WC REST Variable Product Restore Fix

Proof-of-concept plugin to fix an inconsistency in WooCommerce Core where restoring a variable product via the REST API does not restore its variations, unlike the Admin UI. Issue: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/62833

⚠️ This plugin is not intended for production use.
It exists only to validate and demonstrate the correct behavior before upstreaming the fix into WooCommerce Core.

🐞 Problem Summary

WooCommerce handles variable products differently depending on how they are restored:

Admin UI behavior (correct)

• Trashing a variable product → variations are trashed
• Restoring the variable product → variations are restored automatically

REST API behavior (bug)

• Trashing via DELETE /products/{id} → variations are trashed ✅
• Restoring via PUT /products/{id} with status=publish|draft →
  ❌ parent is restored
  ❌ variations remain in trash

This causes data inconsistency:

• REST API reports parent as publish
• Variations remain inaccessible and non-purchasable
• _wp_trash_meta_* remains set on variations

🔍 Root Cause

The REST API performs a shallow status update on the parent product and does not trigger the internal untrash logic (wp_untrash_post) that the Admin UI relies on.

As a result:

• Variations are not restored
• Core hooks responsible for cascading restore are skipped

✅ What This Plugin Does

This plugin hooks into: woocommerce_rest_insert_product_object

When a variable product is updated via REST and its status changes from trash → publish|draft|private, it:

1. Detects the REST restore action
2. Iterates over child variations
3. Untrashes any variation still in trash
4. Syncs the variation status with the parent

This restores parity between REST API and Admin UI behavior.

🧪 How to Reproduce the Bug

1. Create a variable product with one or more variations
2. Ensure all are publish
3. DELETE /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id} (without force=true)
   • Parent + variations move to trash
4. PUT /wp-json/wc/v3/products/{id} with:

   
   { "status": "publish" }
   5.Observe:
   Parent is publish
   Variations remain trash ❌

How to Verify the Fix

With this plugin active: Repeat the steps above -After restoring the parent: -Variations are restored automatically -REST responses for variations return status: publish -Product becomes purchasable again