Cart attributes suddenly stopped being passed through to orders

Retired Boards Appdev Store Design

Topic summary

Cart attributes (custom key–value fields added to the cart form to pass data into the order) stopped being saved to orders without any theme code changes. Hidden inputs show correct values on the cart page, but they disappear by checkout.

Findings/investigation:

  • Only the live theme “slot” is affected. Previewed themes (including a duplicate of live) pass attributes; once published live, attributes fail.
  • Network traces show cart form submits attributes in both cases. On first checkout interaction, a GraphQL call to /checkouts/unstable/graphql includes attributes for preview, but the array is empty for live. Screenshots were shared to illustrate this.

Wider impact:

  • Multiple stores report the issue intensifying around July 20, 2023, with many orders missing attributes despite no recent code changes.

Workaround reported by one store:

  • Disabling a quantity input field that was posting note/date on every update restored 100% attribute pass-through; quantity changes still work via +/- controls.
  • A Shopify Ajax API cart-token format change was noted around the same time, though its relevance is uncertain.

Status:

  • No confirmed Shopify-side explanation. One workaround helps some themes; root cause remains unresolved/ongoing.
Summarized with AI on December 29. AI used: gpt-5.
7

We are pretty certain we resolved this based on feedback from another Shopify user. This is the information they sent me that resolved the problem for them, and we have our developer implement it. We are at a week, with 100% of our cart attributes feeding though again!

“there was a form field for the qty update that was causing an issue. It was always posting the note/date to the cart form, and I could see that, but it wasn’t being saved by Shopify.

When I disable the input field on qty it doesn’t get passed in the form, and then it seems to me like it’s now saving.

The user can still add/remove items with the + and -.”

Also, we found this infromation about a Shopify Ajax API change around the date all of us started having issues:
https://shopify.dev/changelog/changes-to-ajax-api-cart-token-format

Good luck!