GoCardless mandate_not_inactive: the mandate cannot be reinstated

What GoCardless says

GoCardless separates the two parts of the text with a dash. The API reference details it: “This will fail with a mandate_not_inactive error if the mandate is already being submitted, or is active.”. It is an invalid_state error, and for those GoCardless asks you to inform the user and not retry (“invalid_state → inform the end user, do not allow retry.”).

Which mandates can be reinstated

Reinstatement has more conditions than the status:

• It is a restricted function: “Restricted this endpoint requires approved custom payment pages”.
• It only applies to a mandate cancelled from the Dashboard or the API: “A mandate can only be reinstated if it has been cancelled through the dashboard or the API.”. One cancelled by the bank cannot: “Any mandate that has been cancelled by the bank cannot be reinstated.”.
• It works for cancelled or expired mandates (“Reinstates a cancelled or expired mandate to the banks.”), and a mandate can be resubmitted up to 10 times (“Mandates can be resubmitted up to 10 times.”).

After requesting it, the process is that of a new setup: resubmission_requested arrives and then, as GoCardless puts it, “so you will receive a submitted webhook, followed by a reinstated or failed webhook up to two working days later.”.

What Odoo does with the connector

On the customer's payment method form, the connector shows the button “Reinstate mandate (sandbox)”. It only appears if the mandate is from GoCardless, the provider is not in production (in Odoo 17, 18 and 19, the provider state; in Odoo 20, the production checkbox) and “Mandate Status” is cancelled, failed or expired.

When you press it:

1. The connector asks GoCardless to reinstate that mandate.
2. If GoCardless accepts it, the state changes to reinstate_requested and the customer form shows “Reinstatement of the GoCardless mandate requested. It stays unusable until the bank confirms it.”. The payment method stays archived.
3. When reinstated arrives, the connector marks it as valid again: it reactivates it and writes “The GoCardless mandate is usable again (reinstated).”.

If GoCardless replies mandate_not_inactive, the connector does not catch it: Odoo shows “GoCardless rejected the request.” with the GoCardless message, the reason and the request_id, and the mandate stays as it was. This happens when Odoo thinks the mandate is dead but in GoCardless it is already active or being submitted, because its events have not yet reached Odoo. After an accepted request, the button no longer appears, because the state changes to reinstate_requested.

The note that the mandate is usable again is written by the connector when applying the event, with no one present. The connector writes these texts in English, so in an English-language Odoo they appear exactly as quoted here, whether a user or a scheduled action triggers them: “The GoCardless mandate is usable again (reinstated).”.

What to do

1. If mandate_not_inactive appears, look up the mandate in the GoCardless Dashboard. If it is active or being submitted, there is nothing to reinstate: wait for its events to arrive. The scheduled task that recovers lost events every hour brings them in.
2. If the bank cancelled the mandate, do not try: GoCardless does not reinstate those. Ask the customer for a new mandate.
3. In production, the connector does not offer reinstatement: the path is a new mandate signed by the customer.
4. To test it, use the GoCardless sandbox with the provider in test mode.

With our connector

In Odoo 17, 18, 19 and 20 the connector only offers to reinstate a cancelled, failed or expired mandate, and only outside production, and it does not use it again until GoCardless confirms the reinstatement with its event.

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