thread Re: These look like Variations but aren't? in Payments Troubleshooting

These look like Variations but aren't?

jaydisc — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 08:58:29 GMT

I use WooCommerce’s Square plugin to synchronise my items from my WooCommerce website. Recently, many of my items started looking like this in the Library:

I can’t see any difference between the parent and child items. They LOOK like Variations, but when I click on the parent item, it shows no Variations.

Why are some of my Items displaying like this and can I change/fix it?

Re: These look like Variations but aren't?

Seamus — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:24:17 GMT

Hey @jaydisc,

Thanks for reaching out and sorry to hear about the inventory issues you're seeing here.

WooCommerce build and support the integration between Square and their platform, so unfortunately there's not much we can do to help troubleshoot this issue. Square allows for them to pull the data and information from your Square account, and they build the infrastructure to make everything sync.

I recommend filing a support ticket with WooCommerce. If you're not able to get anywhere with them, we can escalate via internal channels if you have a WooCommerce support ticket number!

Re: These look like Variations but aren't?

jaydisc — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 06:57:05 GMT

They tell me I need to ask you for details:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/trying-to-understand-attributes-and-variations/#post-12115192

The product you sync has three attributes. I am note sure how exactly then handles the incoming data but it looks like it simply creates additional products and attaches them to the original product. You will need to ask Square support for details.

Do 3rd party products have the ability to enter products in ways that can no longer be edited/modified inside Square? I've actually deleted the Woo plugin - look at the reviews to see how much it has wrecked everyone's sites.

I just want to fix my products in Square now. I really just want someone at Square to explain what I'm looking at. Is it a Variant? Why doesn't it show as a Variant when I click the parent? If it wasn't a product that had sales history, I just deleted and recreated it, but I've got 7-8 products left that I can't delete, because I don't want to lose their sales history.

Re: These look like Variations but aren't?

Seamus — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 23:36:28 GMT

Hey @jaydisc,

The screenshot you've posted here does indicate that the item has been replicated as a variation nested under the original item listing.

If this is then not appearing as a variant under the original listing when you click on it, and is not able to be deleted on the Square end, it would suggest to me that a bug in the integration has resulted in the issue you're seeing. 3rd party integrations in theory should not be able to enter products that can't be deleted or modified on the Square end, but in practice bugs can and do occur.

If you've deleted the integration and are looking to clean things up on the Square back end, note that deleting an item will not delete the transaction from your sales history, nor will it delete the name of the item on the transaction in your sales history. Are you seeing any other flow on issues as a result of this bug?

Re: These look like Variations but aren't?

jaydisc — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 11:21:18 GMT

OK, that's good to know that deleting won't affect things. If Woo can't help me further, I'll do that. Thank you for coming to the table.

Re: These look like Variations but aren't?

Seamus — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 23:22:16 GMT

No worries @jaydisc, let me know if you have any more questions or anything further to add!