Missing Country/Market Selector in Editor

[AJX]

Hello,

There was previously a Markets/Region Selector at the top of my Theme Editor which has now disappeared. I used it to make custom edits for different countries/markets apart from the default website. Now it’s gone and when you open the website, you can only see the default version instead of the right website version for the country you are in. What happened? This is something that occurred suddenly after I had already been working on customizations for different regions successfully for quite some time.

How do you get the Selector back after it has disappeared? What do you need to do? Why did it disappear on me? Please let me know if you have any information on this.

I’ve checked my markets, all 3 are active and contain the right countries. I’ve cleared my cache, etc.

[tim_1]

Could it be that your screen is not wide enough and it’s collapsed into an icon?

[AJX]

Update on the Troubleshooting:

I checked out the suggestions in the two responses, thank you both!

One suggestion was to open the editor through markets → [choose market] → online store by clicking on the template from there (See photo 1, apologies for the messy writing)

It appeared there was a permissions problem and I could only edit the default template now (see photo). I recalled that I changed my email address a while back and it resulted in my store owner address and original/login address being different from each other. The error message mentioned the new email address, so I thought the glitch may have been introduced somewhere then.

I looked into changing the permissions for the store/owner, couldn’t find anything in the Users/Permissions area to adjust. Instead, I changed the store owner email back to the original address, which is still my login address, didn’t work. (Also cleared browser history/cache)

I created a new role with full permissions with the intention of adding it to the store email address that I was going to change it back to shortly, or as a new user, just something I can see with my eyes has the correct/full permissions to edit more than the default template.

So.. I go to add the role to the store email address that I temporarily removed.

I’m going to be honest… this was *not a nice way to inform me that the account I paid for for the year has been downgraded. I was informed that I had reached the max users I can add which is now zero (other than the Owner, who can’t currently make custom edits). Before it was 1 or 2 users you could add, and yes I’ve had added/deleted a user before and enjoyed having that, and was planning on using it again in the future. Not impressed at all by this. I looked it up and yes it appears this feature was removed from Basic Accounts – even in the middle of the year they paid for. I find this decision unprofessional.

I didn’t get to finish my permissions experiment because of this and learned during my troubleshooting that I lost this feature as well after already paying for it in my package plan and using it previously.

I noticed throughout this missing Selector problem that Shopify has been making changes to Markets in the admin/listings and who knows what else, like removing the 1-2 staff users feature for Basic Accounts. So, it’s not clear if this bug came from me changing my email address earlier like I suspected, or from other changes on the platform, or something else on my end. I truly hope it wasn’t an intentional clawback like removing the 1 user feature from active Basic Accounts.

If anyone knows how to address the permissions issue I would really appreciate it.

I’m only allowed to attach one image so it’s a little bit merged. And now the troubleshooting has led me to have to go try to claim the legacy account with the 2 users unfortunately since this wasn’t done automatically for users like me that already paid.

[AJX]

Thank you so much! No it’s not that thank you for the suggestion, I checked there after

[tim_1]

Actually lack of permission was my number one guess, but I kinda though you’re an owner and can actually see the markets, so should have it.
Permissions can be tricky.

Unfortunately, there is nothing 3rd parties can do to fix your permissions – only Shopify support can help here.

[AJX]

Okay thank you. I’ve tried getting in touch with Shopify directly before and wasn’t able to. Would you be able to tell me how? I tried a chat bubble before and it disappeared after clicking it although it said it was a real human, I didn’t get far enough to confirm (haha). And I read the email address they used to take email on was being phased out, if this is true or not. I’m really confused because part of why I chose Shopify was I heard really good things about human support and trust, but there’s no contact information in the admin, it seems they’re phasing real contact out, only an AI bot for simpler problems, and now I’m seeing other things that feel funny. Do you know how I can contact a real person for in-house support?

[tim_1]

I know no special contact channel.
Chat is the only way AFAIK.

[AJX]

Ok thank you for your help

[R4B]

Been reading your post, though i don’t a solution, i was triggered by ‘changes in admin’.

As i experienced the same over the last few months. I made changes in the store, then a later a reset has taken place, undoing all the work and numerous hours i had spent on it.

Support reply, you did it yourself, you forgot to save, and other nonsense. Yesterday i found a screen in analytics that clearly shows ‘who’ has made the changes. Guess who is listed at the changs that were a priority (flows and automatons for example) and were reset? Shopify!

So much for nobody can change something to your store that the admin person of the store. Not the first time, the above has cost me in total durig the last 3 to 4 monts, at least 1 week a month, not counting the endless non-supportive chats with suport.

Am ‘grateful’ to see that i am not the only who is questioning this. Especcially as I am legally responsible as ‘ store owner’ and it should not be possible for Shopify to go and change something without my explicit consent or assigment.

