---
title: Troubleshooting
description: Solutions to common PointBay configuration and display issues.
---

Solutions to the issues store owners run into most often, grouped by area. If your issue isn't listed here, check the [FAQ](/pointbay/resources/faq/) or contact support.

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## Earning Points

### Points aren't being awarded on purchases

1. **Check the order status.** Points are only awarded when an order reaches your **Order Status Trigger** (Completed by default). Orders still in Processing or Pending won't earn points until they reach that status.
2. **Confirm the customer is registered.** Guests can't earn points  check that the order was placed by a logged-in customer.
3. **Check for a duplicate.** Look in [Points History](/pointbay/admin/points-history/). If points were already awarded for that order, PointBay won't award them a second time.

### A review didn't earn its bonus

1. **Confirm the review was approved.** Pending reviews don't count.
2. **Confirm it's the customer's first review of that product.** Only one review per product, per customer, earns points  repeat reviews of the same product don't.
3. **Confirm the reviewer was logged in.** Guest reviews never qualify.

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## Redeeming Points

### The redeem panel doesn't appear at checkout

1. **The customer must be logged in.** Guests can't redeem points.
2. **Check the balance against the minimum.** The customer's balance must be at or above your **Minimum Points to Redeem** setting (default `100`).
3. **Check your theme.** A heavily customized checkout can hide the panel. Try switching to the WooCommerce Block checkout, which PointBay integrates with directly.

### Tax totals are wrong when points are redeemed

Some automated tax services (such as TaxJar or Avalara) don't account for a discount applied as a cart fee.

- **Fix:** Change **Redemption Mode** from **Cart Fee** to **Virtual Coupon** in the Redemption Rules settings. In Virtual Coupon mode the discount is handled as a standard WooCommerce coupon, which tax services support natively.

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## VIP Tiers (Pro)

### A customer's tier isn't updating

1. **Confirm Enable VIP Tiers is actually on.** It's easy to leave this off after testing.
2. **Remember tiers are based on a rolling 365-day window,** not lifetime points  a customer's tier can legitimately drop if their qualifying points have aged out, even without any error.
3. **Wait for the daily recalculation.** Promotions on crossing a threshold are immediate, but demotions from aged-out points are only caught by the once-daily automatic check.

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## Referral Program

### A referral didn't pay out

1. **Confirm the friend placed an order, not just visited.** A click alone never triggers a reward.
2. **Confirm it was that friend's first order.** Only a first order qualifies  later orders from the same referred customer don't trigger anything.
3. **Check the 30-day tracking window.** If the friend visited the link long before finally purchasing, the referral may have expired before they checked out.

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## Admin Screens

### The settings or Points History screen is blank

1. **Look for browser errors.** Right-click the page, choose **Inspect**, and open the **Console** tab to see if anything failed to load.
2. **Check your security plugin.** PointBay's admin screens load their data through the WordPress REST API. Security plugins and firewalls (such as Wordfence) sometimes block those requests  check whether one is interfering.
3. **Check for a conflict.** Temporarily switching to a default theme, or disabling other plugins one at a time, can help pinpoint a conflict.

### Getting diagnostic info for support

If support needs more detail on a hard-to-reproduce issue, turn on **Debug Logging** under **Display & System** in Settings. This writes PointBay's own diagnostic messages into WooCommerce's logging system  check **WooCommerce → Status → Logs** and look for entries filed under the `pointbay` source. Turn it back off once you're done; it's not meant to stay on during normal use.

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## Still Stuck?

If you hit an error you can't explain, contact support with a description of what you were doing and any message you saw. Turning on **Debug Logging** (see above) before reproducing the issue gives support a log they can work from.