So very frustrating.
I frequently have to click “Save” when I open a product, although I haven’t made any changes. Alongside the highlighted “Save” button it states “Unsaved changes” and “Discard”.
It’s yet another click to many hundreds Shopify have added to my daily workload.
Do others experience this and anyone know what is occurring or how to stop it?
Many thanks.
This one is a known Shopify admin quirk, not something you are doing wrong. The product saved fine, the bar is just lying about it.
The usual cause is category metafields. When a product has a product category set, Shopify auto-adds the metafield definitions for that category, and any that are empty can make the form read as “changed” the moment the page loads, before you touch anything. So it shows Unsaved changes and makes you hit Save on a product you never edited.
A few things to try, cheapest first:
Open one of the products it happens on and scroll to the category and metafields section. If you see auto-suggested category metafields sitting empty, that is the likely trigger. You can turn the auto-suggested ones off under Settings, then Custom data, then Products, so they stop getting attached on open.
Do a hard reload on that product page (Cmd/Ctrl plus Shift plus R). A stale cached admin bundle causes the same phantom-changes behavior, and a hard reload clears it. If it goes away after that, it was the cache.
Test it in an incognito window with your browser extensions off. Some extensions modify the admin DOM and trip the unsaved-changes detector. If incognito is clean, an extension is the cause.
One thing worth knowing: in every version of this I have seen, the product is actually saving. The bar is a false positive, so you are not losing data by navigating away. Annoying, but not dangerous.
If none of that sticks, it is worth a bug report to Shopify support with a screen recording, because this has been reported on and off for a while and they do track the repeat cases.
Hi @Richie_Ramone
You can try checking Settings → Custom data → Products and see if any auto-suggested category metafields are enabled. Empty category metafields can sometimes trigger the “Unsaved changes” message even when you haven’t edited the product. A hard refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R) and testing in Incognito can also help rule out a cache or browser extension issue.
Hey, @Richie_Ramone
Hope you are doing great!
Yes, I’ve seen this happen too. It seems like Shopify sometimes detects changes even when nothing was intentionally edited. Definitely frustrating when you’re managing hundreds of products. Hopefully Shopify can identify what’s triggering the “Unsaved changes” state.
Hello there @Richie_Ramone
I have this when Shopify detects a field/ value in the process of being edited on the product page load, even if you’ve never manually edited anything. It can sometimes be triggered by browser extensions, autofill, or a theme or app altering product data.
As a quick test go to the same product in incognito mode without extensions. If it is, disable your extensions one at a time to see which one is causing the problem. Also check if this is happening with other products or just some.