Troubleshooting

The first sync never finishes

Almost always WP-Cron. Managed hosts frequently disable it in favour of a real system cron, and if that cron is not configured the sync queue never runs.

Check:

wp cron event list --fields=hook,next_run_relative | grep simplifystock

If the events are listed but overdue, WP-Cron is not firing. Either fix the system cron or run the sync directly:

wp simplifystock sync --full

Every product shows a dash in the Cover column

The forecast has not run, or has no data to run on. In order of likelihood:

1. The sync has not completed. Check the timestamp in the header.
2. Stock management is off. SimplifyStock only forecasts products with WooCommerce’s Manage stock enabled. Bulk-enable it from the products list.
3. Order statuses are non-standard. Demand is read from completed and processing. If your workflow marks fulfilled orders with a custom status, add it under Settings → Advanced → Counted order statuses.

The forecast is far higher than reality

Something in the history is not real demand. The usual suspects:

• A migration backfilled orders, often all dated the same day. Exclude that date range on the product detail view.
• A wholesale or bulk order counted as retail demand. Exclude the order.
• Test orders that were never deleted.

After excluding, re-forecast:

wp simplifystock forecast --product=1234

The forecast is far lower than reality

Usually the opposite problem: demand that happened but is not in the history.

• Sales through another channel — a marketplace, a physical till, a phone order that never became a WooCommerce order. SimplifyStock only sees what WooCommerce recorded.
• Stockouts. A product that was unavailable for three weeks shows zero demand for three weeks, and the model reads that as genuinely low demand. Record the stockout period so it is excluded rather than averaged in — this is the single most common cause of a persistently under-forecast product.

Reorder quantities look far too large

Check lead time first; it multiplies straight through. A lead time entered in weeks where the field expects days will inflate every quantity sevenfold.

Then check service level. 99% across an entire catalogue inflates safety stock everywhere. See Configuration.

Variations are not forecast separately

Variable products forecast per variation, but only when stock is managed at the variation level. If Manage stock is enabled on the parent instead, there is one stock figure and therefore one forecast.

Move stock management down to the variation level to get per-variation forecasts.

Performance: the admin screen is slow

On catalogues over about 20,000 variations, the default page size of 100 is too large for some hosts. Reduce it:

wp simplifystock config set admin_page_size 25

If the nightly full re-forecast is what is slow, move it to a quieter hour and shorten the history window from 12 months to 6 — you lose annual seasonality, which many catalogues do not have anyway.

Still stuck

Collect a diagnostic bundle and send it with your support request. It contains configuration, sync timings and error logs — no order data or customer records:

wp simplifystock diagnostics > simplifystock-diagnostics.txt