Stuck syncing – cannot complete sync no matter what I do

Resolved

(@jeppeskovsgaard)

Like many others I have a lot of trouble using this plugin. Seems like the syncing process is built in a very unstable way.

No matter what I do your plugin stops syncing efter x time (seems random). I reinstalled the plugin yesterday, following the instructions on Mailchimp.com carefully, and pressed re-sync.

In the re-installation process the plugin behaved really weird. All tabs except “Connect” suddenly disappeared. The API key was still there, but pressing “Save all changes” got me an empty error message. See screenshot. I wasn’t able to deactivate the plugin though the GUI neither WP CLI but after some time the tabs reappeared again.

It has synced all the 204 products but is now stuck at 246 orders. I have 2744 orders dating back to september 2017.

24 hours have passed now, and it’s still stuck at 246 orders. Though I can see in the logs that the plugin does pick up a lot of abandoned_cart.success, order_submit.success, product_submit.success and more just a few hours ago. It just doesn’t sync to Mailchimp so that Mailchimp can send the emails.

What I’ve tried:

Disconnect site and re-installed the plugin with a new API key following the instructions om Mailchimp.com
Re-sync after reinstalling

Log errors
For GDPR reasons and personal privacy I cannot provide you with a full log, but I have picked different issues that appears a lot in the logs:

2018-09-12T17:27:30+00:00 NOTICE api.add_product.error ::  ::  :: Array
(
    [submission] => Array
        (
            [id] => deleted_932
            [title] => deleted_932
            [variants] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => deleted_932
                            [title] => deleted_932
                            [inventory_quantity] => 0
                            [backorders] => false
                        )

                )

        )

)

2018-09-12T17:27:30+00:00 NOTICE order.items.error :: Order #1967 :: Product 932 does not exist!
2018-09-12T17:27:30+00:00 NOTICE api.add_product.error ::  ::  :: Array
(
    [submission] => Array
        (
            [id] => deleted_0
            [title] => deleted_0
            [variants] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => deleted_0
                            [title] => deleted_0
                            [inventory_quantity] => 0
                            [backorders] => false
                        )

                )

        )

)

2018-09-12T17:27:30+00:00 NOTICE order.items.error :: Order #1976 :: Product 0 does not exist!
2018-09-12T17:27:30+00:00 NOTICE api.add_product.error ::  ::  :: Array
(
    [submission] => Array
        (
            [id] => deleted_0
            [title] => deleted_0
            [variants] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => deleted_0
                            [title] => deleted_0
                            [inventory_quantity] => 0
                            [backorders] => false
                        )

                )

        )

)

2018-09-12T17:27:37+00:00 NOTICE order.items.error :: Order #1977 :: Product 0 does not exist!
2018-09-12T17:27:37+00:00 ERROR order_submit.error :: addStoreOrder :: 1967 ::  ::  on 1432 in /home/[redacted]/public_html/wp-content/plugins/mailchimp-for-woocommerce/includes/api/class-mailchimp-api.php
2018-09-12T17:27:37+00:00 ERROR order_submit.error :: addStoreOrder :: 1968 ::  ::  on 1432 in /home/[redacted]/public_html/wp-content/plugins/mailchimp-for-woocommerce/includes/api/class-mailchimp-api.php
2018-09-12T17:27:37+00:00 ERROR order_submit.error :: addStoreOrder :: 1976 ::  ::  on 1432 in /home/[redacted]/public_html/wp-content/plugins/mailchimp-for-woocommerce/includes/api/class-mailchimp-api.php
2018-09-12T17:27:38+00:00 ERROR order_submit.error :: addStoreOrder :: 1977 ::  ::  on 1432 in /home/[redacted]/public_html/wp-content/plugins/mailchimp-for-woocommerce/includes/api/class-mailchimp-api.php
2018-09-12T17:27:38+00:00 ERROR order_submit.error :: addStoreOrder :: 1982 ::  ::  on 1432 in /home/[redacted]/public_html/wp-content/plugins/mailchimp-for-woocommerce/includes/api/class-mailchimp-api.php
2018-09-12T17:27:38+00:00 NOTICE api.add_product.error ::  ::  :: Array
(
    [submission] => Array
        (
            [id] => deleted_932
            [title] => deleted_932
            [variants] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => deleted_932
                            [title] => deleted_932
                            [inventory_quantity] => 0
                            [backorders] => false
                        )

                )

        )

)

(Here it goes on and on with product 0 does not exist).

