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Mark Kaave
Mark Kaave

Posted on • Originally published at bugmail.site

Turns Out My Stripe Integration Was Silently Breaking (Here's How I Catch It Now)

#stripe #buildinpublic #saas #webdev

You know that feeling when you finally launch your project, the traffic starts coming in, and you're just waiting for that first Stripe notification?

Yeah, me too. But for me, that notification didn't come.

Instead, I got an email from a customer: "Hey, tried to buy the Pro plan but the checkout page just says 'Something went wrong'. Is it me or you?" and most times , customers wouldnt reach out😭

I checked my logs. Next.js on Vercel is great for security, but in production, it's a black box. It hides every stack trace to prevent leaking sensitive info. All I saw was a bunch of POST /api/checkout 500.

No reason. No context. Just a dead end.

I was losing sales at 2 AM because my Stripe integration was silently breaking, and I was completely oblivious.

Sentry? Not Tonight.

I looked at Sentry. I've used it before, but honestly? It's huge.
and the dashboards are overwhelming tbh.

so i built bugmail 🙃
A "2-minute setup" and an interface that looked exactly like Gmail. No complex charts, just an inbox for my bugs.

How I Fixed It (In Under 2 Minutes)

I didn't want to spend my night reading docs. I wanted to catch the next failing sale. Here is exactly what I did:

1. The Quick Install

pnpm add @bugmail-js/next
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2. The API Route Wrap
I didn't even have to change my logic. I just wrapped my checkout route to report the error if something exploded


// app/api/checkout/route.ts
import { captureServerError } from '@bugmail-js/next/server';

export async function POST(req: Request) {
  try {
    // My Stripe logic...
    const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({ ... });
    return Response.json({ url: session.url });
  } catch (error) {
    // This is the lifesaver right here
    await captureServerError(error, {
      context: { source: 'stripe-checkout' }
    });
    return Response.json({ error: 'Check logs' }, { status: 500 });
  }
}
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3. The React Hook for Client Drops
Stripe.js can fail on the client too (card declines, network drops). I used the hook to catch those:

'use client';
import { useBugMail } from '@bugmail-js/next';

export function PaymentComponent() {
  const { captureError } = useBugMail();

  const handlePay = async () => {
    const { error } = await stripe.confirmPayment({ ... });
    if (error) {
      captureError(error); // Caught it.
    }
  };
}
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The Result: Inbox Zero for Bugs

The next time a customer hit a snag, I didn't find out via a support email.

I got a notification that looked like a regular email. I opened the BugMail dashboard—which is literally an inbox—and there it was: "StripeCardError: Your card was declined."

I had the user's email, the items in their cart, and the exact timestamp. No digging through logs. No guessing.

Why this works for me:

If you're a solo dev or part of a small team, you don't need a heavy enterprise suite for error tracking. You need something that gets out of your way and lets you ship with confidence.

  • Fast: I was done in minutes.
  • Familiar: It feels like Gmail. Read, archive, or snooze.
  • Context: It actually tells me why the sale failed.

If you're shipping Next.js apps with Stripe, don't wait for your customers to tell you your checkout is broken.

You can try it for free at bugmail.site.

Now I can finally go back to sleep.

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