Issues with syncing – unpredictable

  • Edit: Updated from 1 star to 3 stars: please see comment below the review.

    I am really disappointed in this plugin and in Printful. I installed it more than a year ago and it was working seamlessly back then. I didn’t look at it for a while because my business was on hiatus, but this past week I had to hit ‘refresh data’ and it simply won’t sync. Everything is up to date and I’ve disabled all other plugins, but still get the same error. It tells me that the server maximum execution time needs to be increased, and support tells me to check with my web host and that there’s nothing they can do. My web host sees absolutely zero issues on their end, and no errors in the logs, or time outs. And the server execution time is already at its maximum limit. Basically I just went back and forth between support with no solution.

    I spent an entire day trying to fix it and actually got to the point where I completely deleted my WooCommerce store and reinstalled it, just to start fresh and make sure no plugins or anything could possibly be interfering with it. Still the same syncing issue. I’m now at a loss, but don’t think I will be using Printful in future, unless it’s to make manual orders, but that defeats the purpose of having an automated service.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 21 total)

  • Hi there!

    Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We’re sorry to hear that it hasn’t been the best one.
    Woocommerce is not the easiest platform to set up as it requires some developer skills, however, once everything is set, it should be running smoothly.
    Our developer team has gone through all errors that show up and in most cases confirmed that on our side help is limited. Woocommerce offers many customization options which cause these errors. On Printful the flow is easy – click ‘Add product’ and we push the product to the storefront, however, if there are settings that don’t match, conflicting plugins, or issues with Cloudfare, the server stops the push and shows an error.
    Each such case is unique, so we encourage users to check in with Woocommerce support and your hosting to double-check what could be causing the issue. Sometimes it is as easy as copying the API again or comparing the store links.
    Please know that we forward these reviews to our team to look into in case there is something we can do from our side. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

    Thread Starter thesissynthesis

    (@thesissynthesis)

    Thanks for your reply. I understand all of that, but your support has basically told me all of the same things, I’ve tried everything you’ve written here, and I went to my webhost(Siteground) support 3 times and they couldn’t find any errors or problems on their end. I also reinstalled WooCommerce completely fresh, with no other plugins and still got the same issue. Unless Siteground is not revealing that the issue is on their end, there’s not much else I can do at this stage. I will probably keep trying to sync the store because I really like your product selection and it was working so seamlessly before so I’m hoping it’s a temporary issue, but the experience has been very stressful recently. I will update this review if things improve.

    I’ve run into this identical problem, and am stuck between PF ‘support’ denying it’s on their end and confirmation from Bluehost that the issue is not sever based and is a conflict inside PF.

    Half the PF products I upload work/sync perfectly & half repeatedly fail.

    It just makes Printful seem unreliable.

    Thread Starter thesissynthesis

    (@thesissynthesis)

    Thanks for commenting on your experience tropicalproject. I have an update however. I waited about a week and re-installed the plugin to a fresh WordPress/WooCommerce install (luckily my shop is still in development and not actually live yet – but this wouldn’t be easy for those whose shops are!). Everything seems to be syncing fine since doing this. I really do not know if using a fresh WordPress installation is what fixed it because it still didn’t sync the very first time straight after the fresh install (just before I made this review and before waiting for a week). So maybe there was just some problem on the server end of things that needed time to fix itself, that either SiteGround or Printful just weren’t revealing/detecting, but it does seem to work now without issues, and still syncing now a few weeks later.

    I am still hesitant to make my shop live yet as I want to make sure it will continue syncing fine – so I am experimenting with products and giving it some time to ensure there won’t be the same issues in future. I’m going to edit my review now to 3 stars because I think that is fair.

    Product was not added!

    Failed! The request couldn’t process fast enough, please increase the maximum execution time on your server. If that doesn’t help, check your server error logs.

    my problem has existed for months now and printful support just points me to my host. too many people are having this problem with different themes and multiple attempts based upon printful support and ALL have failed. this is truly ridiculous for so many people to have basically the same problem and printful points us to our host. i have done ALL they recommend and still having that problem. i was not having that problem before.

    I have also had the same problem. Sent back and forth between Printful and my hosting provider support with no resolution.

