Fixed – WooCommerce Order status returns to processing automatically.

Issue

If you’re experiencing an issue where order goes to “complete” status but then returns to “processing” automatically a few hours later.

Understanding the Default Behavior When a Product is Purchased

But if it’s a Virtual or Downloadable Product it automatically reverts back to “Processing”. Then there’s a problem that has to be addressed.

1. Virtual or Downloadable Products – Order will go to “Completed” automatically after payment is completed.
2. All Other Products – Order will go to “Processing”. Store owner manually need to set it to “Completed” when the products are shipped out.
   

Solutions to fix order stuck at “Processing” issue

1. Check Product Types
   Ensure that the product you are selling is marked as a virtual product. In the case of services or other non-physical offerings, you can consider making it downloadable as well, which is a subset of virtual products. This will allow you to enable the auto-completion functionality.
   

2. Check with other payment gateways
   Test with other payment gateways to find out if this issue is occurring only in selected payment gateways.
   
3. Theme / Plugin Conflict Test
   If you continue to experience issues after implementing the custom code or if you suspect conflicts with other plugins or customizations, you can perform conflict testing. WooCommerce provides a guide on how to test for conflicts, which can be found here: How to Test for Conflicts.
   
4. Programmatically Force all order to “Completed”
   In order to enable this for all orders, you’d want to try this custom code.
   
5. How about if your offering is a service?
   If your products are services and don’t require a download file, you can still achieve auto-completion by providing customers with a downloadable file such as a PDF with instructions or information about the service. This makes the product a virtual and downloadable product, allowing for automatic completion of orders.
   
6. Autocomplete orders with plugins
   If you prefer to use plugins and want more precise control over the status of your orders. Then you can try using Order Status Control for WooCommerce or Autocomplete WooCommerce Orders plugin.

By following the steps outlined in this tutorial, you can resolve the issue of WooCommerce orders reverting back to the processing status and ensure that they are marked as completed after shipping. Remember to check your product types, and consider doing a Theme/Plugin conflict test.