“Syncing list” in the Mailchimp control panel just keeps spinning. My guess is, that it’s waiting for the website for more data. See screnshot.

Please note that I’m using WooCommerce Subscriptions, which runs it’s own cron jobs once a month, and it’s very important that any fix does not mess that up. The fix I have seen mentioned in other threads worries me in that regard.

Details about the site:
– WooCommerce version: 3.4.4
– WordPress version: 4.9.8
– PHP version: 7.2.9
– Memory limit: 768 MB
– PHP time limit: 120
– PHP max input variables: 1000
– Theme: Storefront (with a child theme)

Hosting
Siteground GoGeek
– Static caching enabled
– Dynamic caching enabled
– Memcached enabled

Siteground recommends cron jobs running no less than every 30 minutes. I’m not sure if that is an actual 30 min. cap or just a recommendation.

Notable plugins installed
– WP Rocket
– Mailchimp for WP by “ibericode”
– WooCommerce Subscriptions

This topic was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by jeppe.
This topic was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by jeppe.
This topic was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by jeppe.

The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 16 total)

1 2 →

walkinverse
(@walkinverse)

5 years, 7 months ago

The only way I got around this is I took my smallest store, deleted all the items and added them back. Took a few hours. Then it synced. Not a solution if you ask me.

Thread Starter jeppe
(@jeppeskovsgaard)

5 years, 7 months ago

@walkinverse There’s no way I’m doing that. 🙂

I’m disappointed that such a large company in the email industry (probably #1) has a plugin that works this bad.

Plugin Support khungate
(@khungate)

5 years, 7 months ago

Hey @jeppeskovsgaard, thanks for reaching out. When you have a minute, check out this support thread: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/not-syncing-8/. Most specifically, the last comment on the first page about the http_worker_lock site transient. If you’re able to delete that, it may do the trick.

Let us know how it goes. If that doesn’t work, we’ll be happy to look at your install closer.

Thanks,
Kyle

walkinverse
(@walkinverse)

5 years, 7 months ago

@khungate that doesn’t work and I already responded in another thread with no response for a few days now. That does not resolve the issue.

Thread Starter jeppe
(@jeppeskovsgaard)

5 years, 7 months ago

Thanks for responding, @khungate.

You said you ran: delete_site_transient( 'http_worker_lock' );

Where did you run this exactly? This doesn’t look like a cli command. Please provide clear instructions.

Plugin Support khungate
(@khungate)

5 years, 7 months ago

@walkinverse, oh gotcha, sorry. Let’s try looking at your caching plugins/services now. Do you have any of those running? If so, please temporarily disable them and try to reinstall. If not, let us know and we’ll try another route.

@jeppeskovsgaard, no problem, we’ll be glad to help. There are several ways delete the transient but the most popular method we’ve heard in a UI is with this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/transients-manager/

walkinverse
(@walkinverse)

5 years, 7 months ago

@khungate I have deleted, re-installed, removed from mailchimp, deleted manually from the filesystem, you named it, I tried it and nothing worked. The only thing that got it working again is I had to DELETE MY ENTIRE store and repopulate it. Then, and only then did it sync. And I DELETED ALL transients with the plugin also. There is a serious bug. Also, look at your comments, more people are logging the same complaint with the same errors.

Thread Starter jeppe
(@jeppeskovsgaard)

5 years, 7 months ago

@khungate

The transient is not there.

WP Rocket is cleaning out expired transients once a week. That could have already removed it, but your plugin still doesn’t work.

walkinverse
(@walkinverse)

5 years, 7 months ago

@jeppeskovsgaard @khungate It is not a transient issue. I told them that a few days ago. I also manually deleted all transients.

Thread Starter jeppe
(@jeppeskovsgaard)

5 years, 7 months ago

@walkinverse

I wouldn’t think that myself either. My guess is that the synchronization process is either buggy, cannot restart itself if a critical error happened or it is way too expensive resource wise, which caused the error in the first place.

Plugin Author ryanhungate
(@ryanhungate)

5 years, 7 months ago

@jeppeskovsgaard bare with the long winded answer – we will get you where you need to be.

First question – in the ‘Sync’ tab, do you see a button at the bottom that says “Re-sync”?

