Handling 500 Error: Customer Absence in Stripe When Using $stripeCustomer->createSetupIntent()

[short harbor]

Cashier's findBillable($stripeId) method throws a 500 error.

if the customer does not exist on Stripe, I want to set the corresponding user stripe_id in the database to null.

How can I check strip_id against Stripe before doing below?

$stripeCustomer = Cashier::findBillable($stripeId);
$intent->createSetupIntent();

[viral monolith]

Well what’s the exception being thrown? Because findBillable returns either the user or null if there’s no user with the given customer ID.

[short harbor]

I have stripe_id in my database, but i deleted the user in Stripe

[short harbor]

So when I do:

 $intent = $stripeCustomer->createSetupIntent();
 dd("intent er:", $intent);

I get 500

[viral monolith]

Well yeah, if you delete customers from Stripe then you’re going to have a bad time trying to do stuff with that customer.

[short harbor]

I know, but it could be nice, to check Stripe and if customer is deleted there, I will create a new stripe_id for the customer

$stripeCustomer = $user->createAsStripeCustomer();

[short harbor]

It is working with payment methods, if a payment method is deleted at Stripe, payment methods are getting updated

[viral monolith]

but it could be nice, to check Stripe and if customer is deleted there
This is what webhooks are for.
Or just don’t delete customers that are actually customers.

So the problem you’ll have now is, you’ll be trying to create setup intents for a customer that doesn’t exist, and Stripe will be like, “I have no idea who that customer is”. Because you deleted them 🙃

[short harbor]

no

[viral monolith]

Why did you delete the customer in the first place? 🤷‍♂️

[short harbor]

I am trying to take care of error handling

[viral monolith]

Yes. An error caused by you deleting the customer in Stripe. So why did you delete them?

[short harbor]

But just so be agree, it is working fine with payment methods

[short harbor]

I told you, error handling

[viral monolith]

Eh?

What do you mean, “error handling”?

[short harbor]

Like, what I already told you, check customer against Stripe

[viral monolith]

What error led you to go, “I’m going to delete the customer from Stripe now, but leave a reference to that deleted customer’s ID in my database.”

That’s just going to cause more errors.

Not “handle” any.

[short harbor]

no

How is that?

It is just a check from my db against Stripe

[viral monolith]

…

[short harbor]

If stripe_id do not match any customer id in Stripe, then I will create a new Stripe customer

[viral monolith]

You still haven’t answered why you deleted the customer in Stripe in the first place.

[short harbor]

I am testing

So you are saying, that I should not touch Stripe and manage everything from my backend?

[viral monolith]

Well I’m saying, if you have customer IDs in your database, you shouldn’t then delete those customers in Stripe. Otherwise then things are going to break.

[short harbor]

Ahh, So if or necessary or needed I should delete the stripe customer from my backend?

[viral monolith]

I’d just be cautious about deleting customers at all. They’ve obviously been created for some reason (i.e. a payment has been made or something).

Customers don’t create themselves in Stripe.

[short harbor]

Make sense. But what if a customer deletes thier user account from my site, will cashier atumatically delete thier stripe account?

[short harbor]

Not sure if my question make sense

[viral monolith]

I’d still leave the customer in Stripe, for reporting.

[short harbor]

Ahh

[viral monolith]

But definitely don’t delete customers in Stripe and leave their user account in your database.

[short harbor]

Do you know, what cashier will do to a active subscription if user deletes thier account and forget to delete thier subscription first?

[short harbor]

It's my first integration, and I just want to find out how everything is fitted together

[viral monolith]

You shouldn’t be deleting user accounts that have an active subscription in the first place.

I don’t think Cashier will do anything (except break) if you delete a row from the users table when that user has subscriptions, because Cashier doesn’t expect you to go deleting users with active subscriptions.

[short harbor]

But what if user deletes their own account - and not canceling or deleting thier subscription first?

[viral monolith]

You shouldn’t be letting users delete their account if they have an active subscription.

[short harbor]

got it

[short harbor]

Below is what I was originally looking for:

$stripeCustomer = $user->asStripeCustomer();
dd("True or false", $stripeCustomer->isDeleted());

[short harbor]

And then I will just do:

if ($stripeCustomer->isDeleted()) {
$user
->forceFill([
"stripe_id" => null,
])
->save();
$user->createAsStripeCustomer();
}

[viral monolith]

You’re literally coming up with solutions for problems you’ve created yourself.

Don’t delete customers in Stripe, and then you don’t need to check if they’re deleted or not 🙃