A renewal didn't fire

A subscription was due to renew but no renewal order appeared. Walk through the five checks below in order — they are listed from most-likely cause to least-likely. In ~80% of cases the problem is the first or second one.

Check 1: Action Scheduler queue

Every renewal is an Action Scheduler job. Go to WooCommerce → Status → Scheduled Actions and filter by the search term aswc_scheduled_subscription_payment. You want to see a row for the subscription ID.

• No row at all — the renewal was never scheduled. Skip to check 3 (subscription status) or check 5 (master toggle).
• Row in status "Pending" with scheduled date in the past — the scheduler isn't running. Move to check 2.
• Row in status "Failed" — click the row to see the exception. Most common: gateway threw an error (move to check 4).
• Row in status "Complete" but no order created — rare. Check the subscription's note log; the job ran but a filter (aswc_should_create_renewal_order) may have vetoed it.

Check 2: wp-cron is actually running

Action Scheduler piggybacks on wp-cron by default. On a low-traffic site, wp-cron only ticks when someone visits a page, so a renewal scheduled for 03:00 may not run until the next visit hours later.

1. Set up a real OS cron job: * * * * * curl -s https://your-store.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1
2. Or use a managed-cron service (most WordPress hosts have one).
3. Disable WP's built-in cron via wp-config.php: define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );

Check 3: subscription status

Only subscriptions in status active are scheduled for renewal. Check the subscription detail page (admin or My Account):

• on-hold — the previous renewal failed. Pay it manually or wait for the retry.
• paused — the customer or admin paused. Renewals are suspended until resume.
• cancelled / expired — terminal. No more renewals will ever fire.
• scheduled — the start date hasn't arrived yet. Check the Next payment date on the subscription.

Check 4: gateway connection

If the Action Scheduler job ran but the gateway call failed:

• Open WooCommerce → Status → Logs and filter for the gateway slug (stripe, paypal, redsys, woocommerce-payments).
• Look at the most recent error. Common causes: revoked PayPal billing agreement, expired card with no fallback, Stripe webhook secret rotated, Redsys SHA-256 key out of sync.
• Test the gateway with a one-off order. If a fresh purchase fails too, the issue is at the gateway level, not the subscription.

Check 5: plugin master toggle

The plugin has a global enable toggle at WooCommerce → Settings → Subscriptions → General — option aswc_gen_tab_enable. If it's off, no renewal logic runs even though Action Scheduler may still be queueing the jobs. Confirm it's on.

Relevant hooks

• aswc_scheduled_subscription_payment — the Action Scheduler hook every renewal hangs off.
• aswc_renewal_payment_failed — fires on gateway failure; great place to ship to Sentry/Datadog.
• aswc_should_create_renewal_order — return false to veto a renewal (rare, but check it if you've added one).