Custom product taxonomy Archive Layout: condition not matching / empty product loop

Support
#1

Hi,

I’m trying to build a WooCommerce Archive Layout for a custom product taxonomy called “Subject” (registered via ACF Pro, public and publicly queryable, attached to the product post type). I’ve hit two related but distinct issues and would appreciate help isolating the cause.

Setup:

  • Custom taxonomy: Subject (slug: ew_subject or similar, ACF Pro, public and publicly_queryable both true, correctly registered and confirmed working via is_tax() and body classes in Query Monitor)
  • Archive Layout built in Cornerstone/Pro, containing a title, breadcrumb, and a product grid (Looper Consumer set on the product column, same structure used successfully on every other archive layout on this site, no explicit Looper Provider added, consistent with your documentation stating Archive Layouts use the default WordPress Query)
  • 156 products correctly assigned the “Bird” term within this taxonomy
  • WordPress: [version], WooCommerce: [version], Pro theme: [version], Cornerstone: [version]

Issue 1: “Product Taxonomy is Subject” condition doesn’t trigger the Archive Layout at all

With the Archive Layout’s condition set to “Product Taxonomy is Subject”, visiting any Subject term archive (e.g. /subject/bird/ ) shows the plain default WooCommerce archive template, no Cornerstone styling, no custom title or breadcrumb, just the stock grid. Adjusting Assignment Priority (tested 0, 10, -10) made no difference.

Using Query Monitor, I confirmed:

  • Template File used: wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/templates/archive-product.php (loaded directly from the WooCommerce plugin, not the theme)
  • Template Hierarchy correctly listed taxonomy-specific templates for this term ( taxonomy-ew_subject-bird.php , taxonomy-ew_subject-28.php , etc.) and included framework/legacy/templates/archive.php further down the chain
  • Body classes confirmed tax-ew_subject , term-28 , term-bird , confirming WordPress correctly recognises the archive context

This suggests WooCommerce’s own template_include hook is claiming the request before Cornerstone’s Archive Layout system evaluates the “Product Taxonomy” condition, or that condition is scoped to a singular-product context (checking whether a specific product has a term) rather than an archive context, and therefore never matches on an archive page. Deactivating two custom plugins that also hook pre_get_posts made no difference, ruling those out.

Issue 2: “Product Subject: [specific term]” condition does trigger the layout, but the product grid is empty

As a diagnostic test, I changed the condition to “Product Subject: Bird” (the term-specific condition). This did successfully engage the Archive Layout, the custom title (“BIRD”), breadcrumb (“Home → Bird”), and overall Cornerstone styling all rendered correctly on the front end. However, the product grid itself showed no results.

Confirmed via testing:

  • Disabling/unassigning the Archive Layout entirely reverts to the default WooCommerce template, which correctly displays all 156 Bird products, confirming the underlying WP_Query for this taxonomy archive is correct
  • The Looper Consumer is placed on the product column exactly as on our other (working) archive layouts, no explicit Provider, per your documentation on Archive Layouts using the default WordPress Query
  • No custom plugins were interfering (tested with two candidate plugins deactivated, no change)

Questions:

  1. Is there a supported, dynamic “any term” Archive condition for custom product taxonomies (equivalent to “Product Category Archive”, which does exist in our condition picker), or is “Product Taxonomy” intended to serve that role and this is a bug?
  2. Given Issue 2, once a layout is correctly triggered for a custom product taxonomy archive, is there a known reason the built-in main-query Looper would return zero results despite the underlying WP_Query / WC_Query being confirmed correct outside of Cornerstone’s rendering?

Login details in the Secure Note!

Many thanks,
Christopher