Akismet no longer functioning at 100%

Send the details to [email protected] and we’ll be happy to take a look.

I am having the exact same problem:

2012-01: 294
2011-12: 10
2011-11: 1
2011-10: 2
2011-09: 1
2011-08: 0

Akismet 2.5.5
Wordpress 3.3.1

I will also email support.

Unless you have found the solution?

Akismet has never promised to stop 100% of spam. That is impossible.

Akismet works by listening to what people say is spam. When enough people say this about certain details then it stops those comments but until that happens Akismet does not know and it will get through.
Someone somewhere has to get the spam first.

A few a month is not bad and should be accepted. Don’t forget that the spammers also use Akismet to try to get through. This is a serious business with big companies behind it – it’s not just some guy posting here and there.

Akismet has stopped 26,957,451 today alone so with that volume the occasional mistake should really be expected.

Since Akismet started it has stopped over 42 billion spams.

Hi Mark

Your comment suggests you have missed the point perhaps here?

Going from consistently having only one or no missed spam messages a month to 294 is hardly ‘a few a month’ – and it certainly is bad.

I am ready to accept that maybe this is a new kind of attack and maybe Askimet is not up to the job of defending against it as yet, but it seems like you are just hiding behind irreelevant statistics on this one.

What can we do to stop this?

Personally I am tired of the large amount of spam each day.

askjohnenglish – I have looked at the spam that Akismet missed. They are now marked as spam within Akismet. This means you and others have marked these as spam and it has learned – the same spam should not be getting through.

Please remember how Akismet works – feedback from everyone teaches Akismet and someone has to get the first wave of new spam. The spam that has been caught before was caught because others got it first and you and others benefit from their action in marking it as spam. It seems that this time there is a new wave and unfortunately they chose your blog.

We want to catch spam sooner and have made progress but there will always be short delay. As I said the spammers use Akismet constantly and as soon as they create a spam that gets through they will blast out those spams.

This one month is not something we like to see. I doubt this will continue as the spammers will learn that you do not allow the spam through and it’s pointless targeting your blog (yes they do go and check). This is in addition to Akismet learning.

I posted those numbers because when spam gets through the overall numbers really should be considered in the overall context.

The accuracy for your blog is 98.9% which is also important. As I said we would like this to be 100% but this is not a small issue and we are the only line of defence against some big businesses who pay for this to happen.

I too have been suddenly flooded with spam, whereas in the past Akismet would have filtered them out. Comments such as this: “Thank you, I have recently been looking for info about this topic for ages and yours is the greatest.” Of course, they are then linked to a business.

Yes, Akismet has done a great job. But in recent weeks something is different and it’s not working as well. We’re asking “what’s up?” and “what can we do to help?”

The best way to help Akismet is to mark these as spam.

I will make sure this is raised with other members of the team.

Thank you askjohnenglish for posting and contacting support,
Mark Thank you for time and patience with us. I guess I never realised or thought about how akismet works and just used it assuming I wouldn’t have to deal with spam.
After 217 missed spam it stopped and I’m now back to no missed spam. So I’m happy with how this turned out. And now I know that sometimes my site will be targeted and I’ll just have to deal with spam manually.

I agree with Drawsilence – thank you Mark for explaining, it is helpful to understand.

Today I have 108 more missed spam… (seems to be going up)

To understand what you are saying mArk – I should not delete these, but consistently mark as Spam and leave them for Askimet to delete? or mark as spam then I can delete?

Also, I have noticed that some comments have the words ‘Flagged as spam by Askimet’ and yet they are not moved to the spam folder.

Any idea why this might be?

Perhaps I should try uninstalling and then reinstalling Askimet?

p.s. FYI: In the time it took me to write the message above, 5 more new missed spam came through

BTW here is an example of the kind of spam it is – just random nonsense with a link:

teskebtlkpiofohmjti, Buy lorazepam online http: //www. spammy-link . org , pyLQJPC.

I notice I also get this message occaisionally:

Akismet has detected a problem. A server or network problem prevented Akismet from checking 5 comments. They have been temporarily held for moderation and will be automatically re-checked in 11 mins.

However the comments still get through…

Ok – I deactivated and deleted Askimet.

Then I downloaded fresh wordpress code from the www.ads-software.com site and ftp’d it onto my server.

The result is I now have Askimet Version 2.5.3. It is now working much better as although the comments are still not being marked as spam, they are at least all being held as ‘pending’

This makes it much easier for me as I can just go to ‘pending’ and mark them all as spam in one shot.

Strangely though – my wordpress install is not asking me to upgrade my Askimet plugin to the latest Version of 2.5.5…

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Ok – hopefully my final report on this – using Askimet 2.5.3 was working fine in that it didn’t send all spam to the spam folder, but it did send it to the pending folder. This made it a lot easier as I can more easily send it to the spam folder in bulk.

So with this working kinda ok, I upgraded to Askimet 2.5.5. Now the problem is back again – almost 20 missed spam today (not as many as before granted).

My conclusion – Askimet 2.5.5 has a problem. I am going to delete it and go back to 2.5.3. I will upgrade when 2.5.6 etc comes out. Will how that goes – hopefully will solve my problem!

Here is my final report on this… now still using Askimet 2.5.3, and my spam problem is solved.

Must be something wrong with version 2.5.6.

Same problem as with the other users in the thread, on 2.5.5 and WP 3.3.1 – Akismet will flag spam as such but will not actually spam it.