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Troubleshooting Common WooCommerce Brands Issues After an Update

19 threads Sep 7, 2025 Plugin → Woocommerce

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The introduction of the native Brands feature in WooCommerce has been a significant update for many store owners. However, this new core functionality has also led to a range of conflicts and unexpected behaviors, especially for sites that were previously using a third-party plugin or a custom attribute to manage brands.

This guide outlines the most common problems reported by users and provides steps to diagnose and resolve them.

Common Problems After the Brands Update

Based on community reports, these are the frequent issues that arise:

  • Brand Pages Not Loading: Product archive pages for brands return a "Page Not Found" error or display incorrectly after updating WooCommerce.
  • Duplicate Brand Taxonomies: Two separate "Brand" menus appear in the WordPress admin, often labeled pwb-brand (from a plugin like Perfect Brands) and the native product_brand. Products may need to be assigned to both, creating confusion and duplication.
  • URL and Permalink Conflicts: Brand page URLs may change to an undesirable format (e.g., using a translated word like "varemærke") or conflict with existing brand page structures from themes or plugins.
  • Plugin Conflicts and Fatal Errors: Attempting to disable the native Brands feature can sometimes cause a white screen or fatal error if there is a compatibility issue with an existing brand plugin.
  • Filter Spam: An increase in bot traffic using brand filter parameters (?filtering=1&filter_product_brand=), which can strain server resources.
  • Breadcrumb Navigation Issues: Breadcrumb trails on brand or product pages may not link correctly or may display the wrong taxonomy.

Why This Happens

The core of these issues is a taxonomy conflict. WooCommerce now registers its own built-in taxonomy called product_brand. Many popular brand plugins (e.g., Perfect Brands, YITH WooCommerce Brands) and some themes create their own custom taxonomy for the same purpose, often named something like pwb-brand or simply brand.

When WooCommerce is updated, both taxonomies can exist simultaneously. This can break front-end pages that were built for the old taxonomy, cause administrative confusion, and lead to technical conflicts that result in errors or unexpected behavior.

How to Troubleshoot and Resolve These Issues

Step 1: Perform a Conflict Test

This is the most critical first step for almost any WooCommerce issue.

  1. Create a Staging Site: Always test on a copy of your live site to avoid disrupting customers.
  2. Deactivate All Plugins: Temporarily deactivate every plugin except WooCommerce.
  3. Switch to a Default Theme: Temporarily switch your theme to a WordPress default theme like Twenty Twenty-Four.
  4. Check the Issue: See if the problem persists. If it is resolved, reactivate your plugins and theme one by one, checking after each, to identify the source of the conflict.

Step 2: Choose Your Brand Taxonomy Path

You have two main choices after identifying a conflict:

Option A: Disable the Native WooCommerce Brands Feature
If you wish to continue using your existing plugin or attribute setup, you can disable the new feature. The recommended method is to add a code snippet to your theme's functions.php file or a code snippets plugin.

add_action('init', function() {
    update_option('wc_feature_woocommerce_brands_enabled', 'no');
});

Important: Test this on a staging site first. As seen in the reports, this can sometimes cause conflicts with other plugins that haven't been updated for compatibility.

Option B: Migrate to the Native WooCommerce Brands
For long-term stability, migrating your existing brands to the native product_brand taxonomy is often the best solution. This may require exporting and re-importing your product data or using a tool to reassign the terms. Be sure to set up proper redirects from your old brand URLs to the new ones to preserve SEO.

Step 3: Address Specific Issues

  • For 404 Errors: After any change involving taxonomies or permalinks, go to Settings > Permalinks and simply click "Save Changes" to flush the rewrite rules. This often resolves page not found errors.
  • For Filter Spam: Bot traffic using filter parameters is a complex issue. Solutions can involve configuring your caching plugin to ignore query parameters, using a security plugin to block malicious bot traffic, or implementing custom server-level rules.
  • For Breadcrumbs: Customizing breadcrumbs to use a brand taxonomy instead of a category requires custom code using the woocommerce_breadcrumb filter, which is outside the scope of standard troubleshooting.

If you are unsure about implementing any of these solutions, consulting with a qualified developer is highly recommended.

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