A failed license-delivery webhook usually means the receiving endpoint did not acknowledge an event as expected—not necessarily that the license event never happened. Whether the sender retries, and whether a license was issued or changed, depends on the specific provider. Check its delivery log and source-of-truth license records before deciding what to replay.
What does a failed webhook mean?
A webhook is an HTTP request that a service sends to a configured endpoint when an event occurs. The sender may record delivery as failed if it cannot connect, the request times out, or the endpoint returns a response the sender does not accept. The exact success criteria and timeout are provider-specific.
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For example, GitHub records a delivery as failed if its server is unavailable or takes longer than 10 seconds to respond. Shopify treats responses outside the 200 series as unsuccessful and documents a five-second response threshold in its delivery details. These are platform-specific rules, not universal webhook limits. See GitHub’s failed-delivery guidance and Shopify’s troubleshooting guide.
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A failed acknowledgement alone does not prove that the originating service failed to issue or update a license. Check the event and license records in that service. The examples below explain delivery behavior, but they do not establish the license semantics of an unnamed vendor.
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Will the sender retry a failed delivery?
Retry policies differ substantially. GitHub does not automatically redeliver failed webhook deliveries. Shopify retries failed calls up to eight times over four hours; after eight consecutive failures, a subscription may be removed depending on its configuration. Stripe says unsuccessful events are retried several times, but its cited troubleshooting guidance does not state an exact count or schedule.
| Sender | Automatic retry behavior | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub | No automatic redelivery of failed deliveries | Manual redelivery or an API-based workflow is available. See GitHub’s failed-delivery guidance. |
| Shopify | Up to eight retries over four hours | After eight consecutive failures, delivery can stop and the subscription may be removed depending on configuration. See Shopify’s troubleshooting guide and delivery verification guidance. |
| Stripe | Retries unsuccessful events several times | The cited support page does not give an exact count or schedule. See Stripe’s webhook troubleshooting guidance. |
These examples are not a substitute for the documentation of the service that delivers your license events. Confirm its accepted status codes, timeout, retry window, maximum attempts, event retention, replay options, and subscription-disable policy.
How to diagnose the failure
- Confirm the event and destination. Check that the event exists in the source service and that the intended endpoint and subscription are configured.
- Open the delivery record. Look for the attempt time, HTTP status, response details, and any connection or TLS error. GitHub’s guide helps distinguish missing delivery records from connection and timeout failures. Stripe likewise directs users to inspect the failed event’s webhook attempts, status, and response.
- Classify the failure. Determine whether it was DNS or network connectivity, TLS, a timeout, a non-success HTTP status, or an application-level rejection.
- Compare with receiver logs. Review application logs at the attempt time and verify what response the endpoint actually returned.
- Fix the cause before redelivery. Replaying against an unavailable endpoint or unchanged error condition is likely to fail again.
How to prevent repeat failures and duplicate effects
Acknowledge promptly, then process reliably
Respond within the sender’s deadline. GitHub recommends a 2XX response within 10 seconds and suggests moving slow work to a queue so the endpoint can acknowledge promptly. Shopify documents its own five-second response threshold. These figures apply to those providers, not every webhook sender. See GitHub’s webhook best practices and Shopify’s troubleshooting guide.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchA quick acknowledgement should not mean discarding the event. Persist enough information to process it reliably in the background, and monitor the queue for work that fails after the HTTP response has been sent.
Verify authenticity and make processing idempotent
Use the provider’s documented signature-verification method; Shopify, for example, documents HMAC SHA-256 verification in its delivery verification guidance. Also assume an event may arrive more than once, including around timeouts and retries. Record a stable event or delivery identifier and ensure handling a duplicate cannot issue a license twice or overwrite a newer entitlement state. GitHub’s X-GitHub-Delivery identifier stays the same when a delivery is redelivered; Shopify distinguishes webhook IDs and event IDs in duplicate scenarios.
How to recover after an outage
Retries are the sender’s attempts to deliver an event. Recovery is the broader work of restoring the endpoint and making the receiver’s records match the source system. A retry window can expire, or a subscription can be removed, without repairing the receiver’s state.
- Restore endpoint health and configuration. Confirm that the endpoint is reachable, responds as required, and remains subscribed to the needed events.
- Use the supported replay path. GitHub supports manual redelivery and REST API workflows. Use the sender’s documented controls rather than assuming it will resume automatically.
- Check for a removed or inactive subscription. Shopify advises recreating removed subscriptions where applicable after retries are exhausted.
- Reconcile against the source of truth. Compare the receiver’s license or entitlement records with the vendor’s records. For an extended outage or unavailable event, use the provider’s API or export to identify and safely apply missing changes; Shopify explicitly recommends importing missing data after an extended outage.
The exact license API, available event history, and replay window depend on the license provider. They cannot be inferred from GitHub, Shopify, or Stripe’s general delivery behavior.
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If you administer integrations with more than one provider, document these behaviors for each one:
Quick Recap
- Which HTTP status codes count as success, and the acknowledgement deadline.
- Whether retries are automatic, how many attempts occur, and how long the retry window lasts.
- How long events remain available and whether manual replay is supported.
- Whether repeated failures pause or remove a subscription.
- How signatures are verified, how duplicates are identified, and whether event ordering is guaranteed.
- Where attempt logs are available and how license records can be reconciled after downtime.
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