A customer cannot log in or register
Use this when a customer reports that they cannot sign in to the online shop, cannot create an account, or never receive password reset instructions.
Customer accounts are optional: checkout offers Sign in and Continue as guest. A guest purchase does not create a login, so "I bought tickets but cannot log in" is often a guest order, not a broken account.
1. Check whether the customer has an account at all
Open Sales > Customers in the back office and search by the customer's email. The customer overview shows whether the record has Login enabled or Login disabled, and the customer list can filter by Registered account versus No account.
- Login disabled: the profile may be unregistered or unactivated, or an authorized staff member may have intentionally disabled login. Confirm which state applies before changing it. If the customer never registered, they can use Create account in the shop. Activate an existing profile only after confirming that login was not deliberately disabled (check 3).
- Login enabled: the account exists; the problem is the password, the email spelling, or the shop being used.
2. Check the email and the shop
- Confirm the exact email spelling. The shop's sign-in error ("We couldn't sign you in. Please check your email or password and try again.") covers both a wrong password and an unknown email.
- Confirm the customer is on your shop's own domain and account. A login from a different organizer's shop will not work.
3. Activate an existing profile
For a customer record without login, the customer overview offers an Activation link area with actions to send an activation email, copy the activation link, or disable account login (shown as tooltips on the icons). The customer opens the link, sees Activate your account, and sets a password.
Only one registered account can exist per email address. If another customer record with the same email already has login enabled, activation for this record is not possible — resolve the duplicate first using Clean up duplicate customer records.
4. Check the password reset path
In the shop, the customer uses Forgot your password? or the Reset password tab. The shop always answers that instructions were sent "if an account exists", so a customer who never registered will wait for an email that never comes — that is check 1, not a delivery problem.
If reset emails do not arrive for a customer who does have a registered account, ask them to check spam, verify the email spelling, and continue in Emails are missing or incomplete.
A sign-in attempt can also answer Password reset required. This happens for accounts that were enabled without the customer ever setting a password; the reset flow resolves it.
Expected result
You know whether the customer is a guest without an account, an unactivated profile, a duplicate-email case, or a genuine password problem — and which action (register, activate, reset, or cleanup) fixes it.
Before contacting support
Collect:
- customer email and customer record link
- Login enabled / Login disabled state and any duplicate records
- the exact shop error text and timestamp
- whether activation or reset emails were sent and to which address
