When working with a WooCommerce site recently, I kept coming across orders that showed up as cancelled in the admin area with the message “Unpaid order cancelled – time limit reached.” After tracing the message back to it’s source via the code, here is what I figured out [as posted to WooThemes user forums].
There is an option in the control panel: WooCommerce > Settings > Inventory > Hold Stock (minutes). This setting determines how long WooCommerce will hold an item in the checkout/payment process before canceling the order and displaying the message “Unpaid order cancelled – time limit reached”
Here’s a screenshot of the admin setting: http://cl.ly/NeKF
You can increase this amount, but what this means to me is drop off in the checkout process. Or, possibly on the end with PayPal or another payment gateway. We had the issue with a Stripe process, but determined that it timed out on the WooCommerce end before sending the request to Stripe.
Just wanted to post that up in case other’s have this problem. I originally didn’t find the solution via Google.
Educator Zac Gordon 
I am having the same problem. Did that solve the issue for you? I will try your solution and see how it works. Thanks!
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It did 🙂
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Hi Mike, yes it did. For me at least.
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Having a similar problem but I’m not clear what you did. Did you disable (leave blank) the Hold Stock setting?
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I just started getting orders and had this issue too! So, I just left it blank which means it’s disabled, correct? I am hoping not to get that error again.
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Yes, I think that should work
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Hello guys.
I’ve been trying to find solution for the ‘HOLD STOCK’ problem. Mine is not working. Order is still marked as ‘on-hold’ after the time limit’s passed. Could anyone please assist me in solving this. Thanks a lot
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Just got my first order and it appears to have been timed out. Just deleted the field so hopefully it is disabled now. Thanks!
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i have this problem , how can i do to solve it
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Hey folks! Sorry, but I don’t have too many trouble shooting ideas besides what other people have posted here and on the discussion thread mentioned
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Hi Zac,
Thanks for posting this information – your post came up first on Google when I was searching and it was most helpful 🙂
Jonny
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Hi Zac,
I am having a problem with not enough time being allowed for customers to fill in there details before purchase, did you come across this or know of any solutions
Thanks
Brian
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Client was having this issue as well. Thank you for the quick solution!
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Hello,
Thanks, i was looking for the amount of minutes when woocommerce will cancel the order.
So i found it now, thanks!
Regards,
Dennis Eikelboom
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Thank you, I’ve found this very helpful and couldn’t work out why I was getting this error message.
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Hi Zac,
thanks for this tip – saved us a lot of troublesearching…
Daniel
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i want cancle an placed order from the front-end, is that possible
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Thank you for taking the time to post this. I too have left the field blank to see if this solves the problem. For an inexperienced wordpress user these postings really help 🙂
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Hey there,
I’ve got this issue on a site I have been working on (order being cancelled because they are ‘timing out’). In the latest version of WooCommerce there is no ‘Inventory’ tab under Settings…
Any ideas on how to solve this issue in the new WooCommerce?
Thanks!
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Same thing here, there is no “Inventory” tab in my woocommerce settings, any idea where I can look?
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You may have to turn on inventory in your main settings to see it.
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INventory is now located under the General Settings in WooCommerce, as one of the tabs in that page.
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Thanks, this was handy for me as I’m using Woocommerce for back end orders as well as client-created. Regards
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Woocommerce –> Settings –> Products (there are two sub choices under products) Inventory and Product Options. They just hid the inventory a little deeper. Still has the on hold box with minutes in it.
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You´re the man! Cheers mate. Searched exactly for this problem.
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Exactly what i was looking for, thanks man!
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This happened to us at https://blendbee.com from PayPal subscriptions that had a trial (since they bill out on the 1st of the month). It was super confusing. THANKS SO MUCH FOR SOLVING IT!
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thank you
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Hai, I’m looking for a plugin to do the following task. I’m running a restaurant website in WooCommerce and I need to stop the users to order food between 10 PM to 10 AM
Is it possible?
Thank You
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Not sure if there is a plugin, but you could write some conditional code to hide your button and display a message during that time.
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Thanks for posting this, it helped me out after quite a bit of troubleshooting.
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This helped me, but wanted to let you know in later versions of WooCommerce the “Hold Stock” setting is now under the “Products” tab, “Inventory” subtab (WooCommerce 2.4.10)
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I keep receiving cancelled order email notifications without ever receiving a new order notification first. When I check the order in the backend, it returns an order note that the unpaid order was cancelled and timed out. It looks like payments never made it to PayPal, so must be on WooCommerce side.
So far I’ve receiving two order cancellation notices from different customers. However, I’m still confused because I was able to successfully place a test order with no problems.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
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I keep receiving cancelled order email notifications without ever receiving a new order notification first. When I check the order in the backend, it returns an order note that the unpaid order was cancelled and timed out. It looks like payments never made it to PayPal, so must be on WooCommerce side.
So far I’ve receiving two order cancellation notices from different customers. However, I’m still confused because I was able to successfully place a test order with no problems.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
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Just make sure to leave the “Enable stock management” box unchecked, under WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Inventory. That should solve the issue. I had the exact same issue, and ready somewhere (WooCommerce help page) that doing that should fix the problem. Hope it helps!
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You lose inventory counts when you uncheck “Enable stock management”. If you have a large shop you may oversell,
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Hi there. can woocommerce do auto cancel order after 2 hour booking without paying?
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Not out of the box
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For orders that have already been cancelled from timing out, can you re-initiate the order by changing the status back to Processing or Payment Pending?
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Not sure if that works
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