Hi Bryan,
Cross testing for you using the latest version of WooCommerce on an install which has been updating all product variations which I added or edited are saving and that data is being correctly displayed on the products which they were created for. I’m also not seeing any other reports of any similar behaviour from users for the latest version of WooCommerce which would isolate this to only your install at the moment.
I would first check that your WC Version number matches the WC Database Version from WooCommerce > Status and both numbers should be the same.
If both numbers are the same I would enable WP DEBUG on your site to see if there are any error messages being logged within that file.
https://codex.wordpress.org/Debugging_in_WordPress#Example_wp-config.php_for_Debugging
If there are no error messages within the debug log file that identify why you are experiencing this behaviour it could be a plugin conflict of some kind. The quickest way to test that is to disable all plugins leaving only WooCommerce activated and also temporarily change to Twenty Seventeen again. Once you have your site configured like this try adding or editing variations and see if the behaviour persists.
There are other people having the same issue. Check the trouble tickets… other people are reporting the same error: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/3-2-4-variations-not-setting/
I have noticed the problem on multiple sites I manage. This problem does not occur with previously entered variations, but only with new entries and not always predictable what product entry will incur the error.
Just like bryanr18lowe, I have disabled all plugins and reverted to 2017 theme as a test, but the WooCommerce Variations selections fails intermittently since upgrading to Woocommerce 3.2.4. Fails in the sense that in some cases, when saving the attributes chosen, a unspecified number of variations will revert to “Any Options…” Combine this with the problem that from the user side, the images will not load according to the selected option or one option will get hung and no longer show the other options including the correct price. Very messed up. There is a identifiable disconnect between saving the attributes and the edits actually saving to the database. The data streams seems to become scrambled.
I have performed all the typical tests. Those noted above, combined with verifying Memory Limit set to 256MB, PHP 5.6.32, MySQL 5.6.38, PHP max input vars: 3000. No cache installed. WC database same version as WC install: 4.9. Dedicated server with 1GIG network node, SSD drive. Everything is in order. I have tried editing from Chrome, Firefox and Firefox Developer, same failure. Define(‘WP_DEBUG’, True) does not reveal anything. I am very skilled on CMS frameworks and ecommerce, but there is something intermittently wrong with the new WooCommerce release when it comes to variations. A visual review of the database and each entry does not reveal any errors. The data is added correctly in the database, but does not feed correctly back into WooCommerce.
I would provide my login credentials to any Automattic developer who would assist with this issue. The website build in progress cannot be viewed because it is behind a SeedProd Coming Soon Page Pro, never-the-less admin access is required to replicate the bugs. I have a product post identified that will prove the problem exists.
Thanks Inndesign for your detailed response… I too have been having problems with this issue. Everything has been fine up until this latest update. I have tried disabling all plugins and changing theme but still the same issue. Incredibly frustrating… I hope Automattic can resolve this soon.
Also see this support thread: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-create-more-than-one-variation-since-upgrade/ More than one user on the thread reports the problem, but Automattic keeps offing the issue as non-existent because they can’t replicate it. The key word is intermittent… the problem is real!
Having the same issue here. Cannot create new variations on products. Wish they would issue a fix for this. It is crippling my site.
Automattic WooCommerce release 3.2.5 – 2017-11-22
Fix – WordPress 4.9 – Fix an issue saving variation attributes on new products and with attributes containing slashes.
Uhhh. nope. The problem still exists! Variations still does not work right. Same exact problem still exists.
Come on Automattic, gain some qualified developers. This needs fixed!
Fix this problem pleeeease. The new update not fix it.
Plugin Support
Hannah S.L.
(@fernashes)
Automattic Happiness Engineer
Hey there! As @stuartduff mentioned above, we aren’t able to replicate this on our end – we test on sites which only have WooCommerce and a default theme enabled, so the variables are minimal, while production sites are far more complicated.
If you can set up a staging site, only enable WooCommerce and a default theme such as Twenty Seventeen, and then show us the issue, I’d be happy to take a closer look for you.
Please fix this… This is getting beyond a joke now!
Thanks for your tenacity Inndesign… Please Automattic, will you sit up and take notice!
@inndesign
I don’t work for WooCommerce. Thank you for setting up the test environment. I can see there is corruption in the two variable products that you mention and they do not work properly. There have other been problems posted on the forum where the cause has been corruption in a variable product, for various WC versions, but in perspective these instances have been very rare given the number of installs there are out there. Infrequent random corruption can be difficult to debug.
I was able to set up a similar variable product from scratch that worked fine. Regarding the two corrupted products, the fix was fairly simple, find the product in the list of products and click the duplicate link. The corruption did not carry over into the duplicate product. The next step would have been to delete the original product and remove the “(Copy)” from the title of the duplicate and from its permalink. However I have left the corrupted products in place for others to investigate.
The Woo update (3.2.5) has fixed this for me!
Thank you for your comments here and the time you’ve put into this @inndesign.
This is certainly not a rare or isolated problem. I am discovering that there are examples of it all over the web right now. It’s rough because I have a client that is all over me about adding their new inventory for the holiday shopping season here and I didn’t want to have to revert back to an older version of woocommerce but it’s looking like this is the only real solution for this issue right now.
3.2.5 has not fixed this issue for me @cygnetmidwest
I’m hopeful we could get a solution as soon as possible and put this one behind us. It’s a major flaw.
@cygnetmidwest, @bryanr18lowe,
Did you ever manage to get to the bottom of this – it’s a major flaw indeed and my clients are all over me about it!
Many thanks for any help you can offer.
@taylorsuk
Sorry to hear you’re still having trouble. The upgrade to Woo fixed the issue for me. One other thing I did is increase the max number of variables allowed and the max execution time in the PHP.ini file (on Apache). Here’s what I set those to:
max_input_vars = 30000
max_input_time = 340
max_execution_time = 90
I’m not 100% sure this helped, but it certainly didn’t hurt. I know doing this helps if you have a lot of variations present on a product.
