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Support and Update Policy

Plain-English notice: This policy explains what SmithShop support is intended to cover. It should be reviewed by qualified legal counsel before large-scale commercial use.

Support included

Reasonable installation guidance for supported PHP/MySQL hosting environments.
Help understanding SmithShop admin settings, update tools, restore tools, add-ons, and documentation.
Bug reports related to unmodified SmithShop core behavior.
Guidance for reproducing checkout, shipping, email, update, restore, and configuration issues.

Support not included

Custom programming, custom design, custom integrations, custom data cleanup, or custom migration work unless separately agreed.
Server administration, DNS management, email hosting, SSL setup, Cloudflare setup, payment account approval, carrier account approval, tax advice, legal advice, or bookkeeping advice.
Repairing third-party services, third-party outages, third-party API changes, bad hosting, hacked servers, malware, customer-edited core files, or unsupported custom modifications.
Entering, managing, or storing a customer's private API keys, passwords, payment credentials, or regulated customer data unless a separate written support arrangement is made.

Updates

SmithShop may publish updates through the browser updater, manual release zip, or other controlled distribution method. Updates may require correct file permissions, database access, PHP extensions, active license status, and writable backup paths.

Backups before updates

Customers should keep independent hosting or server backups before installing updates. SmithShop update tools may create file and database backups, but those tools do not replace a customer's responsibility to keep reliable off-site or hosting-level backups.

Emergency restore

Emergency restore links and tokens are provided as recovery tools after updates. They should be kept private and used only by trusted store owners or administrators. Restore links may expire and may not recover issues caused by server failure, missing backups, or external hosting problems.

Version support

SmithShop support focuses on current releases. Older versions may need to be updated before troubleshooting can continue. Security-related fixes may require customers to update promptly.