Theme push succeeded but changes don’t show

01Why a push can succeed and still skip files

A push isn’t one upload. Each file is sent and checked on its own. If Shopify refuses a file, the others still land, the push reports success, and the theme keeps serving its old copy of the refused file.

Templates make it worse. A JSON template names the sections it uses, so a template that uses a refused section is refused as well. In the case below, one new section was used by 85 templates, so one file’s mistakes kept 86 files off the theme.

Two things hide it. The theme’s own last-updated time moves when any file lands, so it says nothing about the file you care about. And shopify theme check reads the theme on your disk; it doesn’t apply every rule Shopify applies on upload. On this thread (Aug 2025) developers describe the same thing with the GitHub integration and the CLI, and one later reply reports the integration logging no error at all. On an older one (Jan 2023), header changes pushed from an editor never appeared; the fix that came up most was reading View logs, which showed a syntax error the editor hadn’t flagged.

The upload rules that caught us

1. 01

   A section name longer than 25 characters

   The schema name has a 25-character limit. This is the one theme check catches, as ValidSchemaName (Shopify, ValidSchemaName).

2. 02

   A text setting with an empty default

   "default": "" was refused with Invalid schema: setting with id="master" default can't be blank. Leave default out instead. Theme check didn’t flag it.

3. 03

   A section id that starts with an underscore

   In a JSON template, the key a section sits under (its id) can’t start with _. _generated_notice was refused and generated_notice was fine. Theme check didn’t flag it either.

4. 04

   A video setting with the wrong kind of address

   An image_picker stores shopify://shop_images/..., so shopify://shop_videos/... looks right for a video setting. It isn’t: Shopify refused it with Setting 'video' value must be a valid video shopify url. The form that works is shopify://files/videos/<file name>, extension included.

02Read the log, then fix what it names

For store owners

1. 1

   Open the theme’s log

   In Online Store > Themes, on the card of the theme connected to GitHub, click View logs beside the Last saved time. It lists the last few sync events (Shopify, GitHub integration); a refused file shows there with its reason.

2. 2

   Send the errors to your developer

   Each one names the file and the rule it broke.

3. 3

   If the theme has fallen behind the branch

   Once the files are fixed, Actions > Reset to last commit on the same card pulls the branch again (Shopify). If anyone has edited the theme in the editor since the last sync, duplicate it first.

For developers: find out what landed, then read the errors

The Admin API gives every theme file its own updatedAt and checksumMd5. For a Liquid file the checksum is the MD5 of the file as it is in git, so you can compare file by file (JSON files carry a comment Shopify adds, so compare those by updatedAt). files returns 50 by default, so ask for more and page on with endCursor while hasNextPage is true (Shopify, OnlineStoreTheme):

query ThemeFiles($id: ID!) {
  theme(id: $id) {
    name
    files(first: 250, filenames: ["sections/*.liquid", "templates/*.json"]) {
      nodes { filename updatedAt checksumMd5 }
      pageInfo { hasNextPage endCursor }
    }
  }
}

md5sum sections/my-section.liquid   # on a Mac: md5 -q sections/my-section.liquid

• Read the errors where Shopify writes them: View logs for the GitHub integration, or the CLI. Pointing shopify theme dev at the same files printed the video error for us straight away.
• Run shopify theme check as well, but treat a pass as a start. On this theme it caught one of the three rejections in the new section.
• Copy the conventions of a section that already syncs in the same repo: plain snake_case ids, a short plain name, no empty defaults.
• When a push touches a section that many templates use, check one of those templates on the theme afterwards, not only the section.

03Compare the theme with git

1. 1

   Compare checksums

   After the push, every Liquid file you changed should show your local file’s checksum and a new updatedAt.

2. 2

   Open a page built from the template

   Preview the theme and load a page that uses one of the templates. The new section should be there.

3. 3

   Read the log again

   No refused files in View logs.