Troubleshooting

Most Bossy problems fall into a small number of categories. This chapter walks through the diagnostic process for each major feature area, with specific fixes for the most common issues. If something in this chapter does not solve your problem, jump to section 10.10 for general support resources.

10.1 General diagnostic checklist

Before diving into feature-specific troubleshooting, run through this general checklist. It catches 60 percent of issues.

1. Are you on the latest version of Bossy? Check Plugins → Bossy Bulk Editor and update if an update is available. Bugs get fixed; old versions stay broken.
2. Are you on a recent version of WooCommerce? Bossy targets current WooCommerce. Very old WooCommerce versions may have removed or changed APIs Bossy uses.
3. Are you on a current version of WordPress? Same logic.
4. Have you disabled other plugins to test? Conflicts with caching plugins, security plugins, and other bulk editors are the most common cause of weird Bossy behavior. Deactivate everything except WooCommerce and Bossy, retest, and re-enable one at a time to find the conflict.
5. Have you cleared your browser cache? Bossy ships JavaScript and CSS that browsers cache aggressively. A stale cache after a Bossy update can make features look broken when they are not.
6. Have you checked the browser console for errors? Right-click → Inspect → Console tab. Red errors in the console often point straight at the problem.

10.2 Bulk Editor issues

Save All Changes appears to hang

Bossy is saving in the background. Large bulk operations across hundreds of products can take 30+ seconds. Wait for the success indicator before assuming it is stuck.

If it has been more than two minutes without progress:

• Check the browser console for AJAX errors
• Check your PHP error log for server-side errors
• Try with fewer rows selected (50 instead of 500) to see if it is a performance issue or a real failure
• Verify your hosting plan allows long-running requests — some cheap shared hosts kill requests after 30 seconds

Bulk action button stays disabled (greyed out)

You have not selected any rows. Apply buttons only enable once you have checked at least one row in the grid. Click the per-row checkbox or the Select All checkbox in the grid header, then try again.

Changes save but do not reflect on the storefront

A cache somewhere is serving stale content. In order of likelihood:

• Browser cache — hard-refresh the storefront page (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac)
• WooCommerce transient cache — Bossy clears its own transients on save, but other plugins may cache product data separately. Try WooCommerce → Status → Tools → Clear transients.
• Page caching plugin — if you use WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, etc., clear the product page cache or all cache.
• Server-level cache (NGINX, Varnish, Cloudflare) — purge through your hosting control panel or CDN dashboard
• Object caching (Redis, Memcached) — flush via WP-CLI or your hosting tools

Filter dropdowns are empty

You have no products in any category, no shipping classes defined, or some other condition. Add at least one product and one of each filter dimension to populate the dropdowns.

Per-row save works but Save All Changes does not

Almost always a timeout issue. Save All sends one bigger request; per-row sends many smaller requests. Try saving in smaller batches or contact your host about request timeout limits.

Trash button is disabled or missing on a row

The user account does not have delete_post capability for that specific product. This usually means:

• The user role lacks delete_post entirely (most commonly a custom role created by a membership or staff plugin that grants editing rights but withholds deletion)
• The product has a custom permission filter applied by another plugin that explicitly blocks deletion

Fix: grant delete_post to the user role through a role-management plugin (User Role Editor, Members, etc.), or switch to a role that already has it (Administrator, Shop Manager).

Trash selected button stays disabled

You have not selected any rows. Trash selected only enables once at least one row is checked in the grid. Click per-row checkboxes or the Select All header checkbox, then try again.

I trashed a product by mistake — how do I get it back?

Two paths, in this order:

• Bossy Undo (recommended). Open the undo bar at the top of the Bulk Editor. Find the trash snapshot. Click Restore. Full product comes back including variations.
• WordPress Trash. Go to Products → All Products → Trash tab. Find the product. Click Restore. Works even if Bossy snapshot has rolled off.

See Chapter 7.6 for the full recovery scenarios.

10.3 Variation issues

The "vars" badge does not appear on a product

That product is not a Variable product type. To make it variable: edit it in native WooCommerce admin (Products → Edit) and change the Product type dropdown to "Variable", save, then return to Bossy. The badge will appear.

