Error Loading Products on Collection Pages – Need Help Troubleshooting

[melstore15]

Hello Shopify Community,

I’m currently facing an issue with my Shopify store where an error message appears on the collection pages after waiting for a few seconds. The message says: “Error loading products. Please try again.”

This issue occurs across all devices, including both mobile and desktop. Our development team has made several attempts to identify the cause of the problem, but unfortunately, they haven’t been able to resolve it yet.

Has anyone else experienced this issue on their Shopify store? Any suggestions or insights on what might be causing it or how to fix it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help!

[tim_tairli]

It’s absolutely impossible to suggest anything with this information.
Say, whether it’s a native theme collections or you’re using a filter and search app?

Are these collection pages rendered in Liquid or by Javascript code.
Have you added custom codes to product cards?
Any new apps, like Wishlist of Variant swatches?

All these would impact product grid rendering.

What about “featured collection” or “recommended products” sections?

Ideally, share a link to your store (preview link if it’s draft theme or password enabled).

[melstore15]

Hey Please find below answers to your queries:

1. Are these collection pages rendered in Liquid or by Javascript code.

• Yes, collection is rendered through liquid and custom Javascript code for filters. The custom JS code might built by previous theme developer as we’ve haven’t touch that file till the date.

2. Have you added custom code to product cards?

• Not quite sure, but we haven’t find any custom code for product card.

3. Any new apps, like Wishlist of Variant swatches?

• We use app for swatches and wishlist, but they were added long ago. We did not notice that issue earlier.

Let me share the collection page URL: https://therugdecor.com/collections/made-to-order-rugs

[tim_tairli]

I can’t see this problem when I visit your store.
Couple of observations though:

1. There is a code at the top of your layouts/theme.liquid which seems to be related to squaredance(https://www.squaredance.io/ – something about affiliate marketing?) and it’s trying to reach https://www.maxepv.com/ which does not seem to answer (anymore?)
   If this is not something you’re aware about, then it’s probably better to remove this code.

2. Your collection pages are done in such a way that the custom JS code tries to fetch data for all products in this collection (which can be several thousands) and it takes time during which it shows “Loading products…”. When entire collection data is loaded, it is filtered and sorted as needed and only then product grid is shown to the visitor.
   
   So this problem is specific to your site.
   
   Filtering and paginating is fast though because all data is already loaded.
   
   But if something goes wrong during this product data load your visitors will see the “Error loading products. Please try again.” message.
   Refreshing the page supposed to help in this case.
   
   Again, I am unable to reproduce the problem, but I guess Shopify may throttle these multiple requests.
   If you can reproduce, check what are the results of network request like these:
   

   

If this is the reason, there should be an error message in Console like “Fetch failed: error message” – check this as well.

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[jennifeergordonn]

This is most likely caused by the custom JavaScript fetching too many products at once and failing intermittently.

Solution:

1. Stop loading the entire collection via one JS request

   • Replace the custom fetch logic with:

     • Shopify pagination (paginate in Liquid), or

     • incremental loading (limit + page/offset)

   • Do not request thousands of products in a single call.

2. Add proper error handling + fallback

   • In the JS fetch:

     • handle failed responses (catch + retry once)

     • show partial results instead of breaking the whole grid

3. Check Network tab for failing requests

   • Look for:

     • 429 (throttling)

     • failed /products.json or custom endpoints

   • If present → reduce request size and frequency

4. Remove or disable unnecessary external script

   • Delete the maxepv.com / Squaredance script from theme.liquid if not required

   • It can delay or interfere with page execution

5. Test without apps temporarily

   • Disable swatch/wishlist apps one by one

   • Confirm they are not injecting conflicting JS into collection pages

6. Add request limits

   • Keep product fetches within reasonable size (e.g., 24–50 per request)

   • Avoid multiple parallel fetch calls on page load

7. If using filters

   • Use Shopify’s native filtering (Search & Discovery) or structured AJAX calls

   • Avoid rebuilding full collection state on every filter interaction

Move away from “load entire collection via JS” → use paginated or chunked loading with proper error handling, and remove unnecessary scripts that may interfere.