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This page consolidates the V1 FAQs, Known Issues, Roadmap, Release Notes, and How-To Topics into one navigable reference.

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FAQs \

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General

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What data entities on my Shopify store are protected by Vortex Backup?

Nineteen data types are protected:
  • Catalogue. Products, Collections.
  • Customer. Customers, Orders, Discount Codes, Discount Automatic.
  • Content. Blogs, Pages, Files.
  • Settings. Themes, Gift Cards, Navigation Menus, URL Redirects.
  • Commerce and Markets. Markets, Delivery Profiles, Locations, Price Lists, Catalogs.
  • Metafield and Metaobject. Metafield Definitions, Metaobject Definitions, Metaobjects.
See What we backup and rollback for the full per-entity coverage map.

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What is the difference between Realtime and Manual backup?

Realtime means Vortex Backup actively listens to Shopify webhooks and tracks changes in real time. Realtime backup is done for Products, Collections, Customers, Orders. Manual backup applies to entities that do not have Shopify webhooks. Take full backups by clicking the Backup button. Manual backup applies to: Discount Codes, Discount Automatic, Blogs, Pages, Files, Themes, Gift Cards, Navigation Menus, URL Redirects, Markets, Delivery Profiles, Locations, Price Lists, Catalogs, Metafield Definitions, Metaobject Definitions, Metaobjects. Initiate manual backup compulsorily from the Settings tab before and after making modifications or deletions for manual backup entities.

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Can I restore backup data to another store?

No. Currently, data can only be restored to the same store on which Vortex Backup is installed. For cross-store data movement, use Vortex Staging.

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What happens to my data during rollback?

Only the specific item you select is restored to its stored version. The rollback updates that record to match the stored version (or recreates it if it was deleted). It does not affect any other data in your store.

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Can I roll back specific items?

Yes. Rollback works on individual items. Select the specific product, customer, collection, or other entity you want to restore by its ID.

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Will rollback affect my orders?

No. Order data is protected and not affected by rollback operations. Order history, financial records, and fulfilment data remain intact.

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Can I undo a rollback?

There is no automatic undo-rollback feature. However, you can select a different stored version of the same item and restore again to reverse.

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Products and inventory

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Will my product images be restored?

Yes. Product images are stored as part of each version and restored during rollback. Image alt text and positioning are also restored.

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How is inventory handled during rollback?

Inventory levels are restored based on location name matching. If your store has locations with the same names as when the version was stored, inventory quantities will be correctly restored. If you have renamed locations since the version was stored, inventory may not match correctly.

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Are product metafields restored?

Yes. All standard metafield types (text, numbers, dates, JSON, etc.) are fully restored. Some reference-type metafields may require related entities to exist first.

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What about product sales channel publishing?

Yes. Product publication assignments are compared and synchronised during rollback.

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Customers

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Will customer passwords be restored?

No. For security reasons, customer passwords cannot be rolled back. Customers will keep their current passwords. Marketing consent status is fully restored: email and SMS subscription status, opt-in level, and consent date.

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Are customer addresses restored?

Yes. All saved customer addresses are restored, including shipping and billing addresses with full international format support.

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Collections

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Will my smart collection rules be restored?

Yes. All smart collection rules are restored, including match conditions, rule relationships (all / any), and sort order. Product membership is automatically determined by Shopify based on the restored rules.

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What about products in manual collections?

Existing product associations are removed and backup product IDs are re-added. Products must exist in your store. Shopify processes this asynchronously.

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Themes

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How does theme restore work?

Theme restore creates a new theme from the backed-up ZIP file with the suffix _restored_{timestamp}. Your current live theme is not affected. You can review the restored theme before publishing.

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Will my theme settings be preserved?

Yes. All theme files including settings_data.json, templates, sections, snippets, layouts, and CSS / JS assets are included in the ZIP backup and restored.

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Will nested menu items be restored?

Yes. The complete menu structure is restored including all parent-child relationships, link URLs, and resource associations.

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Discounts

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How are discount codes restored?

For existing discounts, the title, dates, usage limits, and combination rules are updated. For deleted discounts, a new discount is created with the first code from the backup. Advanced discount rules (like customerGets conditions) may be set to generic defaults during recreation and require manual adjustment.