Variation image will not assign

Possible causes:

• The image is not in the variation panel's image pool. Add it to the parent product's gallery first.
• Attachment permissions issue — the image was added by a user whose account has been deleted or whose role was downgraded.
• Browser JS error during drag — check the console, retry after refresh.

Variation save fails with "duplicate SKU"

Two variations on the same product or across different products have the same SKU. WooCommerce requires unique SKUs across all variations. Pick a unique SKU and try again.

Drag-and-drop image assignment does nothing

Click-to-assign is the fallback when drag does not work. Try the click controls in the variation card to see if image assignment works at all. If neither works, the variation save endpoint may be inaccessible — see section 10.10.

10.4 Media Manager issues (Pro)

Save All hangs on large galleries

Same hosting timeout issue as Bulk Editor Save All. Use per-card save in smaller batches.

Set titles or Set alt text appears to do nothing

Both buttons skip images that are shared across multiple products (this is intentional — see Chapter 4.2). If all your product images are shared with other products or used elsewhere, neither button will change anything. Check the success message — it will say how many images were updated.

Add image to page added the wrong image

Run the snapshot Undo (Chapter 7) to restore the gallery state, then try again with the correct image.

10.5 Import issues (Pro)

Auto-map produced wrong column mappings

Try a different auto-map button:

• Auto-map Etsy for Etsy CSV exports
• Auto-map (generic) for standard column names
• Clear mappings to start fresh and map manually

Auto-map relies on column name matching. If your CSV has unusual column names, manual mapping is the only path.

Import stalled on images

Image download is the slowest phase of an import. Check the Import results card for the Resume image sync button — clicking it picks up where it left off without re-importing the product data. Common causes of stalls:

• Source CDN rate-limiting or being slow
• Your server timeout killing long-running requests
• Browser tab closed before image phase completed

"You do not have permission" during import

Your account does not have the edit_products capability. The Administrator or Shop Manager role has this by default. Other roles do not. Either upgrade your role or have someone with the right capability run the import.

Many rows failed with "Duplicate SKU"

Your CSV has SKUs that conflict with existing products in your store, or duplicate SKUs within the CSV itself. Three options:

• Edit the CSV to make SKUs unique and re-import
• Check "Generate missing SKUs" AND "Force overwrite generated SKU" to ignore CSV SKUs entirely (Chapter 5.6 Strategy C)
• Pre-generate clean SKUs using the Etsy SKU Fixer (bossyplugins.com/tools) or Excel/Sheets formulas (Chapter 5.13.1)

Imported products have no images

The CSV image URLs may not be downloadable. Common causes:

• Image URLs require login/authentication that your server cannot provide
• Image URLs have expired (Etsy CDN URLs in particular expire over time)
• Image format not supported by WordPress
• Image too large for your hosting upload limits

Check the import results for the failed-image list to see specific URLs that failed. You can re-attach images manually via the Media Manager.

Imported products have no styled thumbnails

Fast-mode import skips thumbnail regeneration intentionally. Run WooCommerce → Status → Tools → Regenerate Shop Thumbnails to generate the scaled image sizes. See Chapter 5.5.

10.6 Personalization issues (Pro)

Personalization input field does not show on the product page

Check in this order:

• Has Custom Field been enabled (checkbox) on this specific product in the Bulk Editor? (Chapter 9.2)
• Is the master Bossy gallery switch interfering? Personalization renders independently of the gallery switch, but some theme conflicts can hide both. Test with a default theme like Twenty Twenty-Five to isolate.
• Does your theme override the WooCommerce product template in a way that removes the woocommerce_before_add_to_cart_button hook? If yes, your theme is suppressing where Bossy injects the input field. Contact your theme developer or switch templates.
• Is the product page being cached? Hard-refresh, clear caches.

Personalization shows on the product page but is missing from the order

Bossy hooks into two different order-item-creation paths to cover both modern and legacy checkout patterns: woocommerce_checkout_create_order_line_item (modern) and woocommerce_add_order_item_meta (legacy fallback). If personalization is appearing on the product page and in the cart but vanishing on the order, your checkout plugin is bypassing BOTH paths — which is rare but possible with heavily custom or API-only checkouts.

