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Troubleshooting
Use this page when the storefront is doing something you can't explain and you don't know where to start. It covers the checks to run first, how to narrow a problem down to one source, and an index from symptom to the page that explains it. If you already know which feature is misbehaving, the FAQ is the faster route.
Before you begin
Most reports come down to a cached page or the wrong theme. Run these five checks before you change any setting.
- Hard refresh the page — Cmd + Shift + R on macOS, Ctrl + Shift + R on Windows. A normal reload can serve the copy your browser already holds.
- Open the same page in a private window, or in a second browser. If it looks right there, the first browser was holding an old copy or an extension was interfering.
- Check the page on a phone as well as a desktop, and resize the desktop window. Layout that only breaks at one width is a question about responsive behavior, not a broken section.
- Clear the cache of any caching or page-speed app you run. Theme assets are served from Shopify's CDN under versioned URLs, so a published edit is normally live at once — but an app that caches whole pages can keep serving an older one.
- Confirm which theme you're looking at. In Online Store → Themes the published theme sits at the top, and every other theme opens through its own preview link. Editing an unpublished copy and then reloading your live store shows no change, and the reverse is just as easy to do by accident.
Note
The theme editor renders your unsaved draft. If a change looks right in the editor and wrong on the storefront, check that you saved it, and that you saved it on the theme you then loaded.
Isolate the cause
Work through these three steps in order. Each one rules out a whole class of cause, which gets you to an answer faster than changing settings at random.
1. Duplicate the theme first
Before you change anything, make a copy you can fall back to. In Online Store → Themes, open the … menu next to Wonpa, select Duplicate, and do your testing on the copy.
Do this even for a change that looks small. Deleting a section takes its blocks and their content with it, and edits made directly to theme code have no undo. A duplicate costs nothing and keeps the version you know worked.
2. Rule out apps on a clean copy
Apps add their own scripts and markup to your pages through app embeds and app blocks, and a conflict there looks exactly like a theme bug. On a fresh duplicate, open the theme editor, select App embeds in the sidebar, and turn each embed off. Remove any app blocks you've placed in sections as well, then preview the page again.
If the problem is gone, an app was causing it — turn the embeds back on one at a time until it returns. If the problem is still there on a copy with every app switched off, it belongs to the theme or to your store data. See A third-party app looks broken on my theme.
3. Decide whether it's data or rendering
Two different things can be wrong: the record Shopify holds, or the way the theme presents it. A price, a stock count, a filter, or a discount that reads wrong in your Shopify admin will read wrong on any theme, and no theme setting will fix it.
The quickest test is to compare the storefront against the same value in your admin, and against checkout. Is it Shopify or the theme? walks the common cases and says which side owns each one.
Symptoms
Start from what you're actually seeing. Each row names the usual cause and links to the page that covers it.
| What you're seeing | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| Prices read "Sign in to see pricing" and there's no add-to-cart button | Login-gated pricing is on. Why are my prices hidden? |
| A product shows the ordinary variant picker instead of the size grid | The product doesn't have exactly two options. Why isn't the size grid showing on my product? |
| A collection page has a sort menu but no filters | No filters are defined in Search & Discovery, or filtering is off on the section. Why aren't my filters showing up? |
| A header menu opens as one narrow dropdown instead of columns | The menu is only two levels deep. Why isn't my mega menu appearing? |
| No free freight bar in the cart | The threshold is 0, or the cart is empty. Why is the free shipping bar missing? |
| A hero video sits on its first frame | The slide has no video set, or the device is blocking autoplay. Why isn't my hero video autoplaying? |
| Photos are cut off in a collection grid, or look soft on a large screen | Card cropping, or a source file that's too small. Why are my product images cropped or blurry? |
| A color change had no effect on the section you were looking at | That section is on a color scheme, which overrides the global swatch. I changed a color but nothing changed |
| A discount code is refused in the cart | The code's own conditions aren't met, or it's a gift card number. My discount code won't apply |
| A buyer says the gift card email never arrived | Shopify sends that email, and it can be filtered or scheduled. My gift card email didn't arrive |
| An app's content is missing or sits in the wrong place | The app block is in a section that can't host it, or was never added. A third-party app looks broken on my theme |
| Your colors and section content are gone after installing a new version | A new version installs as a separate theme with stock settings. Will updating the theme erase my changes? |
Still stuck
Open a ticket. Support lists what to send — your store URL, a preview link, the exact page, a screenshot or short recording, the steps to reproduce, and what you expected instead. Including all of it in the first message saves a round trip.