Deactivating Legacy PayPal Standard Payment Method Disables WooCommerce Core Plugin
Summary:
A critical bug exists where the legacy PayPal Standard payment gateway, which should be hidden on sites after WooCommerce 5.5, remains visible in the WooCommerce > Settings > Payments list for older sites. Users who click the three-dots menu next to this gateway and select 'Deactivate' inadvertently cause the entire WooCommerce core plugin to be deactivated.
The root cause is that the user interface incorrectly offers a 'Deactivate' option for this specific legacy gateway, and the underlying code for this action is tied to deactivating the core plugin instead of just the payment method. Furthermore, the provided filter woocommerce_should_load_paypal_standard is ineffective at removing the gateway from the list entirely, leaving site owners with no safe way to manage its visibility.
This issue has a high impact, leading to site downtime and user confusion, as evidenced by multiple support forum threads and tickets reporting the problem.
How to Replicate:
- Have a WooCommerce site that existed prior to version 5.5 and has the legacy PayPal Standard gateway (e.g., a site with past PayPal Standard orders).
- Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments.
- Observe that PayPal Standard is listed among the payment methods.
- Click the three-dots menu icon next to the PayPal Standard option.
- Select the 'Deactivate' option from the menu.
- Observe that the entire WooCommerce plugin is deactivated.