A buyer hits your checkout and gets an error instead of a receipt. Every hour this stays broken costs you sales, so this article is ordered by speed: confirm the scope, capture the evidence, apply the quick checks, and know exactly when to stop and hand it to us.
First: is it one buyer or every buyer?
Run a test purchase yourself (you can create a 100%-off coupon, or refund yourself afterwards). If your test works, the problem is usually on the buyer’s side — their card, their bank’s fraud check, a VPN, an expired card. If your test fails too, checkout is genuinely down: open a ticket now with the details below, and we treat it as urgent.
Capture the exact error
“Checkout doesn’t work” has a dozen possible causes; the exact message narrows it to one or two. Get the precise wording (or a screenshot) and note when it appears — before the payment fields load, after clicking Pay, or after returning from PayPal. That single detail tells us which system threw it.
Quick checks you can do
- “There was an error processing your order” after clicking Pay — usually the payment gateway rejecting the charge. Check WooCommerce → Orders: if the order exists as Failed, open it — the order notes often contain the gateway’s real reason (declined, mismatch, etc.).
- Error before payment fields even load — usually a page problem, not a payment problem. If the checkout page was edited recently (by you or your AI assistant), that’s the prime suspect; tell us what changed.
- Coupon errors — check the coupon’s expiry date, usage limits, and that it applies to the product in the cart (Marketing → Coupons).
- A specific buyer’s card fails repeatedly — have them try another card or payment method. Card declines are between the buyer and their bank; no setting on your site fixes them.
What not to touch
Don’t rebuild or re-edit the checkout page while it’s failing, and don’t change payment gateway settings to “see if it helps” — both make diagnosis slower and can turn one problem into two. Capture the evidence first.
Your own payment method (paying Schoolyland)
Different topic, same word: if you need to update the card you pay us with — for example a card was blocked or replaced — go to My Account → Payment methods. If the update itself fails, don’t fight it: open a ticket and we’ll sort the billing side directly.
What to send us
- The exact error text or a screenshot.
- Whether your own test purchase works.
- The product or funnel where it happens, with a link.
- Roughly when it started, and what changed before that.
With those four facts, most checkout issues are resolved in one round.
