Feed Health Monitor
The Feed Health Monitor checks your feeds for you, so a broken feed doesn't go unnoticed until sales drop. Every time a static feed is regenerated, ShopFeed validates every product in it, records a pass/fail result, and emails you if something looks wrong.
Navigate to WooCommerce → ShopFeed → Overview → Feed Health Monitor to see results, and Product Defaults → Feed Health Alerts to configure alerts.
The monitor runs on static feed regeneration (scheduled or Generate Static Feeds Now). Feeds set to Live delivery are built on request, so they are not checked by the monitor. Use the Feed Validator to check those on demand.
What Is Checked
Each product in the regenerated feed is checked for:
- Missing GTIN and MPN
- Zero or empty price
- Missing availability
- Missing image
- Empty description
- Title over 150 characters
- Missing brand
These are the same checks as the Feed Validator, but the monitor covers the whole feed, not a 50-product sample.
When a Run Counts as Failed
A regeneration is marked Needs attention when any of these is true:
| Condition | Detail |
|---|---|
| Error threshold reached | At least the configured percentage of products has one or more errors (default 10%) |
| Products dropped out | The feed contains 20% or more fewer products than the previous run |
| File not written | The feed file could not be saved, usually a permissions problem on wp-content/uploads/shopfeed |
Otherwise the run is marked Healthy.
Stale Feed Detection
Once a day ShopFeed checks every enabled static feed. If a feed has not regenerated within twice its update frequency (for example, a daily feed not updated for 2 days), you are emailed. This catches stalled WP-Cron, a fatal error during generation, or a disabled schedule.
Overview Card
The Feed Health Monitor card on the Overview tab shows, for each feed:
- When it was last checked
- Status: Healthy or Needs attention
- Products with errors, as flagged / total
- The top reasons, with counts, and links to the edit screens of a few affected products (up to 5 per reason)
- A dot for each of the last 10 runs (green = healthy, red = needs attention). Hover a dot for the time and the problem.
The last 30 runs per feed are kept.
Email Alerts
Configure alerts under Product Defaults → Feed Health Alerts.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Email alerts | On | Send an email when a feed needs attention |
| Alert email | Site admin email | Where alerts are sent; leave empty to use the admin email |
| Error threshold (%) | 10 | Alert when at least this share of products has an error |
To avoid flooding your inbox, the same problem on the same feed is emailed once, then at most once every 24 hours while it continues. When a feed returns to healthy, its alert resets, so a new failure emails you again straight away.
Each email names the feed, lists what is wrong, shows the top reasons, and links to the ShopFeed page.
Alerts are sent with WordPress's standard mail function. If you don't receive them, check your site's outgoing email (an SMTP plugin is recommended) and your spam folder.
Fixing What the Monitor Finds
Fix the underlying product data, or add a rule to patch the feed output for items you can't or don't want to edit directly. Run Generate Static Feeds Now to re-check straight away.