First, confirm the order never processed
Alva Digital Downloads writes a Purchase row and an Email log entry the moment it processes an order. Open the order in the Alva admin: if there is no Purchase and the Email log is empty, the order never triggered processing. That is the upstream case this article covers — distinct from an email that was sent but never arrived.
The order is not marked paid in Shopify
Shopify fires ORDERS_PAID only when payment captures. Orders sitting in Authorized, Payment pending, or unfulfilled never fire it, so Alva never sees them. Capture the payment or click Mark as paid in Shopify admin — that fires the webhook and the existing handler delivers the email.
Manual capture leaves orders authorized
Shopify’s payment settings — including Automatically capture payment for orders set to manual, or “capture only on fulfilment” — leave orders authorized until you capture them. Merchants under EU and Danish capture rules often must capture manually. A Shopify Flow automation that captures payment or marks the order paid closes the gap automatically.
A third-party one-click checkout bypassed Shopify
Some one-click checkout apps create the order through the Shopify Admin API and never emit the standard paid webhook. Alva can process these through a separate, off-by-default path. If your store uses a one-click or external checkout, email support with your shop domain to be enabled — past orders cannot be recovered automatically.
The order arrived with no customer email
Alva keys each customer on a required email address. Some external payment providers pass no email, so the customer record is skipped and no email can be sent. The Alva dashboard flags the shop when this happens. Make email required at checkout; for an affected past order, obtain the address, update the customer, then use the order’s Resend email button.
Run this checklist
Work the list in order. The first three items resolve almost every upstream no-send. Reserve the last for orders that genuinely never reached Alva.
- Confirm the payment status badge in Shopify reads Paid, not Authorized or Payment pending.
- If it is authorized, capture payment or click Mark as paid to fire
ORDERS_PAID. - Check the order has a customer email address — no email means no delivery.
- Confirm you are not waiting on normal latency: a few minutes is expected, covered in Why an order takes a few minutes to appear in Alva.
- For a one-click or external checkout, contact Alva support to enable the alternate processing path.
Frequently asked questions
This article covers orders that never triggered processing — no Purchase row, no email attempt, nothing in the Email log. If the order processed and the Email log shows a Sent or InactiveRecipient row, the email was attempted and the problem is downstream — see Why your customer didn’t receive their download email.
Open the order in Shopify admin. The payment status badge must read Paid. Authorized, Payment pending, or Partially paid all mean payment has not captured, so ORDERS_PAID never fired. Capture the payment or use Mark as paid to fire it.
Yes. Marking a previously authorized order as paid fires ORDERS_PAID, and Alva processes it exactly like a fresh order — it writes the Purchase and sends the delivery email, provided the order has a customer email and the product is mapped.
Some third-party one-click checkouts create the order through the Shopify Admin API and never emit the standard paid webhook. Alva can process these through a separate path that is off by default. Contact support with your shop domain to be enabled.
Not automatically. Alva keys the customer record on a required email, so an order with no email is skipped and no email can be sent. Obtain the address, update the customer, then use Resend email on the order. Make email required at checkout to prevent it.
See also
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Last updated 2026-06-01