Order.test parameter is always false

Retired Boards Appdev Graphql Basics And Troubleshooting

Topic summary

A developer encountered persistent issues with Shopify’s order testing functionality where the order.test parameter remained false despite following the official order testing manual. This caused their development store to be banned multiple times for creating non-test orders.

Key Problem:

  • Following Shopify’s official documentation, transactions showed "test": false instead of the expected true value
  • The developer received multiple checkout bans over a 6-month period
  • Support was unable to resolve API-related issues, only providing temporary unbans

Resolution Found:
The root cause was that orders must be created with the test parameter explicitly set to true at order creation time—a critical step missing from the official manual. Simply following the transaction testing steps wasn’t sufficient.

Outcome:
The issue was eventually resolved through community forums after 6 months, where the proper order creation method was clarified. This highlights a significant gap in Shopify’s official testing documentation.

Summarized with AI on November 22. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi everyone,

I follow the order testing manual in order to secure my development store from the ban. Everything is OK until the very last step where i check that order.test parameter become true. Here are my transtactions:

url: https://flot-test.myshopify.com/admin/api/2022-07/orders/4621368131651/transactions.json

status_code: 200

X-Request-ID: e33d6c2a-1f58-4a3e-85a5-d18d15177a55

response_body:

{“transactions”:[{“id”:5698198536259,“order_id”:4621374259267,“kind”:“authorization”,“gateway”:“”,“status”:“success”,“message”:null,“created_at”:“2022-09-14T04:39:05-04:00”,“test”:false,“authorization”:null,“location_id”:null,“user_id”:null,“parent_id”:null,“processed_at”:“2022-09-14T04:39:05-04:00”,“device_id”:null,“error_code”:null,“source_name”:“5694193665”,“receipt”:{},“amount”:“20.00”,“currency”:“USD”,“admin_graphql_api_id”:“gid://shopify/OrderTransaction/5698198536259”},{“id”:5698198569027,“order_id”:4621374259267,“kind”:“capture”,“gateway”:“”,“status”:“success”,“message”:“Marked the payment as received”,“created_at”:“2022-09-14T04:39:06-04:00”,“test”:true,“authorization”:null,“location_id”:null,“user_id”:null,“parent_id”:5698198536259,“processed_at”:“2022-09-14T04:39:06-04:00”,“device_id”:null,“error_code”:null,“source_name”:“5694193665”,“receipt”:{},“amount”:“20.00”,“currency”:“USD”,“admin_graphql_api_id”:“gid://shopify/OrderTransaction/5698198569027”}]}

You may notice that the second transaction has test parameter set to true. After that I check the order:

url: https://flot-test.myshopify.com/admin/api/2022-07/orders/4621374259267.json

status_code: 200

X-Request-ID: 53fcad14-777d-4abf-864d-aedf91ee35fd

response_body:

<skipped, but with “test”:false>

Could you advise where is the problem, please? I’m afraid that I’ll receive a permanent ban for my development store.

Thanks!

2

Today my development store was banned :-(. It’s sad that support is refusing to help with API issues and is redirecting to comminity.shopify.com while community.shopify.com is silent for 2 weeks. Don’t know what to do now.

3

6 months and no solution :-(. I continue to receive checkout bans and the support team continues to unban me. I’ve reposted the problem in community section about APIs and SDKs: https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-apis-and-sdks/managing-testing-orders-via-api-is-not-working/m-p/1989726#M88966

4

The problem was that you need to create order with ‘test’ parameter set to true and there is nothing about it in the official manual. Resolved here: https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-apis-and-sdks/managing-testing-orders-via-api-is-not-working/m-p/1993303#M89044