Square Online – Unable to Save Category Changes, and Advanced Support Says I Have Too Many Products?

[JadeSoap]

Square Online – Unable to Save Category Changes, and Advanced Support Says I Have Too Many Products?

I am extremely frustrated with Square Online and the lack of a reasonable solution from its support team.

I have been using Square Online to manage my retail website for years. Rearranging products within categories using Custom Order is something I do regularly, and it has always worked without any issues.

However, starting last week, whenever I tried to rearrange products in my Gifts & Bundles category, I received a red error message:

"Something went wrong, please try again."

I tried making changes to other categories, and the same error appeared.

Now I cannot properly manage my website categories. I cannot add, remove, or rearrange products because none of the changes can be saved.

I contacted Square Customer Support through both chat and email. After spending hours trying to resolve this issue, I still have no solution.

And then I received this response from Square's Advanced Support Team:

"Our Advanced Support Team confirmed that the error you are experiencing when trying to save or add items is due to having over 120 items assigned to your website. They noted that you currently have 157 items assigned, and they advise trimming this down to 120 so that you can save and rearrange your items."

Seriously? Square Online can only handle 120 products?

I have never been informed of such a limitation, and I cannot find any official documentation stating that Square Online websites are limited to 120 products.

Nevertheless, I followed their recommendation.

I deleted 49 out-of-stock products, bringing my catalog down to approximately 107 products.

And guess what?

THE EXACT SAME ERROR IS STILL THERE.

I still cannot save changes to my website categories.

This raises some serious questions:

1. Is there actually a 120-product limit on Square Online? If so, where is it officially documented?

2. Why did Advanced Support identify the number of products as the cause when reducing my catalog below 120 did not resolve the issue?

3. Is this a known bug affecting Square Online's category management or Custom Order feature?

4. Can someone from Square's engineering team investigate the actual problem instead of asking merchants to delete their products?

I run a small retail business, and I rely on my website to manage product availability, categories, and seasonal promotions. I cannot afford to spend hours troubleshooting a basic feature that previously worked perfectly.

I am paying for a service that is no longer functioning as expected, and the proposed solution has not worked.

I would appreciate a response from someone at Square who can provide a real technical explanation and an actual fix.

Please see the screenshots below for your reference.

Has anyone else experienced this issue recently?

— Jenny
Jade Soap Shop www.jadesoapshop.com

[SecondHomeSites]

Hi Jenny, that is maddening, especially after deleting 49 products for nothing. A few things that usually narrow this down fast:

1. Check whether it is one item, not the count. Make a new test category with 2 or 3 items and try Custom Order there. If that saves, the problem is probably one item in Gifts & Bundles (a bundle whose component item was deleted or archived, an item with a removed variation, or one tied to a location you no longer use are common suspects). Remove half the items from that category, try to save, and keep halving until it works. That points to the item causing it.

2. Try once in a private window with browser extensions off. If it still fails, open your browser's developer tools (Network tab), reproduce the error, and save the failed request or a HAR file. Sending that with your case number gets it to engineering much faster than screenshots.

3. When you reply to Advanced Support, say clearly that you are now at about 107 items and the exact same error appears, so the 120-item explanation does not fit, and ask them to log it as a bug.

4. While it is open, export your item library from the Square Dashboard (Item library > Actions > Export) so you have a backup of names, prices, and descriptions.

Hope one of these gets you unstuck.

[lennys26]

I have been noticing these errors more and more recently for no real reason. In my cases the errors have been nonsense, and just stopping, reloading the page and restarting whatever I am trying to do gets it working again. 

The 120 item limit is ridiculous, and unless I am misunderstanding what you wrote, if the support agent said that you cant have more items, it just goes to highlight why I avoid contacting them at all cost.  

[AdornCapeCod]

This past week I have been having the same issue.  My online catalog is over 1,000 items. I am making some gift guides for the holidays and when I want to change the category name or add more products to an existing guide and it just gives me the same error message when I click save. I have tried on different browsers, different computers, and in incognito mode and nothing helps.  It is extremely frustrating.  This issue only just started happening in the last week or so. 

 

[JadeSoap]

I am sorry for you but glad to know that I wasn't crazy.

[AdornCapeCod]

I messaged square help and they said they would escalate the issue and created a support ticket. I really hope this bug gets fixed asap.  

[JadeSoap]

Good luck, it's been a week and nobody replied my email at all after I asked them those questions I posted here.

[lennys26]

@AdornCapeCod Not to go all doom and gloom on you but.... There is no escalation and Support will likely never respond. If you have a support case number, it is meaningless. It looks like you have been with Square for several years now, you should already know this 🤣

@JadeSoap Just try what you are doing again, and/or restart the browser. If what you are doing is a multi-step change or multi-field change, try doing each individual change one at a time, saving after each. That is how I get around this many times.

[AdornCapeCod]

I just somehow figured out my issue.....the categories that I was having problems changing their names, adding products and updating category photos were listed under a parent category.  I hadn't given that parent category a photo and once I did I was able to update everything inside the category....seems like a weird glitch.     

 @lennys26 I have been using square for over a decade and have seen the customer support decline over the years.