There's nothing more dismaying than seeing an error pop up while you (or your customers) are trying to submit a form. Luckily for every error, there's a reasonable explanation and solution behind it, and this help article will explain how to find the root of the problem - and more importantly, a good fix or suggestion for how to avoid it altogether! 🛠️

Example of error:

This means that the email address that was supplied when filling out the form is already on file in Shopify, but the customer is not logged in to their existing account. The app will display this message and trigger the app's Account verification email template to be sent to the customer. After using the emailed verification link, the form submission data gets added to the customer's account record.

This happens when an email address was previously collected via a newsletter sign-up, during guest checkout, if a customer record was created directly in the Shopify admin, or if a customer signs up through Shopify's passwordless new Customer account system.

When a customer record already exists in Shopify but the user is not logged in to their account, the app must verify account ownership before updating the account with new form submission data. When this error occurs, the app will send the customer account verification email to the customer. This email contains a special link to confirm they have access to the email address in question. When the link is clicked, the customer is able to set and confirm the desired password for their Legacy account or is instantly verified when using passwordless new Customer accounts. When verified, all of the data that was collected on form submission will be automatically added to the customer's account record.

The goal behind this logic is to ensure that the user registering for an account actually has access to the email address that is already on file, since the user would be able to access any previous orders or data that were placed associated with the email address.

For Shopify's passwordless new Customer accounts, the customer can simply log into their existing account before submitting the form to avoid additional verification after form submission.

For Legacy customer accounts, the pre-existing customer account would need to be deleted to allow the customer to submit the form without verification, however the verification process should allow the customer to activate their account when this "Verify email" error occurs, so you might not need to take any additional action since the customer can simply activate their account from the email they received.

We've recently added a new setting to forms that allows you to require customers to verify their email address before their account can be activated (learn more). Please note that when the 'Require email verification' setting is enabled, every new customer will get the "Verify email" error after submitting the form.

Example of error:

This means that the email address that was supplied when filling out the form is already attached to an existing customer account in the Shopify store.

See the screenshot below to see an example of a customer record in Shopify that has an active account:

This error occurs because Shopify's system does not allow for duplicate email addresses for customer accounts. For security purposes, Shopify requires a unique email address for every customer record in a store.

Since Shopify does not allow for duplicate emails, there are two options:

🎉 Pro-tips:

Example of error:

This means that the phone number that was supplied when filling out the form is already attached to an existing customer record in the Shopify store. The customer record may or may not have an actual account on the store (e.g. customer records created via guest checkout).

See the screenshot below to see an example of a customer record in Shopify that has an active account with a phone number on file:

This error occurs because Shopify's system does not allow duplicate phone numbers to be used for customer records (just like email addresses). For security purposes, Shopify requires that every customer record uses a unique phone number as the main contact number.

Since Shopify does not allow for duplicate phone numbers, there are two options:

🎉 Pro-tip: If you are trying to store multiple phone numbers on one account, you can add custom input phone number fields to the form.

Example of error:

This means that either the supplied phone number or email address is considered to be invalid by Shopify. The screenshot shown above shows what happens when a phone number is invalid, but a similar message would show if the email is invalid.

This error occurs if the user tries to supply invalid information when submitting the form. Shopify (and Customer Fields) has built-in validation that prevents the user from submitting data in an improper format. You can learn more about field validation using this help article.

Since Shopify requires phone numbers and email addresses to be valid, the user must supply a valid email and/or phone number when submitting the form.

🎉 Pro-tip: Custom input fields and address fields do not have the same validation as standard fields do. You can learn more about the different types of fields available in Customer Fields using this help article.

Example of error:

This means that the form did not include enough data for the app to create a customer record in Shopify.

This error will show is only applicable to forms that do not require account approval. If the form does not contain fields for first_name, last_name, email, or phone, and the person submitting the form is not already logged into a customer account on the storefront, then the app will attempt to create a new customer record in Shopify. Shopify's system requires data for at least one of the fields (name/email/phone), so without the required data, the form submission will be rejected.

The best way to avoid this error is to ensure that your form has at least one of the required fields. Another way to avoid this error is to ensure that each customer has logged into their account before submitting the form.

This means that Shopify was not able to communicate properly with our Customer Fields app.

This is a very rare error, and it usually will only occur in certain circumstances when the Shopify platform (or the specific store you're using) is having problems.

There really isn't much you can do to avoid this particular error, but you can check Shopify's status page to see if there are any known problems: shopifystatus.com

In most cases, this error is quite temporary, and it will be resolved within 15 seconds to 2 minutes. Simply wait a moment and then try to submit the form again.

This means that Customer Fields and/or Shopify ran into an unexpected problem.

This is also a very rare error, and it usually will only occur if Shopify is having an outage or the Customer Fields app is having an outage.

There really isn't much you can do to avoid this particular error, but you can check the status pages for Shopify and Customer Fields to see if there are any known problems:

This means that the customer who is submitting the form has not passed the hidden reCAPTCHA.

This error occurs when the app's spam protection feature is enabled. If the reCAPTCHA is not able to detect that the customer submitting the form is a real person, then they will get the spam protection error.

Although it's strongly discouraged, you do have the option to disable the app's spam protection feature. Learn more about spam protection using this help article.

This means that the store has exceeded a server's rate limits.

This is a very rare error, but it occurs in cases where a store receives a massive amount of form submissions in a short period of time. When this happens it can cause the app's servers (or Shopify's servers) to hit a rate limit, and this prevents forms from being submitted until the rate limit is reset.

There really isn't a good way to avoid this issue since it is purely based on website traffic and form submissions. Stores on Shopify's Plus plan have increased rate limits, so if you notice your customers are experiencing this error often, it might be a good idea to consider upgrading your store's plan.

Luckily, all of the error messages mentioned in this article are easily customizable: