Abandoned Orders Not Capturing

If your Cart Abandonment Recovery for WooCommerce plugin is not capturing abandoned orders, this documentation will guide you through the possible causes and solutions.

Why Abandoned Orders Might Not Be Captured

Cart Abandonment Recovery uses a background task to check your carts and mark them as abandoned. If that task isn’t running, abandoned orders aren’t recorded. The steps below help you make sure it runs on time.

What Is WP-Cron?

WP-Cron is WordPress’s built-in system for scheduling time-based tasks, such as publishing scheduled posts or running automated plugin functions. It acts as a task scheduler that allows WordPress to perform actions at specific intervals.

For more information, refer to this detailed article on WP-Cron.

How the Plugin Checks for Abandoned Carts

The Cart Abandonment Recovery for WooCommerce plugin runs a scheduled background task to detect and mark abandoned carts.

It uses a background task named cartflows_ca_update_order_status_action to check for incomplete orders and mark them as abandoned. It runs on the same interval as your Cart Abandoned Cut-Off Time setting, which is 20 minutes by default.

This task can run through WP-Cron or Action Scheduler. You choose which one under Background Task Scheduler, explained below.

Choose a Background Task Scheduler

Step 1. Go to WooCommerce → Cart Abandonment → Settings → General.

Step 2. In Background Task Scheduler, choose:

• Action Scheduler (recommended): Runs the task through WooCommerce’s job queue. It’s the most reliable option, and you can see every run under Tools → Scheduled Actions.
• WP-Cron (legacy): Uses WordPress’s built-in scheduler, which runs tasks when someone visits your site.

If WP-Cron is turned off on your site, the plugin automatically uses Action Scheduler, so your carts are still checked on time.

How to Enable WP-Cron

If you prefer to keep using WP-Cron (legacy), make sure WP-Cron is turned on. To re-enable WP-Cron, locate the wp-config.php file in your website’s root directory and add the following line right after the define('DB_COLLATE', ''); line:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', false);

This ensures that WP-Cron is active and can execute the necessary tasks for Cart Abandonment Recovery.

Adding an External Cron Job Using cPanel

If you prefer to use an external cron job instead of WordPress’s built-in scheduler, you can set it up through cPanel. Below are a few helpful resources that explain how to do this:

• Set Up Cron Jobs in cPanel (GreenGeeks)
• Video: How to Set Up Cron Jobs in cPanel (YouTube)