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Delivery profiles (shipping)

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How does shipping profile restore work?

Two-phase: first all current zones, rates, and associations are removed, then the backup data is applied. Includes shipping zones with countries / provinces, rate definitions with price / weight conditions, location groups, and product associations.

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Markets

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What market data is restored?

Market name, handle, and active / inactive status. For deleted markets, regions are added based on country codes from the backup. Currency settings and web presences may require manual verification.

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Gift cards

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Will my gift card codes stay the same?

For re-created gift cards, new codes are generated for security. Communicate new codes to affected customers.

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What about partially used gift cards?

Gift cards are restored with their initial value as recorded in the stored version. Current balance information may not be available, so manual adjustment may be needed.

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Content (Pages and Blogs)

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Will my page formatting be preserved?

Yes. Page content including all HTML formatting, embedded media, and custom code is restored exactly as saved.

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Are blog comments restored?

No. Blog comments are not stored and cannot be rolled back.

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Files and media

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What file types are supported?

All Shopify file types: Images (JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP), Videos (MP4, MOV), External Videos (YouTube references), 3D Models, Documents (PDF, etc.).

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How are files stored?

Files are backed up to Azure Blob Storage. During restore, secure time-limited SAS URLs are generated for Shopify to download the file content.

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Metafields and metaobjects

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Are metafield definitions restored?

Yes. Metafield definition name, description, namespace, key, and owner type are restored. Note that the field type can only be set during creation and cannot be changed on update.

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What about metaobject definitions?

Metaobject definition name, description, and field definitions are restored. On update, only field names and descriptions can be modified. On creation, the full schema including field types is set.

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Are individual metaobject records restored?

Yes. All field values are restored. If the metaobject was deleted, a new one is created with the same type, handle, and field values.

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Troubleshooting

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”Record not found” what does this mean?

This message appears when the rollback tries to update a record that no longer exists in your store. The record will be recreated if possible.

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Why did my rollback fail?

Common reasons:
  • Missing dependencies. Related data (like products for collections) does not exist.
  • Validation errors. Some saved data may not meet current store requirements.
  • Shopify API rate limiting. Too many operations in a short period.
  • Permission issues. Access restrictions may prevent certain changes.
Check the Change Logs tab for specific error details.

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Known issues \

The following are known issues or limitations arising from restrictions or behaviours specific to the Shopify platform.

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Backup strategy overview

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Entities with realtime backup (via webhooks)

For Products, Collections, Customers, and Orders, real-time backups are triggered automatically whenever changes are detected via Shopify webhooks. By default, real-time backup is enabled after installation. This can be enabled or disabled anytime from the Settings page.

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Entities with manual (on-demand) backup

Initiate manual backup compulsorily before making changes as well as immediately after making any changes, from the Settings tab for all manual backup entities. The following entities require manual backup as Shopify does not provide webhooks: Discount Codes, Discount Automatic, Blogs, Pages, Files, Themes, Gift Cards, Navigation Menus, URL Redirects, Markets, Delivery Profiles, Locations, Price Lists, Catalogs, Metafield Definitions, Metaobject Definitions, Metaobjects. This is a backup tool, and data is not actively synced for manual backup entities. As a result, these entities may still appear as live even if they have been deleted in the store.

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Products

  • When a deleted product is being restored, the system assigns it a new product ID. Shopify generates product IDs and Vortex Backup cannot retain the original ID.
  • Updates to a product’s variant data (add, update, or delete) do not trigger Shopify webhooks. However, changes to other product fields do trigger webhook events. To ensure variant data is properly backed up, make a minor update to a standard product field (such as description or title) whenever variant data is modified.
  • Product restore involves a multi-stage process: existing media, variants, and metafields are deleted first, then recreated from the backup. Each stage is isolated so a failure in one (for example, image upload) does not prevent the remaining stages from completing.
  • Inventory quantities are restored per location, matched by location name. If you have renamed locations since the backup, inventory may not restore to the correct location.
  • Sales channel (publication) assignments are compared during rollback. Products are published to or unpublished from channels to match the backed-up state.

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Collections

  • Smart collections. Rules, conditions, and sort order are fully restored. Product membership is automatically determined by Shopify based on the restored rules; product mapping is not needed.
  • Manual collections. Existing product associations are removed, then backup product IDs are re-added. Products must exist in the store for associations to work. Shopify processes this asynchronously via a job, which is polled until completion.

