Hey there @suchipsa I helped you on Reddit already right?
Hi @suchipsa,
I understand how stressful that situation must have been, especially when you’re trying to gather proof for a dispute and the download history disappears after revoking access. I saw that @serafinnyc gave you a hand on Reddit, and I’m really glad to hear things have now been sorted with your customer.
That said, your point about losing important data like download logs when revoking access is a valid concern. If you’d like to see this handled differently, we’d love for you to share your idea with our product team here: https://woocommerce.com/feature-requests/woocommerce/
Your feedback can help shape future improvements to make situations like this easier to manage.
We haven’t heard back from you in a while, so I’m going to mark this as resolved.
If you have a few minutes, we’d love if you could leave us a review: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/woocommerce/reviews/
Sorry, I went out of town and was not able to respond. Yes, @serafinnyc helped me on Reddit, and it was SO HELPFUL. I am going to try this out again with a dummy purchase to confirm that revoking access deletes the download data. If it does, I do think it should be handled differently – for example, giving a warning that revoking access will delete the download data permanently and forcing confirmation that this is what you want.
Thanks for the response –
Hi there!
No worries at all! I’m really glad to hear that @serafinnyc was able to help on Reddit and that the info was useful.
I’ve gone ahead and tested this as well, and you’re absolutely right: when download access is revoked from an order, the associated download data is removed from the Order Details page. This can definitely be confusing if you’re expecting to retain a history of what’s already been downloaded.
Your suggestion to include a warning and confirmation step before removing access (and thereby deleting download logs) is a great idea. I recommend submitting this as a feature request here so the WooCommerce team can consider it for future improvements:
👉 https://woocommerce.com/feature-requests/woocommerce/
Let us know how your dummy test goes or if you have any other questions!
Thanks for the feedback @shahzeenfarooq. As you confirmed, revoking access removes the download history from the Order Details page AND the database, and as far as I can tell it can’t be recovered. The table I checked is called 175_woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions; I don’t know if there is another table that might still have the information.
When revoking access for an order, there is a prompt asking if you are sure you want to revoke access – but it doesn’t explain what will happen if you do, so that prompt could be improved. I will submit the feature request as you suggested. Thanks for your help –
Hi @suchipsa,
The main table that WooCommerce uses to store download permissions is indeed woocommerce_downloadable_product_permissions. This is where all the information about download access linked to orders and users is kept. From what is known, this table is the primary—and typically the only—location where such permission data is stored.
Other tables in the database, such as postmeta, woocommerce_order_items, and woocommerce_order_itemmeta, may contain related information about products or order details, but they do not store download permissions themselves. These tables reference products and order items but won’t help recover revoked download permissions.
If you don’t have further questions, I’d appreciate if you can leave an honest review here: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/woocommerce/reviews/ if you are happy with the support you’ve received so far.
The support has been very helpful, thank you. I also submitted a product improvement suggestion.
Hi @suchipsa,
Thank you again for your thoughtful feedback and for confirming how helpful the support has been. I’ve seen your feature request here: https://woocommerce.com/feature-request/improve-revoke-access-interface/
It’s a great suggestion and very clearly presented. You’re welcome to upvote your own request and also share the link with others who might find it valuable. The more engagement it receives, the better the chances it’ll be prioritized by the product team. You can also track any updates or progress on that page directly.
We truly appreciate your contribution to enhancing WooCommerce. Please feel free to open a new forum topic if you need any further assistance.