[AJX]

I’m really sorry to hear that. I was thinking that too, about how many hours are going into troubleshooting or if real work and edits are lost, how much time is that that I should be using on next steps instead of on something that was previously set up and working. Luckily I don’t have too many customizations right now, but it dawned on me if you had very different websites for markets and lost that work overnight, it’s a lot. The liability/responsibility aspect you brought up is a good point as well. Thank you for sharing. I’m glad to know I’m not the only store owner experiencing this.. not just the issue, but, the cultural change, almost? I’m finding big companies are more often giving cookie cutter responses that blame you and don’t actually solve the problem or have someone look into it. Like the AI chat in the editor just keeps saying check my markets and it will be fixed, no it isn’t. I ask for more help and it just breaks, no more responses, no human to look into it. So I hope Shopify still has the core values and services that I chose it for and isn’t going too far away from meaningful support and contact.

[R4B]

What they write on the website and as ‘brand philosophy’ seems far from the reality. Again i’ve spent my entire day on waiting, responding, sending the same screen shots as they keep asking for the same shots. Really doubting the capabilities and competencies of support. as they give answers that i found myself already in the documentation.

As a new store owner, with a prepared strategy, launching plan and all, i’m already 3 months behind schedule, the store is nowhere were it should be. And support seems nothing more than a placating support chat box. Thinking they must get paid for the minutes they keep you in a chat.

It is a cache problem in shopify backend, they keep deflecting to the 3rd party app providers, (just now again, after a whole day, back at were i started this morning). No escalation as in every normal service company.
Am investigating other platforms, it would mean a desinvestment of 5 months hard work, but this is not sustainable.

Support should work. And the fact that they can change settings worries me, as i (background) know how important legal compliance to rules and regulations are. Changes that i am not aware off are a huge red flag.

On top of being suspended by GMC, no adds, no publicity, no visibility, makes Shopify a pretty expensive investment.

[AJX]

Update. Chat confirmed that they “upgraded features” which yes means they downgraded the Basic Account so that I no longer have access to these 2 features. So the feelings about “gauging” seems correct that they took these features away (after I was already using them) in an effort to get new store owners like me to upgrade earlier and change their whole plans around.

With much effort and time that feels wasted and ridiculous that I have to deal with now, they escalated my complaint so I’ll see what happens, will update here.

Unfortunately I noticed some things in the chat that did not feel right at all… first, of course, the cookie cutter responses about nothing they can do I didn’t really have those features basically, yes I did, and I also saw the 2 users feature listed in the advertising as well when I upgraded even though it was after April 2025 (that’s when they’re saying the cutoff was). And yes I used both features under the Basic Plan before they were taken away abruptly.

One line especially made me cringe: “I understand that you are thinking that Shopify is thinking that you are a little guy not able to go up a tier but this is not the case.”

Ew. No, please respect new store owners we’re working hard on our new businesses and constantly working around Shopify quirks and bugs meanwhile you’re apparently actively trying to gauge us. So wrong that line. Again, I really hope the Shopify I thought I was signing up with is still in there, will let you know if they restore the 2 features I hope they do, and that would be the solution to the “Missing Selector” issue.

So it’s possible the Permissions error is not about a glitch in the store owner permissions but from when they “upgraded features” (to the higher tier). Of course I initially just requested the permissions to be resolved as a solution to the missing Selector problem when they informed me the features were rather intentionally removed instead.

[tim_1]

If you’ve got access to some features, then Shopify usually keeps them for you during the term of your contract.

Say, if you had 2 users, they would stay. However, if you’ve deleted one – the system probably will refuse adding another in its stead.
If you initially had 2 markets and then deleted one, the system would not allow to re-add a new one.

I know it from my own experience – I have an old dev store, created before dev stores were forced to have preview passwords.

So this store was open and did not require a password to explore and I used it to share examples of my solutions.
One day, out of my stupidity I’ve set a preview password to test something. Well, now I have a store with mandatory preview password.

However, if your contract has started when these features were offered – just be more persistent in the chat, there is a good chance they will be reinstated. They do have some control over features available on each store.

[AJX]

Lol oh no!! That’s awful

Yeah I don’t know.. I still feel as though they should keep old functionality for the people who had it at the time, not make people tiptoe around like guarding all their features in case they get taken away lol, same with those other examples. Like they could, they just don’t do it that way in some cases because they want you to go up a pricing tier instead of complaining about it, and unfortunately my conversation today made that really clear. Ok thank you Tim

[AJX]

Update: After getting through the initial chat that did not inspire confidence at all and felt kinda scammy to be honest… The tech and markets specialists afterward were very courteous and kept me updated throughout. They restored the 2 user feature quickly. Then they received approval to restore the markets selector though it still seemed a little iffy for a while, they got it up and running for me within a few weeks. I really appreciate their support although now I feel like I have to constantly guard any features I like so they don’t get taken away in the future by corporate moving features to higher priced tiers. But then they (or someone) also approved restoring it as a legacy feature so there’s that.

My advice for anyone going through something similar is persistence in the first chat until they send you to someone who actually cares about your problem lol, the first chat seems more like a gatekeeper than support to try to get rid of you. I see other companies set up this way as well where the first line of support is there to give you cookie cutter “sorry can’t help” responses just to see if you go away. I was really happy to see their commitment (eventually) to human support that actually supports and addresses problems, as this is a reason I went with Shopify.