You made a comment about the transients being deleted automatically once a week. This particular issue is trying to address a transient had been set that was never going to expire – so these clean up mechanisms would not catch it. As long as you’ve verified that this transient does not exist, we can scratch that off the list of things to do.

Next – I understand the product submission issue. Could it be that you’ve got a lot of orders that have products which are not in your store anymore? Does the subscriptions plugin you use automatically delete them after X number of days or something?

One last thing to note is that we’ve seen hosting with SiteGround problems come up in the past – something to do with CPU allotments. The reality is while the plugin is trying to sync your data, it does use CPU – no way around that. Have you checked into your account to make sure they didn’t just shut this off mid cycle? I know it sounds a bit far fetched, but we’ve seen this happen over the year and it’s worth noting.

Please respond to these questions, we’ll be more than happy to continue investigating and helping troubleshoot until we come to a completion.

@walkinverse I’ve been following this thread – and I can’t tell if you’ve fixed your issue or if you still needed some help? Deleting your entire website would have never been advised by anyone on our team. Were you in a development environment or a brand new store that this didn’t really matter at the time? Again – more than happy to get involved here to get you squared away.
Thread Starter jeppe
(@jeppeskovsgaard)

5 years, 7 months ago
@ryanhungate

That’s okay.

1. No, I don’t see it anymore. It was there after reinstalling and then I pressed it. The re-sync began but then stopped at 246.

Actually the number is now 255. There have been 9 orders since yesterday when I wrote this post, so it looks like it’s syncing new orders but has stopped syncing old orders.

The process in the Mailchimp is still “syncing” and abandoned cart emails are not being sent. Is this working as intended? Should the status always be “Syncing” in Mailchimp control panel?

We have actually had your plugin installed for 4 months before this post, and not a single email has been sent. The cart abandonment email is set up correctly and has the status “Sending”.

2. I installed the plugin you asked, and the transient you mentioned is not there at all. It’s still not there.

3. Could be. Sounds like a good reason for the 0 product issue. It’s my clients store so I’m not 100% into that.

I’m using the official WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin. The subscription product is not being deleted and neither are the orders. The plugin is utilising parent orders though, which are orders that handle future orders of the subscription as long as they’re active. I don’t know if that could cause an issue.

But since so so many users have syncing issues, I don’t think this is the problem.

4. Sounds reasonable. CPU usage atm is very low. I checked when I pressed “re-sync” though, and then the usage was near 100%.

I don’t see a process related to the plugin or the site in the process list in cPanel. It could have been shut off. I can ask Siteground about that.

If CPU usage is really the problem, you should consider making a background task that doesn’t eat up all resources to sync everything so fast. Limit how many orders are synced pr. minute, limit the cron job or something like that. I’m no expert PHP developer, so I don’t know what solution you could work out, but Siteground is not the cheapest and slowest host out there. If Siteground fails then it looks like this plugin is only for sites hosted on a VPS, dedicated server or enterprise solutions like WP Engine and Kinsta.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by jeppe.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by jeppe.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by jeppe.
Plugin Author ryanhungate
(@ryanhungate)

5 years, 7 months ago

@jeppeskovsgaard we’ve identified a scenario where folks are getting rate limited by MailChimp’s API – which could very well be the cause of your order sync to be incomplete – and also on top of that why the plugin admin area looks like it’s broken ( just showing the API key section only ).

We’re going to implement some lock mechanics into the initial syncing process which will detect that situation – and then wait out the rate limit – to start again clean.

The next plugin release is 2.1.10 – it’s going through final QA right now – and then 2.1.11 will follow soon after which will strictly be for this rate limit handling.

Keep you all posted and thanks for working through things.

Thread Starter jeppe
(@jeppeskovsgaard)

5 years, 7 months ago

@ryanhungate That sounds great. I’m looking forward to that and hope it solves the problem.

Thread Starter jeppe
(@jeppeskovsgaard)

5 years, 6 months ago

Hello Ryan

Just wanted to check up on this. Orders are being synced but no abandoned cart emails are being sent. My client do have a lot of registered users, so out of the ~500 orders synced, since I created this thread, there are indeed users valid for receiving abandoned cart emails.

“Syncing List: Nyhedsbrev” is still processing in the Mailchimp dashboard it seems. The animation is still going. Can you see if it’s stuck on the Mailchimp end?

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 16 total)

1 2 →

The topic ‘Stuck syncing – cannot complete sync no matter what I do’ is closed to new replies.