--- title: An order is stuck and you cannot tell why summary: > An order counts as stuck when it is still unfulfilled fourteen days after it was placed. The app labels a reason and tests five in a fixed order: Missing SKU, Out of stock, Split shipment, Sync error, then Awaiting Shopify as the catch-all. Read the label first — it tells you whether the fix is yours or your storefront's. type: troubleshooting group: sell step: 5 permission: sales.view prerequisites: [] related: - /help/sell/where-orders-come-from - /help/fulfil/when-stock-actually-moves - /help/sync/product-shows-zero-online last_updated: 2026-08-07 --- **"Stuck" is a measurement, not a status somebody set.** An order is counted as stuck when it is still unfulfilled fourteen days after the date it was placed. Nothing marked it. It simply stopped moving, and fourteen days is the line Mossery draws. Next to each one the app puts a label naming the most likely reason. It tests five possibilities in a fixed order and shows the first that fits, so start by reading the label — it decides which of these sections you need. - [Missing SKU](#missing-sku) - [Out of stock](#out-of-stock) - [Split shipment](#split-shipment) - [Sync error](#sync-error) - [Awaiting Shopify](#awaiting-shopify) Because the app stops at the first match, a Missing SKU label can be hiding an out-of-stock line underneath it. Fix the named one, then look again. ## Missing SKU At least one line on the order does not match anything in your product catalogue. Orders arrive from your storefront carrying product codes. The app matches each one to a product it knows. When a code matches nothing — a product sold under a code that was never entered, or renamed on one side only — that line is left unmatched. This is the most serious label, because an unmatched line can never deduct stock. The order can ship and the units will stay on your books forever, which is how a shelf quietly empties while the app insists it is full. **What to do.** Open the order and find the line with no product against it. Note the product code exactly as it appears. Fixing it means creating or correcting that product and its channel mapping, which needs whoever owns product data — the person watching the order queue usually cannot do it. Hand over the order reference and the unmatched code. ## Out of stock Every line matched, but at least one wants more units than are available at the location the order is being fulfilled from. Availability is what is on hand minus what is already allocated to other orders, at that one location. So this label can appear while the product clearly has stock — just not free stock, or not at that location. Three things it can mean, and they need different answers: | What is true | What to do | | --- | --- | | The units exist elsewhere | Transfer them to the fulfilment location | | The units are allocated to older orders | Nothing — this order is queued behind them | | The shelf has stock the app cannot see | Run a count at that location | The third is worth taking seriously. An order sitting out of stock against a shelf that visibly has stock is a stock accuracy problem wearing an order problem's clothes. ## Split shipment Part of the order shipped, and the rest did not. Some lines have been fulfilled and some have not, so the order as a whole is still open. Almost always this means your storefront shipped what it had and put the remainder on backorder. Nothing is broken here, and nothing in this app will close it. The order will finish when the remaining lines ship from your storefront. What you can do is make sure they *can* ship — check the unfulfilled lines against stock at the fulfilment location, and treat any shortfall as an Out of stock case above. If the customer was only ever going to receive part of the order, the order needs closing on your storefront rather than waiting here. ## Sync error Something failed while this order was being brought in, and none of the structural checks above explained it. This label is the fallback: the app has a recorded failure attached to the order, but the lines all matched, stock is fine, and nothing partially shipped. The message from the original failure is shown with the label, and it is the most useful thing on the screen. 1. Open [Sync errors](/sync-errors) and find the entry for this order. 2. Read what it says, and which store it was recorded against. A failure is always recorded against one store, never all of them. 3. Fix the cause the message names, then retry that item. An error that retries and keeps failing on the same message is not going to clear itself. That is worth escalating rather than retrying a fourth time. ## Awaiting Shopify The app found nothing wrong. The order simply has not been fulfilled on your storefront yet. This is the catch-all, and on a healthy queue it is the most common label. Every line matched, stock is available, nothing partially shipped, no failure was recorded. The order is waiting on somebody to pick and ship it, and that happens on the storefront rather than here. One thing this app deliberately will not do is deduct the stock early. Stock moves at fulfilment and nowhere else — not when the order arrives, not when it is picked, not when it is packed. So an order sitting here is not draining anything; it is holding units allocated until it either ships or is cancelled. **If it was already shipped**, this label is the one that matters. It means the fulfilment never reached the app: the storefront thinks it is done, the app thinks it is open, and the stock has not come off. Capture the order reference, which store it came from, and the date it actually shipped, and pass all three on. That is a real fault, not a queue that needs patience. ## Still stuck with a label that does not fit? Check the fourteen-day clock before anything else. It counts from the order date and stops the moment the order is fulfilled or cancelled — so a long-running pre-order or a made-to-order piece will report as stuck simply for taking longer than two weeks. That is the measurement working, not a fault. Beyond that, one thing to avoid: do not fix a stuck order by adjusting stock to make the warning go away. It clears the label and leaves the app believing in units that are not there, which surfaces again a week later as a count that does not match the shelf. If the label genuinely does not describe what you are seeing, note the order reference, the label shown, the fulfilment location and how many days it has been open, and pass those on. ## Explore **Where orders come from.** How orders reach the app, and what it does and does not control about them. [Learn more →](/help/sell/where-orders-come-from) **When stock actually moves.** Deduction happens at fulfilment and nowhere else, which is why a stuck order does not change your levels. [Learn more →](/help/fulfil/when-stock-actually-moves) **A product shows 0 online.** The mirror-image problem, when the storefront and the app disagree the other way round. [Learn more →](/help/sync/product-shows-zero-online)