To diagnose:

• Test with the standard WooCommerce checkout on a staging site. If it works there, the issue is specifically with your custom checkout plugin's order creation path.
• Check whether your checkout plugin uses Store API or REST endpoints exclusively without firing standard order hooks.
• Contact Bossy support with your checkout plugin name. Bossy can investigate adding additional fallback hooks for known custom patterns.

Personalization value showed up in cart but not in admin order detail

Same diagnostic as above — both hook paths are being skipped at order creation. Test against standard WooCommerce checkout to confirm and contact support with the details of your specific checkout plugin.

Required personalization field is not blocking Add to Cart on empty input

Bossy uses woocommerce_add_to_cart_validation to enforce required fields. If validation is not firing, either the required flag is not actually set on this product, or a "quick add to cart" or "instant buy" plugin is bypassing the standard validation pipeline. Test with the standard product page Add to Cart button to confirm validation works there.

10.7 Settings issues (Pro)

Settings will not save

Required capability: manage_options. Most non-Admin user roles cannot save Settings. Verify your account is Administrator role, or have an Administrator save the settings for you.

Storefront still shows my theme's gallery, not Bossy's

Check the master switch in Settings: Use Bossy gallery on product pages must be checked AND saved. If it is checked, clear all caches (Chapter 10.2 has the cache list).

Variation gallery does not swap when shopper selects an attribute

• Verify the master switch is on AND saved
• Verify the product has variation-specific images set in the Bulk Editor (Chapter 3)
• Check the Show thumbnails on gallery 1/2 toggles in Settings → Variation Galleries
• Try with browser cache cleared

10.8 Undo issues

My snapshot is not in the undo list

Three possible reasons:

• You have made more than 50 bulk operations since — the snapshot has rolled off (Chapter 7.2 truth #1)
• You already restored that snapshot — restored snapshots disappear from the active list
• A different user made that operation — snapshots are per-user (Chapter 7.2 truth #3)

Restore reported that some items skipped

Normal behavior for partial restores. SKU collisions are the most common cause (Chapter 7.4). Read the result message to see which items skipped and fix them manually.

Restore button is greyed out

That snapshot belongs to a different user OR has already been restored. You cannot restore another user's work or re-restore something already restored.

10.9 Danger Zone issues

Delete button stays disabled

The typed confirmation phrase must match the expected text — but Bossy accepts any capitalization (it converts your input to uppercase before comparing). "delete images", "Delete Images", and "DELETE IMAGES" all work. If the button stays disabled, check for extra spaces, typos, or the wrong phrase entirely (the placeholder text shows you the exact phrase required).

Operation completed but products/images are still there

Refresh the page. The Danger tab updates its counts after the action completes. If your browser is showing cached data, hard-refresh.

Operation timed out partway through

Large catalogs (thousands of products) can hit hosting timeout limits. The deletion that ran is permanent for what it processed. Refresh and run the action again to continue. Bossy does not rollback partially-completed Danger Zone operations.

10.10 Performance issues

Bulk Editor grid loads slowly

• Your "per page" setting may be too high — try 25 or 50 products per page instead of 200
• Server response time may be slow — check with your host
• Other plugins may be slowing down WordPress admin globally — test with other plugins disabled
• Heavy product data (very long descriptions, many variations, many gallery images) increases load time

Saves are slow

• Smaller batches save faster. Per-row save is faster than Save All for the same number of products.
• Object caching plugins (Redis, Memcached) can dramatically speed up save operations
• Background services like search indexing, SEO analysis, or sync plugins may add overhead to every save

10.11 General support resources

If nothing in this chapter solved your problem:

• Bossy Plugins docs — bossyplugins.com/docs has the latest documentation, which may include fixes added after your plugin version was released
• Bossy Plugins support — contact support directly through bossyplugins.com
• Plugin Check (Pro) — built-in compatibility check, useful for confirming Bossy is healthy in your environment
• WordPress.org plugin support forum — for free plugin users with general questions

When contacting support, include:

• Bossy plugin version (Plugins → Bossy Bulk Editor)
• WordPress version (Dashboard → Updates)
• WooCommerce version (Plugins → WooCommerce)
• PHP version (Tools → Site Health → Info)
• Active theme name
• A list of other active plugins
• A precise description of what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead
• Screenshots if visual, or error messages exact text if any