8 days ago all category pages of our site suddenly stopped displaying products EXCEPT for our ModMic category page (https://antlionaudio.com/collections/microphones).
I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out what had gone wrong. All products were correctly being displayed in the shopify backend, everything was set to active/online, etc. I dug around the code and double checked that the category page code for the ModMic category page was the same code as the one for the not-functioning pages like https://antlionaudio.com/collections/kimura.
Meanwhile the accessory pages were running on the default category template and displayed the standard “Sorry, there are no products in this collection” error. (there are, again to be clear, plenty of them).
So, in my “Let’s try other things” methodology, I opened up Metafields2 app and re-synced the category page. Then I updated some fields. And everything came back.
Today the problem returned. I limited what I was doing to help understand which item brought it all back this time to either updating a metafield via the metafield2 app or re-syncing the category page.
There’s no particular reason I can think of that either action should cause data to be refreshed/updated in a way that would cause the category pages to not display their products. We do use liquid’s syntax to pull product data on those pages (E.g. {% for product in collection.products %}) but some pages don’t use any meta data (and some do).
I’m at a loss as to what is going on here OR why adjusting meta data would fix the issue. Even stranger is that it affects every category page on our site EXCEPT for one. Anyone with ideas, suggestions, or ways to potentially capture a hint of the gremlin in the works is appreciated.
Edit:
Oh and as far as site updates around the time of the first error there are very few.
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We added an app for out of stock reminders. I have turned that app off today.
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We added zendesk’s app.
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I made a very slight adjustment to the responsive design CSS for displaying the zendesk chatbot in a way that wouldn’t overlap with another element.
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I added a discord logo via an to a bottom element of the site via the Customize Theme (it’s technically our header).
Neither app providers thinks they are at fault here, and I have currently left Zendesk on in part as a test and in part because I really don’t want to bring down part of our product support over a web issue.
It seems like you’re experiencing an issue with your category pages in Shopify, where the products are not being displayed except for the ModMic category page. Troubleshooting this issue can involve several steps:
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Review recent changes: It’s good that you have already reviewed the recent updates made to your site. While the apps you installed may not directly cause the issue, it’s worth considering their potential impact. Try disabling the recently installed apps temporarily to see if the issue persists.
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Check liquid code and metafields: Since you mentioned using liquid code to pull product data on the category pages, ensure that the liquid code is correct and properly fetching the products. Double-check the code against a working category page like the ModMic page to ensure consistency.
Additionally, review any metafields associated with the products and categories. Verify that the metafields are correctly set and not causing any conflicts or issues. Ensure that any metafield-related code is functioning as expected.
Re:
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Yeah we’ll do some elimination dieting to see about apps, but I have my doubts either app is behind the cause.
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The liquid code has been in place and working for years and no changes have been made to the code. The most recent “change” was the addition of a new category page in January, so ~5 months of no issues.
However, I do not know how we can check if any conflicts / errors are occurring in the metafield data. Is there a way to get a log file of such things?
Hey AntlionJoe,
Did you ever solve this issue? I’m curious if there was a resolution!
By the way, JSYK - the discord invite link is invalid. Not sure if you’re aware of that.
Didn’t know you guys were a Portland brand - Vancouver, WA native - cool to see (and the pages seem to be working now - curious what the culprit was)
Hey thanks for the followup.
Re: Discord link, which one? The ones I tested all seem to be working, so I appear to be overlooking one.
As for the problem; it has not returned since I removed a out of stock alert app. After speaking with a variety of support people there are two possibilities:
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The app was somehow causing this error.
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The error was on Shopify’s backend and was patched/fixed.
As far as I know the only way to test it would be turn the app back on and see if the problem returns, however, given the timing is unpredictable it would likely cause multiple hours of site downtime, which would be a pretty expensive test. So for now we’re leaving it off, but I am not quite ready to call it their fault and start pointing fingers.
Regardless of who I spoke to, the consensus was what I did to fix the site (change metafield data) should not have achieved anything, but it certainly did. So, a great mystery will likely remain unsolved. Unless the problem comes back. Fingers crossed that it does not!
Edit: Pacific NW crew represent! 
Hey Joe,
What a curious case - but glad to hear that it was resolved (even if the root cause won’t be known).
I should have taken a screenshot - regarding discord on my work device I kept getting invalid invite errors, but trying on my home PC, it works fine. Sorry for the alarm, I’ll try again on my work device and if it still has errors at least we’ll know it wasn’t your side but mine.