Troubleshooting common issues

I can’t log in

Three quick checks:

1. Caps lock. WordPress passwords are case-sensitive. “TestQA2026” and “testqa2026” are different.
2. Use “Lost your password?” from the login page. You’ll get a reset email.
3. Reset email didn’t arrive? Check spam. If still nothing in 5 minutes, email support — we can reset manually.

The “Add bed” button does nothing

1. Check the bed name field is filled. It’s the only required field. Empty name = silent rejection.
2. Try a different browser. A browser extension (ad-blocker, privacy plugin) may be blocking the AJAX request.
3. Check browser console for errors. F12 → Console tab. Paste any errors into a support email.

My plants don’t show up after adding

• Refresh the page. The form uses AJAX and occasionally needs a reload.
• Check the “Status” filter above the plants list — default is “Active”. Plants marked “archived” won’t show until you change the filter.
• Check DB persistence — if this recurs, email us with your account email and we’ll look at the logs.

The ROI report shows $0.00

Three possible causes, in order of likelihood:

1. No harvests logged yet. The ROI sums across harvest records. Zero harvests = $0. Log your first harvest via the “Record a harvest” form.
2. Your crops don’t have shop price data. Kale, silverbeet, bok choy — sold by the bunch, not weight. See the honest disclaimer.
3. Date filter on the ROI view — if you’ve set it to the current month and you haven’t harvested this month, it’ll show $0. Switch to “All time” or previous month.

The weekly digest email didn’t arrive

• Check spam/junk folder. New inbox patterns sometimes land there until you train the filter.
• Check /my-account/email-log/ (Pro tier). If digest shows “sent” but you didn’t receive, your email provider is filtering it.
• Add admin@gardenbuddy.au to your address book. Gmail: mark one digest as “not spam” — future ones will land in Primary.
• Check /my-account/ → Email preferences. If the master toggle is off, no digest. Flip it on.

Per-veggie page shows “no data” on chart

• The scraper didn’t collect data for that crop that day. Check back in 24 hours.
• Less common: that crop isn’t in our 76-crop catalogue. We track the most common home crops; uncommon ones (okra, daikon, yacon) may not be covered. Email us to request coverage.

“Membership expired” but I paid

1. Go to /my-account/membership-billing/. If your card expired or a charge failed, you’ll see the failure listed there.
2. Update your card. Access restores within 60 seconds of successful payment.
3. If the charge succeeded but access is still blocked — this is a Stripe webhook issue. Email us with your Stripe receipt (the email Stripe sent, not ours) and we’ll fix it within a business day.

I’m getting duplicate emails

Usually means you signed up twice (different email addresses on the same card, or the same email with slightly different capitalisation). Email us to merge the accounts — we preserve both sets of data.

The site is slow

• First-load delays up to 2–4 seconds are normal — we run on cPanel shared hosting. Subsequent loads are cached and much faster.
• Consistently slow or timing out? There’s a real problem — email us with your approximate location, ISP, browser, and device.
• My Garden section slow to load? Harvest history with 1000+ entries will pause 1–2 seconds on query. That’s the DB doing its work; subsequent filters are instant.

A payment failed

Stripe retries automatically 3 days later. A payment-failure email goes to your address at each retry.

1. First retry (+3 days) — usually succeeds if card was temporarily over-limit.
2. Second retry (+7 days) — if card is genuinely expired, update at /my-account/membership-billing/.
3. Third retry (+14 days) — final attempt. If it fails, membership suspended. Update card to restore.

Your garden data is preserved throughout the retry process. Even after suspension, it stays available for 12 months.

I changed email address and now I can’t log in

Your username stays fixed at signup — only the email is changeable. If you updated email and try to log in with the new email as username, it’ll fail.

• Username is what you picked at signup (e.g. “brisbane_gardener”)
• Email is where we send things
• Log in with the original username; email is for communications only

I lost access to the email the account is under

Happens — old work email deactivated, provider shut down. Email support from your new email explaining the situation, including:

• The original email on the account
• Your username if you remember it
• Approximate signup date
• Any Stripe receipt numbers from old charges

We’ll verify identity (approximate signup date + payment history) and reset access to the new email. Takes 1–3 business days.

My logged data looks wrong

• Refresh the page — occasional display caching.
• Clear browser cache for gardenbuddy.au and reload.
• Compare with the CSV export — if the export shows correct data but the page shows wrong, it’s a display bug (email us with details).
• If CSV also wrong — your data was saved incorrectly somewhere. Email us with your account email and we’ll look at the audit log.

If none of the above helps, email support with a clear description of what you did, what you expected, and what you saw. Screenshots help a lot.