating:

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• Confirm Action Scheduler is running. Go to WooCommerce > Status > Action Scheduler and look for wc_square_sync_orders.
• In Square, verify the order status is either Completed or Cancelled — only these statuses trigger a sync back to WooCommerce.
• Check WooCommerce > Status > Logs for sync errors.

Manually trigger an order sync

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1. Go to WooCommerce → Status → Action Scheduler
2. Navigate to the Pending tab
3. Find the wc_square_sync_orders event
4. Click Run.

Fulfillment button not visible in Square:

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• Confirm order was created through WooCommerce (not manually in Square)
• Verify order has proper fulfillment details
• Check Square Dashboard permissions

Payment Gateway Issues

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Cannot process payments

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• Confirm your site has an SSL certificate installed. Click here to learn more about SSL certificates.
• Confirm your WooCommerce store currency and Square account currency match (store currency is set in WooCommerce > Settings > General).
• Confirm your shop location set in WooCommerce > Settings > General is in a supported country: US, CA, UK, AU, IE, ES, FR, JP.
• If you’re using a code optimization or minification plugin, exclude WooCommerce Square from it. Minification can break the Square payment fields.
• Did the payment fail with an error code in the order notes or in the logs? Refer to the common error codes returned by Square in this document.

Authorized payments not showing in Square Transactions

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Authorized (but not yet captured) payments do not appear in Square’s Transactions list until they are captured in WooCommerce. This is expected behavior.

If you see issues with authorization, please note the following:

• Square authorizations are only valid for 6 days and can’t be captured after that — you’ll need a new authorization from the customer if you miss the window.
• Always void authorizations and process refunds in WooCommerce, not Square. While Square is aware of changes in WooCommerce, WooCommerce is not aware of changes within Square. For any transaction that originates in WooCommerce, you should make additional changes (such as voiding / revoking authorizations and processing refunds) within WooCommerce.
• Square doesn’t support staging sites on subdomains (e.g., staging.yourdomain.com) — the auth token won’t match the redirect domain, and the connection will fail. Use a subfolder instead (e.g., yourdomain.com/staging/).

“Payment nonce is missing” error at Checkout

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When payment doesn’t go through with the error “Payment nonce is missing” at Checkout, it usually indicates that the Square Web Payments SDK was unable to generate or pass the required token to WooCommerce during checkout. This is usually due to a JavaScript conflict that prevents Square scripts from collecting all required information from the checkout page.

Try disabling all caching and optimization plugins first, then run a full conflict test if that doesn’t resolve the issue.

Order is held for review

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When an order is at the On hold status with this note: Square Transaction Held for Review () Order status changed from Pending payment to On hold, this is usually related to Square holding transactions for account-level reasons. The following steps can be applied to confirm this:

• Confirm that Transaction Type is set to Charge via WooCommerce > Settings > Payments > Square
• If the settings are correct, contact Square to investigate why transactions are on hold for review, which can occur when the account isn’t fully set up.

Apple Pay Not Displaying

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If you’ve enabled Digital Wallets but the Apple Pay button isn’t being displayed, check the following:

• Check for admin notices about Apple Pay on WooCommerce > Settings > Payments > Square.
• Enable Square logging (WooCommerce > Settings > Square) and visit the Square settings page to trigger domain verification. Check logs for errors when verifying the domain.
• Ensure you are viewing your store from a supported browser or device. Apple Pay is only available on Safari on supported Apple devices with a valid card in Apple Wallet.

Gift Card payment failure with an error “Invalid payment method.”

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When a Gift Card is entered, the amount is correctly deducted from the Gift Card at Checkout. However, when the customer proceeds to pay with the Gift Card, an error appears: Invalid payment method.

This is usually a sign of a conflict issue. Test with a default Checkout page using the [woocommerce_checkout] shortcode and perform a conflict test as needed.

Import issues

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Items are not importing from Square

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• Verify Square products are assigned to the same Location set in WooCommerce > Settings > Square.
• Confirm products have SKUs set in Square.
• Confirm your server supports background processing.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions guide.