Title: Disabling SQLite -> WooCommerce forgets variations
Last modified: September 2, 2025

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# Disabling SQLite -> WooCommerce forgets variations

 *  Resolved [philbee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/philbee/)
 * (@philbee)
 * [7 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/)
 * So I noticed that some WooCommerce plugins throw an error when SQLite Object 
   Cache is enabled while adding products / creating product variations. Nothing
   dramatic, I thought, just disable the plugin.
   Well, turns out that WooCommerce
   product variations that use WooCommerce Attribute Swatches by Iconic and created
   while SQLite is active just disappear when SQLite is off – and, in fact, so do
   entire attributes, resulting in “Invalid taxonomy” errors. This obviously means
   it’s not possible to use the edit a single trick described [here](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-disable-the-plugin-completely/#post-18360093)–
   the trick is to change the attribute back to normal, non-Swatches, save it, and
   then disable SQLite.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  Plugin Author [OllieJones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/olliejones/)
 * (@olliejones)
 * [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18666920)
 * I’v seen similar issues. If you know which plugins throw errors, I can investigate
   that. If you know whether the same issues happen when you use the Redis Object
   Cache or some other persistent cache, that will help too.
 * I’ll investigate.
 *  Thread Starter [philbee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/philbee/)
 * (@philbee)
 * [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18666991)
 * Hi Ollie,
   thanks a lot for the feedback (and your extremely cool plugin)!The 
   plugin that really really didn’t like SQLite was [this one](https://iconicwp.com/products/woocommerce-attribute-swatches/).
   I suspect they’re doing crazy stuff with metadata and taxonomies when saving 
   their modified WooCommerce attributes; I also suspect from experience that it’s
   not quite as solidly programmed as one would hope for.I currently don’t have 
   easy access to a real server with Redis, but I might try to see what happens 
   on my local MAMP Pro – I usually don’t use it as I had not-so-good experiences
   with Redis on spinupwp-based servers.
 *  Plugin Author [OllieJones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/olliejones/)
 * (@olliejones)
 * [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18667438)
 * I have found the problem you describe with plain’ole WooCommerce. It happens 
   also with Redis Object Cache.
 *  Plugin Author [OllieJones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/olliejones/)
 * (@olliejones)
 * [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18667445)
 * Steps to reproduce
    1. Enable either SQLite Object Cache (this plugin) or Redis Object Cache.
    2. Create a new variable product.
    3.  - New Product.
        - Product data — variable product
        - Pick the Attributes tab
        - Add New — name it Sides or something.
        - Give the values 4|6|8|12|20
        - Save Attributes.
        - Pick the Variations tab.
        - Generate variations.
        - Add a price
        - Remove a variation.
        - Publish the product
        - View Product, and observe correct set of variations.
    4. Add a variation to the product.
    5.  - Go back to edit the product.
        - Add a new variation and update the product.
        - View the product again, and observe correct set of variations.
        - Deactivate the object cache plugin
        - Refresh the View Product page, and observe that the variation added in step
          2 is now gone.
 * The edited variation should not vanish when the persistent object cache plugin
   is disabled.
 * Imma reach out to Till and to the WooCommerce team about this
 * Oddly enough, flushing the object cache rather than deactivating it does not 
   cause the problem.
 *  Plugin Author [OllieJones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/olliejones/)
 * (@olliejones)
 * [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18667484)
 * Here’s the report to WooCommerce. [https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/61259](https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/61259)
 * Here’s the report to Redis Object Cache. [https://wordpress.org/support/topic/woocommerce-variations-vanish-upon-object-cache-plugin-deactivation/](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/woocommerce-variations-vanish-upon-object-cache-plugin-deactivation/)
 * Stephen King might be able to turn this into a story. Vanishing red sweaters 
   reapper mysteriously.
 *  Plugin Author [OllieJones](https://wordpress.org/support/users/olliejones/)
 * (@olliejones)
 * [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18668867)
 * Ha! Found it!
 * WooCommerce creates transients with names like `product-transient-revision` and
   uses their values (timestamps) to cons up the names of other transients. Deactivating
   a persistent object cache plugin makes those transients’ values revert to whatever
   they were before the object cache was activated. That is, they revert to stale
   values. In turn that means that other stale transients get used to look up variants
   and other product stuff.
 * This way of using transients made it into WooCommerce as a fix to their performance
   defect [#5777]([https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/5777](https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/5777)).
 * The fix to this plugin is to delete all transients from the database upon activation
   and deactivation, so no stale values are left.
 * [https://github.com/OllieJones/sqlite-object-cache/issues/95](https://github.com/OllieJones/sqlite-object-cache/issues/95)
 *  Thread Starter [philbee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/philbee/)
 * (@philbee)
 * [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18668905)
 * Ha, cool for you to find the source of the bug.
 * While turning Object Cache off probably is not a common scenario, relying completely
   on it not happening seems like… a bit adventurous from the WooCommerce team.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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 * 7 replies
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 * Last reply from: [philbee](https://wordpress.org/support/users/philbee/)
 * Last activity: [6 months, 2 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/disabling-sqlite-woocommerce-forgets-variations/#post-18668905)
 * Status: resolved