Why prices don't update

If you've noticed that product prices in your store differ from the target website, don’t worry—this is usually expected behavior. Real-time price updates are not possible when using web scraping methods. Some stores frequently change their prices, while External Importer syncs products on a set schedule.

If you suspect that prices are not updating as they should, follow these steps to identify and resolve the issue.

Start here: the Sync status page

Open External Importer → Sync status. It answers most of the questions below in one screen: whether updates are running at all, which stores are blocked or out of requests, which products are failing and why, and whether your update period can be met by your catalog at all.

If the page says Not running, use the Restart synchronization button on it, then continue with step 5 below.

See Sync status page for what each part means.

Troubleshooting Steps

1. Check the Last Synced Date

• Navigate to the product edit page.

• Locate the External Importer Sync widget in the right sidebar.

• Verify the Last synced date.

• If needed, manually trigger a synchronization by clicking Sync now.

2. Review Synchronization Settings

• Go to External Importer > Settings > Synchronization.

• Confirm that Price synchronization is enabled.

• Check your Update period settings to ensure they match your expectations.

3. Verify if the Source Domain is Throttled

If the source website is throttling requests, price updates may be delayed.

• Go to External Importer → Sync status and find the store in the Stores table.

• The State column shows whether it is Throttled (too many recent errors), has reached its Daily limit, or is Waiting for budget.

• Reset throttle on that row clears the store's recorded errors so it can be tried again immediately – but fix the underlying cause first, or it will simply be throttled again.

• The limits themselves are set in External Importer → Settings → Extractor.

• Visit External Importer → Logs to check for errors related to throttling.

4. Check for HTTP Errors and IP Blocking

• In the Product Synchronization widget, look for HTTP-related error messages.

• If your server IP is blocked (you will see errors like 503 or 403) by the source website:

  • Consider activating a scraping service to bypass restrictions.

  • Try extracting the product using External Importer > Import Tool to get more details about potential scraping issues.

5. Test Synchronization with Different Methods

If you are using Cron synchronization:

• Switch to Frontend synchronization and refresh the page.

• If the price updates successfully, Cron may not be working correctly.

To fix potential Cron issues:

• Go to External Importer → Sync status and use Restart synchronization. This re-registers the background task, and replaces re-saving your settings.

• Background updates are run by WooCommerce's scheduled task system. You can inspect them under WooCommerce → Status → Scheduled Actions, in the group external-importer.

• Ensure your website has regular traffic, as WordPress scheduled tasks rely on visitor activity.

• If your website has low traffic, set up a real Cron job on your server to ensure scheduled tasks run consistently. Contact your hosting provider for assistance.

• If DISABLE_WP_CRON is set in your wp-config.php and no server cron job is running, scheduled updates will never start.

Earlier versions used a WordPress cron event named ei_sync_products. From version 2.29.0 it no longer exists, and you will not find it in WP Crontrol.

6. Understand Synchronization Limits

Products are updated one at a time, so how many you can update per day depends on your hosting and on how quickly each source responds.

The Sync status page measures this for your site and shows it under Settings → Capacity, alongside the number of updates a day your current update period actually requires. If the required rate is higher than your capacity, the page tells you the shortest update period your catalog can keep up with.