    Same problem too since the beginning.
    I couldn’t do nothing all day because of it. No matter how many time I’ve refresh data, always the same message:

    Hey! Something went wrong with sync.
    Last sync error: Failed! The request couldn’t process fast enough, please increase the maximum execution time on your server. If that doesn’t help, check your server error logs.. Try to refresh data. If error persists, contact customer support.

    With more than 1,000 products each refresh data takes about 1 hour.
    So I’ve wasted my entire day.
    Sick and tired of it!

    Same problem here. Dec ’22 and Now Jan 1st. I’m using Bluehost as hosting with printful. Both Bluehost and printful are pointing the finger at each other and neither will ask for any supporting log info to investigate. I’ve also included dozens of complaints from several sources all experiencing the same issue and yet, printful will not do any deep dive. My error.log files are empty from the host. There’s some issue with printful’s plugin and it’s ability to communicate with it’s webhook. There are no firewalls blocking printful from accessing my host. My SSL cert is intact. To think of moving my site to another host and just have the same issue, really frustrates me.

    -James

    I’m getting the same error and have worked with my host and Printful.
    They each say it is the other.
    I’m on Hostmonster, which I think might be the same as Bluehost.

    Product was not added!

    Failed! The request couldn’t process fast enough, please increase the maximum execution time on your server. If that doesn’t help, check your server error logs.

    That’s all we know. If you need some help, please contact our support, provide the error code below, and we’ll see what we can do.
    CODE: G453911284

    I think I just figured it out. I found a page that suggested to add php_value max_execution_time 300 to the htaccess file. It worked for me on a few uploads so far. They say you can double it to 600 if that doesn’t work.

    I found the info here:
    https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-fatal-error-maximum-execution-time-exceeded-in-wordpress/

    Hope this helps some people.
    Plus maybe there is a better fix someone will find now that this seems to work.

    I’m getting the same failed time out error.. for months now.. and it does seem that some products sync fine and others dont.

    I’ve opened another shop on another site on the same hosted server but now I’m getting a client denied error. So when I figure that out I’ll see if the time out issue errors on that site.

    I’m convinced though that printful knows all about this issue.. since it seems so many people are having this issue, there is no way it can just be everyone’s server, it has to be them.. they are just buying time blaming it on us until “March 30th, 2023, all existing API keys will stop working” and I’m sure there will be a new plugin version around that time.

    • This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by irealm42.

    Well.. I think I spoke (posted) too soon.. put my foot in my mouth.. when I’m wrong I can admit it.. I just happened to see an error_log file in my ftp and it had errors that my cpanel errors didn’t.. not sure if this is just a WP log or not, but I saw errors for imagemagick exec time out which now makes sense. If you have more than a few images being created at different sizes it will take longer to submit.

    I searched for image resize in the plugins and came across the ImageMagick Engine plugin which says it does a better and faster job than the normal WP version. So I installed, and it does. Without changing any other settings, the exec time out and client denied errors were gone and the products have submitted successfully, on 2 different stores.

    Please someone else confirm this and pass it along. Printful admin please pass this along to your chat/support team so they’ll know that this may be a fix.

    NOTE: When you install the imagemagick engine, be sure to check the enable engine box and move the radio buttons all off the default WP options and onto the imagemagick ones.

    I was also getting this error. @irealm42 – your fix worked for me. Adding the ImageMagick Engine plugin to my WordPress WooCommerce installation (on web host Hostinger) resolved this issue of syncing between Printful and WooCommerce.

    I’ve been experiencing the same issues for over a year. I’m way more confident in my provider [Hostgator] than I am Printful. They seem to know nothing about the plugin and can only read from a CYA playbook of canned repsonses. I’m a programmer by profession and it gets frustrating when you know they are trying to BS you with canned responses.

    Now, in Sept 2023, after spending close to 300 hours troubleshooting WP & Woo & hundreds of failed Printful product upload attempts I’ve been forced to totally disregard ANYTHING Printful tells me, and basically abandon all my long standing enthusiasm for & work connecting to this company being a legitimate supplier. In the end all they ever offered as ‘Support’ was to eventually admit (months later) that their Plug-In was incompatible with the last four version upgrades of both Woo & WordPress, and if I wanted to use their service that I needed to reinstall & run all the older versions of Woo & WP!

    I got the same canned repeated responses from all of the endless of ‘Support Reps’ – but never a reply from the same person – and all of them excuses & fake apologies. I’ve just given up on my dream (and sent all my orders to Printify)

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 21 total)
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