Troubleshooting

Solutions to common questions and issues with Dog Walking Business.

If the booking form does not display any available time slots:

Check business hours — Go to Dog Walking > Settings > General and verify that Business Hours Start and End are configured correctly.
Verify the service is active — Ensure the selected service has an active status. Inactive services are excluded from the booking form.
Check for scheduling conflicts — If all time slots for the selected date are already occupied by existing appointments, no slots will be available. Try a different date.
Same-day cutoff — If booking for today, the same-day cutoff time may have already passed, preventing same-day bookings.

Check notification settings — Go to Dog Walking > Settings > Emails and verify that the relevant email type is enabled.
WordPress email configuration — The plugin uses the standard WordPress wp_mail() function. If no emails are being sent, the issue is likely with your WordPress email configuration, not the plugin. Install an SMTP plugin (such as WP Mail SMTP) to ensure reliable email delivery.
Test WordPress email — Use a simple mail test to confirm WordPress can send emails before troubleshooting the plugin.

Verify API keys — Ensure the Stripe API keys (publishable and secret) are entered correctly in Dog Walking > Settings > Payments. Make sure you are using the correct keys for your mode (test or live).
Check the webhook — Verify that the webhook endpoint (/wp-json/dwb/v1/webhook) is configured in your Stripe Dashboard under Developers > Webhooks. Ensure the webhook secret matches.
Use Test Mode first — Always test your Stripe integration in Test Mode with Stripe’s test card numbers before switching to Live Mode.
Test connection — Use the Test Connection button on the Settings page to verify the API keys are valid.

Verify OAuth credentials — Ensure the Client ID and Client Secret are correct and match your Google Cloud Console project.
Enable the API — Confirm that the Google Calendar API is enabled in your Google Cloud Console project.
Re-authorize — If the access token has expired, re-authorize the connection from Settings. Google access tokens expire periodically and need to be refreshed.
Select a calendar — Verify that a target calendar has been selected in Settings. Without a selected calendar, sync has no destination.

Enable the flag — Edit the customer record and ensure the Custom Pricing flag is enabled.
Save per-service rates — Verify that custom base rate and/or additional pet rate values have been saved for the relevant services.
What gets overridden — Custom pricing overrides both the base rate and the additional pet rate. Services without custom overrides continue to use default rates.

If you see errors about missing database tables:

Reactivate the plugin — Deactivate the plugin from Plugins and then reactivate it. The plugin’s activation routine creates all required database tables.
Check database privileges — Ensure your MySQL user has CREATE TABLE privileges. Some shared hosting environments restrict this. Contact your hosting provider if needed.

The contact form limits submissions to 3 per IP address per 5 minutes. This is by design to prevent spam and automated abuse.

Shared IP addresses — If legitimate users on a corporate network or VPN are being blocked, they may share an IP address. The rate limit applies per IP, so multiple users behind the same IP share the same allowance.
Wait and retry — The limit resets after 5 minutes. Ask the user to wait and try again.