reCAPTCHA response token is empty

I’ll leave this here for the developer to see. Meanwhile, in an effort to get things working properly, I generated and installed new API keys for reCaptcha v2 along with a plugin (“Contact Form 7 – reCaptcha v2” by IQComputing) that downgrades CF7 to use the older reCaptcha v2 with checkbox. It’s finally working normally again.

CF7 developer should consider giving us a better way to troubleshoot… a log or something. And maybe something in the code that does a better job of letting us know when the token is missing, or maybe some redundancy that ensures the token is not missing in the first place?

Why would this get marked as “resolved”? This is absolutely not resolved and the reCaptcha v3 token is always empty.

I implemented a workaround via a different plugin that downgrades the reCaptcha version … I still would like to know why this plugin does not work properly with reCaptcha v3, and why the token is empty. Maybe this plugin needs an option to select the desired reCaptcha version and a method that very clearly determines when reCaptcha is failing.

I am not sure this will help you now or not. I had same issue and I updated reCAPTCHA key with V3. Might be you had old v2 key configured.
Ref : https://nimb.ws/odmsKG

Might be you had old v2 key configured.

This is absolutely not the case. Had just set up the v3 keys a few weeks before this “response token is empty” issue started and it had been working. Failed without warning and the complaint is how this plugin does not tell you it’s a recaptcha issue without installing Flamingo. Even then, we still don’t know why this is happening. Isn’t the JavaScript generated by this plugin responsible for inserting the token into the hidden field? So why is the token empty?

Hello, i fixed it by removing Contact Form 7 completely and install it again. on PHP 7.3.10. Hope this works for everyone…

Usually WordPress plugins leave their data and/or database tables behind after you remove the plugin. Can’t guarantee anything about what this one does…

Will the developer, hello!, please chime in here and explain this to us? If people are fixing this issue by reinstalling the plugin, then there is obviously something wrong with the plugin that is corrected upon reinstallation and/or activation. This should be a huge clue to the developer that something is wrong and needs to be addressed.

Meanwhile, I’m leaving my reCaptcha version 2 workaround in place.

Thanks to both of you for the replies.

I decided to go for it, but I can’t! When I click “Deactivate”, WP says it did it, but it didn’t – horrors, the zombie plugin that won’t turn off! See https://imgur.com/a/SBaTzmL

At the moment that the banner says “Plugin deactivated”, it is also counted as inactive in the filters at the top (“Active (12) | Inactive (2)”), but once I click on anything and the counts refresh, it goes back to “Active (13) | Inactive (1)”. I tried a couple other plugins that I didn’t mind experimenting with for a moment, and they deactivated correctly, so it’s probably just CF7.

What can I do?

Also, despite your reassurances, this comment by the plugin author scares me: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/uninstalling-contact-form-7/　
This is the site for a Japan-based disaster relief organization, so right now while coordinating relief efforts after our big typhoon would be a bad time for me to break the site.

Perhaps late tonight when traffic is lower, I’ll make a backup and then try removing the plugin by FTP – that seems drastic, but I don’t know what else to do.

@osakawebbie Unfortunately, I can’t offer any help with the deactivation of the plugin. It’s not something I’m familiar with. Issues in the past for me have related to the server being slow, so changes to plugins took a while… I literally just uninstalled the plugin and reinstalled it – it even stayed in place on the live site for me.. but I did take a snapshot of the form in case it didn’t happen. Good luck with the physical removal!

@osakawebbie as an alternative you can rename the plugin and it won’t get recognised… then try an install of the plugin… if it all goes wrong, you can just ‘un-rename’ the plugin back to what it should be

Thanks. I did the rename/install method, and it didn’t break anything.

But unfortunately, that did not fix the reCAPTCHA token problem in my case – it still rejects form submissions with an orange-bordered error box (orange means spam suspicion), and Flamingo says the reCAPTCHA token is empty.