A look at the recent WooCommerce bug and why professional help matters for your website.
Code Always Runs Smoothly Until It Doesn’t
So on May 6, 2025, thousands of WordPress eCommerce websites suddenly went dark. Many store owners logged in and found a fatal error message staring back at them:
“Uncaught TypeError: strpos(): Argument #1 ($haystack) must be of type string, null given in /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/src/Blocks/BlockPatterns.php:251”
This wasn’t caused by a hack or some sort of malicious code in a third-party plugin. Actually, it came directly from WooCommerce itself — specifically from the block patterns feature in their latest release. The WooCommerce team of course quickly acknowledged the issue, but it took a while to get a patch out.
First, people identified where the code could be fixed. Some posted to GitHub that by removing a certain line, they could get their site working again. But deploying a totally new version isn’t that simple or quick. It took time for the official patch version 9.8.4 to be released, and by this point, many online businesses had already suffered significant damage.
When Your Store Goes Down, You Lose More Than Sales
Imagine your eCommerce website goes down. You’re missing out on more than just immediate sales:
- You might have angry customers unable to complete purchases
- You could embarrass yourself in front of potential investors or business partners
- All your advertising spend essentially goes to waste – people click through only to find a broken site
- The marketing funnel you’ve built (where people often don’t buy on first visit) gets disrupted
- In a world where attention is short, losing a potential customer might mean losing them forever
What Would a Professional Developer Have Done?
Let’s look at how this situation would have played out differently with professional help:
Proactive Testing
Depending on your budget and relationship with your developer, they would likely test all updates on a staging website first. They would have seen this error and decided not to update the production website. They would have simply told you, “Hey, we’re going to hold off doing this update until we get confirmation of a patch. Don’t worry, your main website is working fine.”
Quick Fixes When Needed
If your site had been affected, a developer could have performed a rollback or actually fixed the line of code themselves. They would have reviewed the GitHub issue or examined the code that was changed, identified the problem, and made their own patch — restoring your service immediately rather than waiting for the official fix.
Monitoring and Response
A good developer would be keeping an eye on your website. They’d probably be aware of this issue because it was well-discussed in developer communities. This awareness would help you avoid the fate that befell so many online stores.
The False Economy of DIY Website Maintenance
By getting a developer on your team for ongoing maintenance, you avoid critical moments that can cost you far more than the maintenance itself. If you’re trying to save a few hundred or even a couple thousand dollars a month for a professional service, but your turnover is substantial, it’s just unbeatable value — a no-brainer, really.
If your site does go down and you don’t have help already in place:
- You’ll be scrambling to find an emergency developer, someone you have to both find AND trust with full access to your website
- The best developers are often already booked up with existing clients
- Emergency care doesn’t come cheap — it will certainly cost you more than having ongoing support
What Good Professional Service Looks Like
Anyone running a serious business should consider how they’re perceived if their website goes down. Don’t take for granted that things have worked well so far — we know issues can happen, but they’re avoidable and manageable with the right help.
I don’t think you need someone in-house — that’s expensive and creates a single point of failure (what if they’re sick or unavailable?). This is the ideal job for an agency that can provide:
- Regular updates in a controlled manner, perhaps using a staging website
- Security hardening to protect against vulnerabilities
- Performance optimization to keep everything running smoothly
- Visual monitoring to catch those subtle bugs or design issues that build up over time
- Technical guidance to help structure your site, hosting, and backups to minimize future risks
These subtle things really tell people what your company and brand stand for. Over time, customers notice when details are overlooked.
Don’t Wait for the Next Crisis
This WooCommerce bug is just one of many that will occur. The question isn’t if your site will face technical challenges, but when.
Professional website maintenance isn’t just about fixing things when they break. It’s about preventing issues in the first place, ensuring business continuity if problems do occur, and giving you peace of mind that a critical part of your business is in capable hands.
Don’t wait until your site is displaying a fatal error to find a developer you can trust. By then, it’s already too late. Take the leap now and start with someone who can help assess your situation and improve your website.
Remember, there’s a real opportunity here not just to save on the potential cost of recovery, but also to position yourself for growth, especially in competitive markets. The right investment in professional help isn’t an expense — it’s protection for your business.
