Introduction

Social Commerce uses “URL Translation” to append a special suffix at the end of your URLs to allow the Social Commerce theme to load in the Facebook iframe instead of your main site. This translation happens at the end of your page content loading to ensure all urls get the suffix.

The WooCommerce cart widget uses Ajax, a type of scripting, to update automatically when a product is added without refreshing the entire page. Because of this, the new View Cart url in the widget cannot get the suffix it needs and does not open the right view OR the button isn’t clickable at all because Facebook thinks there is something wrong.

 

The Solution

Step 1: Update Social Commerce to Verify SSL

  1. Make sure you are on the latest version of Social Commerce
  2. Go to Social Commerce in your WordPress admin menu and ensure no SSL errors appear in Step 2.

Step 2: Check the Widget

Is the widget part of a 3rd Party plugin, or is it a stock WooCommerce or WordPress widget?

Any widgets that use Ajax, a feature that loads content without a new page load, probably won’t work in Facebook. This is because a special suffix must be added to all of your URLs which can only be done when they are fully loaded. The following widgets are known to have issues:

  • WooCommerce Price Filter
  • Ajax Layered Nav
  • Ajax Filtered Nav
  • Quick View
  • YITH Ajax plugins

Step 3: Check WooComerce settings

  1. Go to WooCommerce → Settings
  2. Click the Products tab,
  3. Click Display, then uncheck “Enable AJAX add to cart buttons on archives”.

Further tips:

  1. Ensure a link to the Cart and Checkout page is available in your Social Commerce menu
  2. Treat the Facebook Page Tab like a Mobile app – additional page content and functionality should be minimal, easy to understand and free of animations etc.

Plugins or scripting from your main site may load on the Social Commerce site if the theme or plugins are not enqueuing these things properly. This includes copies of jQuery, any scripts not being used on the page, google fonts or widget scripting for widgets that aren’t being loaded which connect to a 3rd party site. These things can delay the completion of your page load, can cause SSL checks to fail, or other problems. To troubleshoot, switch to one of the default themes and reload your SC shop.