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Orders

We do not restore orders in Shopify because they cannot be deleted, and restoring them could trigger actions like customer notification emails. Historical versions are displayed in the Restore Centre for view and compare. The order count may differ from the store dashboard because the app includes all orders, active, incomplete, archived, plus incomplete orders with declined payment status, in its calculation. Archived orders are not currently included in backups and therefore cannot be restored.

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Themes

  • Theme restore creates a new theme from the backed-up ZIP file with the name suffix _restored_{timestamp}. The original theme is not overwritten.
  • If the backup does not have a ZIP URL (older backups before file-level backup was implemented), only theme metadata (name) is updated.
  • Theme files are uploaded in batches of 10 (Shopify API limit). Large themes with many files may take longer to restore.
  • The restored theme is created as unpublished by default. You must manually review and publish it.

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Files (media)

Files are backed up to Azure Blob Storage. During restore, time-limited SAS URLs are generated for Shopify to download the file content. Supported file types: Images, Videos, External Videos, 3D Models, Documents.

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Discounts

  • Discount rollback determines the type (code-based or automatic) from the backup data and routes to the appropriate Shopify GraphQL mutation.
  • When creating a new discount (for deleted discounts), the customerGets configuration is set to a generic placeholder (all items, 0% percentage). Advanced discount rules may require manual adjustment after restore.
  • For code-based discounts, the first code from the backup is used during recreation. If no codes exist, the code “RESTORED” is used.

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Gift cards

When a deleted gift card is restored, a new code is generated by Shopify for security reasons. The original code cannot be retained. You will need to communicate the new code to the affected customer. Gift card initial value is restored from the backup. Current balance information may require manual adjustment. Menu rollback restores the complete nested structure including all parent-child relationships. If an update fails (for example, the menu was deleted), the system falls back to creating a new menu with the same handle and items.

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Markets

Market rollback restores the name, handle, and enabled / active status. When creating a new market (for deleted markets), regions are added based on country codes from the backup. Currency settings, web presences, and locale configurations from the backup are captured but may require manual verification after restore.

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Delivery profiles (shipping)

Two-phase operation:
  1. Remove phase. All current variant associations, zones, and location assignments are removed from the profile.
  2. Add phase. Backup variant IDs, locations, zones (with countries and provinces), and rate definitions (with conditions) are applied.
Countries marked as “Rest of World” in the backup are excluded during zone recreation, as Shopify handles Rest of World zones differently.

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Locations

Location rollback restores the name, address, and fulfilment settings. For deleted locations, a new location is created with the backup address.

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Price lists

Price list rollback restores the name, currency, and parent adjustment settings. Fixed prices are deleted and re-added from the backup in batches of 250 per variant.

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Metafield definitions

Metafield definition rollback restores the name, description, namespace, key, and owner type. The type (for example, single_line_text, integer) can only be set during creation; it cannot be changed on update.

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Metaobject definitions

Metaobject definition rollback restores the name, description, and field definitions. On update, only field names and descriptions can be modified. On creation, the full schema including field types is set.

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Metaobjects

Metaobject rollback restores all field values. If an update fails (for example, the metaobject was deleted), the system falls back to creating a new metaobject with the same type, handle, and field values.

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Duplicate revisions

Occasionally, multiple webhook notifications are received from Shopify for the same data change, causing multiple versions in the Restore Centre. Duplicates are typically identified and removed; some may persist. This does not impact the accuracy of data restoration.

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Realtime backup of a data entity is disabled

The Enable / Disable toggle controls the subscription to Shopify webhooks. When real-time backup is disabled, Vortex Backup sends an immediate API request to unsubscribe; however, it may take up to 10 minutes for this change to take effect. Changes made just before disabling may still appear in the backup.

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Version comparison notes

The Summary tab always displays the complete dataset; difference comparison is not supported there. Use the Source Code view to see differences. The deleted version cannot be indicated in the version dropdown list for non-webhook entities (Discounts, Blogs, Pages, Files, Themes, Gift Cards, Navigation Menus, URL Redirects, Markets, Delivery Profiles, Locations, Price Lists, Catalogs, Metafield Definitions, Metaobject Definitions, Metaobjects), because webhook events are not available for these entities.

