Troubleshooting Slow Loading and Website Performance Issues

Common Symptoms

Performance issues can show up in several ways:

• Pages load slowly or fail to load entirely on desktop and/or mobile

• The admin area becomes slow or unresponsive

• Product option sets stop responding intermittently

• Checkout pages time out or display a 504 Gateway Time-Out error

• Slow image load times or poor page speed scores (such as a high Largest Contentful Paint on mobile)

These symptoms may affect only certain pages, only mobile devices, or the entire site.

Steps You Can Take First

Before contacting support, try the following to help narrow down the cause:

• Test on more than one device and connection. Check whether the issue appears on both desktop and mobile, and on both Wi-Fi and cellular. This helps identify whether the problem is device-specific.

• Clear your browser cache and refresh. A stale cache can cause pages to load slowly or incorrectly.

• Note when the slowdown started. If performance changed noticeably on a specific date, that information is very helpful.

• Identify the specific pages affected. For example, note if the issue only happens on the cart or checkout page versus across all pages.

• Confirm whether any recent changes were made. If no changes were made on your end, mention that when reporting the issue.

If the problem continues, open a support ticket so our team can investigate. To help us resolve it quickly, please include:

• The affected URL(s) (both storefront and admin, if applicable)

• A clear description of the symptom (slow loading, timeout, unresponsive option sets, etc.)

• Where the issue occurs (mobile, desktop, or both)

• Steps to reproduce the problem (for example, "add a product to the cart and proceed to checkout")

• Screenshots or a short screen recording if you can capture the behavior

• The date the issue began, if you noticed a specific change

The more detail you can provide, the faster our team can pinpoint the cause.

A Note About PCI Compliance and Site Scripts

Some performance and security concerns are related to outdated site components, such as an older JavaScript library version flagged in a PCI compliance scan, or third-party scripts (like cookie consent or tag management tools) not working as expected.

If you receive a PCI compliance failure report, please forward the full report to our support team along with the affected site URLs. These updates are handled by our technical team.

Note: Some fixes may require work by our development team. Where applicable, our support team will let you know the scope of the work and any associated details before proceeding.

Reach out to WSM Support if:

• Slowdowns or timeouts persist after the steps above

• Customers report being unable to complete checkout

• You receive a security certificate warning or a 504 error

• You notice a significant, unexplained drop in your site's performance metrics

Our team can review server-side performance, site configuration, and third-party integrations to identify and resolve the underlying cause.

Note: One of the submitted tickets contained standard SMS opt-in messaging that is not relevant to troubleshooting; it has been excluded from this article.