Certificates that fail to generate, display incorrect information, or don’t trigger at course completion usually trace to a template configuration issue, a broken link to the completion data that should trigger generation, or a plugin update that changed how the certificate feature works.
Certificate generation errors
A course completion certificate traced from broken trigger or template to a working fix.
- 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 course completion certificate isn’t generating, or generates with wrong information | This fix covers it |
| The underlying progress or completion data itself is wrong, not just the certificate | Progress tracking data repair, the more fundamental fix if completion status itself is inaccurate |
| You want a certificate feature configured for the first time, not an existing one fixed | Still covered by this fix, treated as an initial setup rather than a repair |
| Quiz scoring feeds into whether a certificate should trigger, and that’s what’s wrong | Quiz & grading configuration errors |
What you are seeing
- No certificate generating despite a course being marked complete
- A certificate generating with incorrect name, date, or course information
- The certificate template displaying incorrectly (broken layout, missing logo)
- The issue possibly starting after a plugin or theme update
Common causes
- A broken trigger linking course completion to certificate generation
- A template configuration error causing incorrect or missing information to display
- A plugin update changing certificate generation logic or template structure
- Underlying completion data itself being incorrect, causing the certificate to reflect it
- A required custom field (a name format or additional credential text) left empty, causing the template to fail silently instead of rendering with a visible gap
What we do
- Reproduce the certificate issue with a test completion
- Identify whether the cause is the trigger, the template, or the underlying data
- Correct the specific cause found
- Verify a test certificate generates correctly with accurate information
- Check the fix holds for members who completed the course previously
What is included
- The certificate issue identified and corrected
- A verified, correctly generating test certificate
- A check on previously completed members’ ability to receive a corrected certificate
- The pre-fix backup, kept for 30 days
Not included
- Correcting underlying progress or completion data itself, if that’s the true root cause — a separate, related fix
- Designing a new certificate template from scratch, beyond fixing what’s broken
- Quiz or grading logic issues — a separate, related fix
- Ongoing monitoring for future certificate issues
Questions about this fix
Will members who already completed the course get a corrected certificate automatically?
We check whether the fix can apply retroactively to already-completed members, though this depends on your specific plugin's capabilities — we'd tell you plainly what's actually possible.
Could a plugin update really break something that was working before?
Yes, a plugin update can change certificate generation logic or template structure in ways that break a previously working setup without any changes on your side.
Is this urgent if members are asking about missing certificates?
Worth prioritising if it's affecting members who've genuinely earned and are expecting their certificate, since that has a direct impact on their experience.
What if the certificate is right but the completion data feeding it is wrong?
That's actually a different, more fundamental issue — worth confirming whether the certificate itself is misconfigured or whether the completion data it's drawing from is inaccurate.
Does this include redesigning how the certificate looks?
Not as part of a repair — this fixes what's broken; a genuinely new template design is separate, related work.
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.