Digital download or licensing errors — a customer unable to download their purchased file, a licence key not generating or validating — usually trace to a delivery configuration issue, an expired or misconfigured download link, or a licensing system failing to communicate correctly with the store.
Digital downloads & licensing errors
A customer's stuck digital download or licence key traced to the actual delivery or generation failure.
- Full backup taken before we start
- If we can’t fix it, you get your money back
- We never ask for your own password
This or something else?
| A customer can’t download a purchased digital file, or a licence key isn’t generating or validating | This fix covers it |
| This is about your own software licence for a plugin or theme, not a customer’s purchase | Licence recovery & vendor account reconciliation, a different, unrelated concern |
| The product itself needs digital delivery set up for the first time | Worth discussing directly — likely a larger, dedicated setup rather than a repair |
| The issue is a subscription box product, not a one-time digital download | Subscription box & recurring bundle configuration |
What you are seeing
- A customer’s download link not working or returning an error
- A licence key not generating after a successful purchase
- A licence key generating but failing validation for the customer
- The issue possibly affecting only certain digital products
Common causes
- A download link expiring before the customer had a chance to use it
- A licence key generation process failing silently after payment
- A conflict between the digital delivery plugin and a licensing system
- A file permission or storage issue preventing the actual file from being served
- A refunded or cancelled order not correctly revoking a previously issued download link or licence key
What we do
- Reproduce the specific download or licensing failure
- Identify whether the cause is delivery configuration, file access, or licence generation
- Correct the identified cause
- Verify a test purchase downloads and, where applicable, validates correctly
- Check for the same pattern affecting other digital products
What is included
- The digital download or licensing issue identified and corrected
- A verified, working test purchase and download
- A check across other digital products
- The pre-fix backup, kept for 30 days
Not included
- Setting up digital delivery for a product from scratch — a separate, larger fix
- Your own plugin or theme licence recovery — a separate, unrelated fix
- Recreating a file that’s genuinely lost with no backup available
- Ongoing monitoring for future delivery issues
Questions about this fix
Can affected customers get their download resent?
Yes, once the underlying issue is fixed, we can help identify affected customers and confirm they're able to receive their download or licence correctly.
Why would a download link expire before the customer used it?
Some digital delivery configurations set a default expiry or download-count limit that doesn't match your actual intended policy — we'd correct this to match what you actually want customers to have.
Is this urgent if customers paid but can't get their product?
Yes, genuinely worth prioritising, since this directly affects customers who've already paid and are waiting on what they bought.
Could this be affecting only one specific digital product?
Yes, if the cause is specific to that product's configuration rather than the delivery system generally, it can be isolated to just that item.
Does this cover software licence key generation specifically?
Yes, if your store sells software with licence key delivery, generation and validation failures for that key are covered here.
Related fixes
If this is the second time this year
A bad update breaking the site is a symptom of updates not being tested first. Care plans run every update on a staging clone before it reaches your live site, which is the actual fix for this happening again.
Your access, your rules
Create a separate admin account for us and delete it when we are done. For anything else, we get in touch and agree a method — never a form field on this site, never by reply to an email.
We back up first, always
Before anything is touched we take a full backup and keep it for 30 days. If a fix goes wrong, we put the site back exactly as it was.
If it is not what you bought
If the problem turns out smaller than what you ordered, we refund the difference. If it is bigger, we stop and send a quote before doing any extra work.
If we cannot fix it
You get back what we received. Diagnosis is on us — you only pay when the problem is actually solved. The payment processor takes its fee before the money reaches us, so we never hold it and it is not ours to return. That is true here as everywhere else.
If it comes back
Reply within seven days of delivery and we put it back on the bench at no cost. The fix is not finished until it holds.
What we are responsible for
If something goes wrong with a fix, our responsibility is limited to what you paid for it. We take a full backup first so mistakes can be undone, and we tell you before doing anything outside what you bought.