Metafield Issues

Vantage writes AI readiness scores to your product metafields so they flow into Shopify Catalog syndication. Here are common metafield issues and how to resolve them.

Metafields not appearing on products

Symptoms: You've synced your catalog, but the vantage.ai_readiness_score and vantage.last_optimized metafields don't appear on your products in Shopify admin.

Solution:

1. Check the Settings toggle — Open Vantage Settings and verify that metafield writing is enabled (it's on by default)
2. Trigger a re-sync — Metafields are written after each audit cycle. A fresh sync triggers a new audit and metafield write
3. Check in Shopify admin — Go to the product page in Shopify admin and scroll to the Metafields section. Look for fields under the vantage namespace
4. Wait for write completion — For larger catalogs, metafields are written per product after the audit and may take a moment to complete

Metafield values seem outdated

Symptoms: The score shown in the Vantage app differs from the score in the product's metafield in Shopify admin.

Cause: Metafields are written during the audit phase. If you've viewed updated scores in the Vantage app but haven't completed a full sync cycle, the metafield may still hold the previous value.

Solution:

1. Trigger a fresh catalog sync from the dashboard
2. Wait for the sync and audit to complete
3. Check the product metafields again in Shopify admin

The metafield value should now match the score displayed in Vantage.

Metafield definitions missing

Symptoms: The vantage namespace metafields don't appear at all — not just empty values, but the definitions themselves are absent from your product metafield list.

Cause: Metafield definitions are registered during app installation. If the registration failed or was interrupted, the definitions may not exist.

Solution:

1. Uninstall Vantage from your Shopify admin (Settings > Apps and sales channels)
2. Reinstall Vantage from the Shopify App Store
3. The installation process re-registers all 10 metafield definitions
4. Trigger a sync to populate the metafields with scores

Metafields showing on some products but not others

Symptoms: Some products have the Vantage metafields, but others don't.

Possible causes:

• Product limit — Only audited products (within your plan limit) receive metafield writes. Products beyond the limit are synced but not audited or written to
• Write in progress — Metafields are written per product after the audit completes. If you check mid-write, some products may not have been processed yet
• Audit failure — If a specific product failed to audit (unusual, but possible with edge-case data), its metafields won't be updated

Solution:

1. Check your plan usage in Settings to confirm which products are within your limit
2. Wait a moment for the metafield writes to complete, then check again
3. Trigger a re-sync to retry the full audit and write cycle

What happens to metafields when you uninstall

This is expected behavior. Vantage metafields live in Vantage's app-reserved namespace, so they're owned by the app. When you uninstall Vantage:

• Vantage removes its metafield definitions and the values it wrote (including the AI readiness score)
• Those metafields stop appearing in your product admin and stop flowing into Shopify Catalog syndication
• Your own product data in Shopify (titles, descriptions, images, etc.) is never changed

You don't need to clean anything up manually. If you reinstall later, Vantage re-registers the definitions and re-writes the scores on the next audit.