Symptom

Orders from a connected sales channel (e.g. Shopify, TrackStar, ShipStation) stop arriving in Luminous. You may also receive an email notification addressed to your account admins with a subject line like "Order sync auto-paused: [channel name]", or see an in-app notification with the same title. In the integration list, the channel's sync status badge shows Paused.

Why it happens

Luminous includes a built-in volume circuit breaker that caps the number of orders imported in a single scheduled pull. This protects your account from runaway sync events — such as a reconnected integration re-pulling your entire order history, or a large backlog accumulating after a network disruption.

When a pull is cut short by this cap, the sync cursor (the "synced through" timestamp) is intentionally held in place so the unprocessed orders are re-attempted on the next scheduled run rather than silently skipped. If the backlog is so large that it exceeds the hard per-pull ceiling on three or more consecutive pull cycles, Luminous concludes the live sync lane cannot drain the backlog on its own and automatically pauses that channel's order pull.

This system auto-pause is recorded with:

  • Paused by: system
  • Pause reason: a message explaining the backlog exceeded the pull ceiling and how many consecutive cycles were affected.
  • Timestamp of when the pause was applied.

Important distinctions:

  • Floor/adaptive throttling (smaller spikes that don't hit the hard ceiling) causes the per-pull cap to hold lower temporarily, but does not trigger an auto-pause — orders just arrive more slowly.
  • Operator-applied pauses (manually paused from the panel) are never overwritten by the system auto-pause, and the system's self-heal logic never resumes an operator pause.

How to identify the auto-pause

  1. Go to Settings → Integrations.
  2. Find the affected channel in the list. If the OMS Sync Control feature is enabled for your account, a sync icon (⟳) appears in the row's action buttons.
  3. Click the sync icon to open the OMS Sync Control panel for that channel.
  4. Look for:
    • A "Paused" badge in the header.
    • A note below the status cells showing "Paused by system", the timestamp, and the reason.
    • A highlighted callout: "System auto-paused — live sync will not catch up until you recover."

The panel also shows a "Synced through" timestamp (how far back the cursor is frozen) and a chart of recent order volumes per pull run.

How to resolve

Follow these three steps in order. Resuming without completing steps 1 and 2 will almost certainly cause the channel to auto-pause again on the very next pull.

Step 1 — Fill the gap in orders

Decide how large the missing window is (compare the "Synced through" date shown in the panel to today's date):

  • Short gap (up to 3 hours): Use the "Backfill a missed window" section in the OMS Sync Control panel. Pick a start and end time, review the estimated order count shown, then click Backfill window. This queues the re-import through the historical-import pipeline without moving the live sync cursor.
  • Longer gap: Use the Historical Import screen (accessible from the Settings → Historical Import). This can cover larger date ranges. Note that historical import triggering may be disabled for your account by default — if so, the screen will say "Import triggering is disabled. Contact Luminous to enable historical imports," and you'll need to reach out to support.

Step 2 — Advance the sync cursor to now

After the gap is filled (or if you are comfortable accepting that any orders in the gap window will not be re-imported), you need to move the sync cursor forward so the next live pull starts from the present rather than from the frozen point in the past.

  1. In the OMS Sync Control panel, locate the order volume chart.
  2. Drag the marker on the chart to the far right ("now"). The panel shows a live preview of how many orders the next pull would import from the selected point.
  3. A warning appears if the pull would be large. Confirm you want to skip ahead.
  4. Click "Skip ahead" (or "Recover cursor") at the bottom of the panel to save the new sync position.

Note: Fast-forwarding the cursor skips any orders between the old frozen timestamp and the new position on the live pull lane. Orders in that window should have been covered by the backfill in Step 1. If you skipped Step 1, those orders will not be automatically pulled.

Step 3 — Resume the order pull

  1. Click "Resume sync" in the OMS Sync Control panel.
  2. The Paused badge disappears and the channel returns to its normal 15-minute pull schedule.
  3. Monitor the "Synced through" timestamp and the status badge over the next one or two sync cycles to confirm orders are flowing normally.

Self-heal (automatic resume)

Luminous will attempt to resume a system-applied pause on its own once per 24-hour window if it detects that the current backlog has dropped below the per-pull cap — for example, after a transient spike subsides naturally. If the auto-resume holds, no action is needed. If the backlog is still too large for the live lane to drain, the self-heal leaves the pause in place and the manual steps above are required.

When to contact support

Contact Luminous support if:

  • The sync icon (⟳) does not appear on your integration — the OMS Sync Control feature may not be enabled for your account.
  • The "Synced through" date is many weeks or months in the past and you are unsure how much order history needs to be recovered.
  • The channel re-pauses immediately after you resume, even after completing all three steps.
  • You receive the auto-pause notification but cannot identify which channel it refers to.