Issue with subscriptions and inactive users

[Nihonto]

Been having a bit of a problem with subscriptions.
Forum has 6 month "Gold Membership" and 12 month Gold membership that allow for a few added features. No issue there.
However, I cannot pinpoint the exact problem, but it seems as though when the subscriptions expire, if the members don't renew in time, they get marked as inactive. At that point, some say they don't have the option in subscriptions to sign up again and lose the ability to renew.
I think there is also a tie in with subscribers who cancel their recurring Paypal payments and want to do them manually.
Some I granted manual subscriptions to, and when those are expired, they cannot sign up for a new subscription and are locked at inactive.
Looking at my inactive subscribers list, I cannot see a way to make them active again. I am not stupid I think....but this is making me feel stupid.
I've gone round and round the settings and looking for a way for a subscriber who has gone inactive to renew from that date again and become active.
I feel there needs to be more documentation around subscriptions.
One member I added to the 6 month subscriptions list, and he is now listed as a Gold member....but still listed as inactive??
Any help please...and thanks.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Brian Robinson_47676

[Nihonto]

No-one?

[opentype]

It’s unfortunately how payments in Commerce works. You get a specific time to renew, and once that time has expired, you cannot renew anymore, because the invoice has expired. But you also cannot purchase again, because there is already an invoice pending. But you cannot pay that invoice because it is expired …

Always reminds me of this:

 

Edited October 6, 2021 by opentype

[Nihonto]

Surely this is a critical issue? I mean maybe guys want to take a break from the subscription for a while and not renew. And then later they decide they want to continue?
Is there a workaround? I find manually adding them causes other issues, and so does cancelling invoices etc.
Best way to make them not inactive and able to sign up again?

[PPlanet]

5 hours ago, Brian Robinson_47676 said:

No-one?

I don't know how much it differs from the way I have things set up, but basically, for a while, not sure if by defect or by design, members were able to buy different subscription packages at the same time (of course nobody did that as the only difference in my packages is the amount of time between them, so no point having two subscriptions running simultaneously). However, this had the advantage that, if they wanted to buy a different subscription, once the previous expired, they could, so they could switch from 1 month to 3 months, or 6 months or 1 year, and any way around too. Even for the same duration, if one subscription renewal had expired, they just got a new one.

However, after some upgrade, I can't recall if from 4.4 to 4.5 (though I think that was for me, despite IPS saying the above functionality was never the case for the 4 series, but as I said for me it was, whether it was intended or not, and it suited me fine).

But, after that upgrade, I noticed what you say, which apparently, it's the way it should work by design now. That does not suit me, so I asked @DawPi to create a plugin for me to revert things as they were before. So, you may want to discuss it with him, if you are open to using a third party plugin.

Edited October 6, 2021 by PPlanet

[hpcrazy]

I detected the same problem here in my system. Are there any news about this ?

[Starship]

In many cases there's not even renew button!

This issue has been going since day one when Subscription feature was implemented. 

 

[hpcrazy]

Why is this not fixed ?

[Nehaj]

Is this fixed?

[Gary]

Hi @Nehaj,

If you toggle the setting for there to be an unlimited amount of time for invoices to be paid, and therefore not expire, does that help you?

If the above is enabled, the invoice flow relating to expirations would be as follows:

• Purchase expiration date
  If the purchase has an associated PayPal subscription, payment is taken.
  If the purchase has not been renewed, it enters a grace period where it is beyond its expiration date but still considered active. The length of the grace period can be set in the product settings.
  If the customer pays the invoice now, the current expiration date is extended by one renewal term.
• After grace period
  The purchase expires and any benefits given by the purchase are revoked. If the product has a custom email set to send when the purchase expires, that email is sent.
  If the customer pays the invoice now, the purchase is reactivated and a new expiry date is set to one renewal period from the current date.

These settings are found in your AdminCP -> Commerce -> Invoices -> Invoice Settings

If you do have an expiration date for invoices set, let's say 30 days for example, then after the grace period, the invoice flow would include:

• 30 days after invoice was generated
  If the invoice has still not been paid, it expires and can no longer be paid. To renew, an invoice would need to be manually generated in the AdminCP.

Hope this helps you.