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Restore of deleted data before app installation

We do not restore data that was deleted prior to app installation.

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Roadmap \

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Delivered

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Q4 2025

  • Base version of the app with real-time backup and manual full backup.
  • Support for Products, Collections, Customers, Orders, Discounts, Blogs, Pages, Files, Gift Cards.

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Q1 2026

  • Backup and restore of Themes (full ZIP backup with file-level restore).
  • Backup and restore of Navigation Menus with nested item hierarchy.
  • Backup and restore of Metaobjects and Metaobject Definitions.
  • Backup and restore of URL Redirects.
  • Backup and restore of Delivery Profiles (shipping profiles with zones, rates, conditions).
  • Backup and restore of Markets (international market configurations).
  • Backup and restore of Locations (store locations with addresses).
  • Backup and restore of Price Lists (with per-variant fixed prices).
  • Backup and restore of Catalogs.
  • Backup and restore of Metafield Definitions.
  • UI standardisation and font updates.
  • File backup to Azure Blob Storage with SAS URL based restore.

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Release notes \

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Release notes, 06 Mar 26

Fixes (BACKSF-30)
  • Backup and restore of Themes.
  • UI changes to standardise fonts.
  • Add backup and restore support for Navigation Menus, Metaobjects, Metaobject Definitions, URL Redirects, Shipping Profiles, Markets, Locations, Price Lists.

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Release notes, Oct 25

Base version of the app.

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How-to topics \

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Restore a single item to a previous version

  1. Navigate to the Restore Centre.
  2. Use the Content Type filter to select the entity type (Products, Collections, Customers, etc.).
  3. Optionally use the search box or date picker to narrow results.
  4. Find the item in the grid.
  5. Click Restore corresponding to the version you want.
  6. Side-by-side comparison opens; switch between Summary and Source Code views.
  7. Click “Restore to this version” and confirm.
  8. Check Change Logs to confirm the restore.

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Restore a product

  1. Navigate to Restore Centre, filter by Products.
  2. Find the product, click Restore for the desired version.
  3. Review pricing, variants, images, inventory.
  4. Click “Restore to this version” and confirm.
What gets restored: title, description, variants, images, metafields, inventory per location, sales channel publishing.

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Restore a collection

  1. Navigate to Restore Centre, filter by Collections.
  2. Click Restore for the desired version. Review and confirm.
For manual collections, product associations are removed and re-added. For smart collections, rules and conditions are restored; product membership is automatically determined.

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Restore a theme

  1. Navigate to Restore Centre, filter by Themes.
  2. Click Restore for the desired version.
  3. A new theme is created from the ZIP with suffix _restored_{timestamp}.
  4. The restored theme is unpublished; review before publishing.

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Restore a navigation menu

  1. Restore Centre, filter Navigation Menus.
  2. Click Restore for the desired version.
  3. Full menu structure is restored.

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Restore a delivery profile

  1. Restore Centre, filter Delivery Profiles.
  2. Click Restore. The system runs the two-phase operation: remove current zones, then apply the backup.

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Take a manual backup

  1. Settings tab.
  2. Find the entity, click Backup.
  3. Click Confirm in the popup.
  4. Wait for completion; the Date and Time column updates.
Always take a manual backup before and after making changes to entities that use manual backup.

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Enable or disable real-time backup

  1. Settings tab.
  2. Find the real-time entity.
  3. Toggle Status to Enabled or Disabled.
It may take up to 10 minutes for Disable to fully take effect.

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Search and compare versions

  1. Restore Centre.
  2. Use the search box and date picker to find a specific item or time range.
  3. Click Restore to open comparison.
  4. Use Summary for full data; Source Code for raw JSON diff.

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Investigate restore failures

  1. Change Logs tab.
  2. Look for entries with Failure status.
  3. Read the error message. Common causes: missing dependencies, Shopify API errors, permission issues.
  4. Contact helpdesk@vortexiq.ai if needed.

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Still have questions?

If you need clarification, contact helpdesk@vortexiq.ai. To get assistance, submit a support ticket via the Helpdesk portal. When raising a ticket, include:
  • Your store URL.
  • The data entity record you are trying to roll back.
  • The record ID.
  • Any error messages you have received.