Bizarre delays and no emails received by Gmail or Yahoo accounts

  • About 6 months ago we started having bizarre issues with email notifications for both new subscribers and post notifications. For a while, the situation improved, and we assumed it was just an email server issue. Today we tried sending a new post, and it took almost an hour for the post notification to be received in our test account inbox (we have a very small subscriber list). This concerned me, so I tried testing the signup part since it had issues in the past. I signed up on the blogsite using my personal gmail account, and the confirmation email never arrived (I checked spam, and nothing was there either). Later in the afternoon, I tried using the “resend” link, and nothing ever arrived with that either. Then I tried subscribing using an email address tied to our company domain. We received the confirmation email almost instantly, but the Welcome email took about 10 minutes once I confirmed the subscription.

    Later today I had my wife try subscribing from both her Gmail and Yahoo email accounts. She never received anything and nothing was in spam. I tried subscribing using another email address tied to our business server, and it went right through and we got an instant confirmantion and almost instant Welcome email.

    I’ve also tried sending emails directly from the email accounts associated with the webiste, and all of these are being received with no issue. So it is somethign with the plugin and its communication with the email server. Does anyone have any idea what is going on? This is driving us absolutely crazy.

    Just FYI, we are using version 3.3.7. However, the more current unactivated plugin for version 3.4.8 is showing in WordPress as a separate line item, not as an upgrade to the currently installed version. It also shows that the unactivated 3.4.8 can be upgraded to 4.1.3. Since these two newer options show on a separate line in the Plugins list in WordPress, I was afraid to activate and use them. I was afraid it would be treated as a brand new plugin, and all of our previous settings and setup options would be lost. Any advice here would be appreciated as well.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Thread Starter mikeroberts275

    (@mikeroberts275)

    Well, this is VERY disconcerting. Topics have been posted and replied to after mine and still no response. I have been emailing support with these concerns for a week and same thing, no response. If this is being completely ignored because you have a lot of articles that address similar issues, I have read them all. I didn’t post anything here until I had exhausted all other possibilities. But some of my questions are ones that are not addressed in your articles. So do I just give up on my website, a website that hasn’t been working correctly for 6 months because of this plug-in? Very disappointed. Very!

    Plugin Contributor Malay Ladu

    (@malayladu)

    Hi Roberts,

    Sorry for the missed out.

    Please let us know which version of Email Subscribers are you using? Is it 3.4.7 or 3.4.8?

    ES 4.x brings lots of enhancements. Upgrade to 4.x and let us know how it goes.

    Thread Starter mikeroberts275

    (@mikeroberts275)

    Malay:

    If you look at my post, you will see that we are using 3.3.7. Your reply did not address ANY of the questions asked. I didn’t respond until now because someone named Sandhya finally responded to the contact form we sent. He, unfortunately, did one subscribe test on our website, and when it worked, he determined that everything was fine and that we had no issues with the plugin. WOW!

    I responded to Sandhya, asking once again some very important questions and pointing out that in science, when testing the efficacy of something, you perform MULTIPLE tests to confirm validity of specific findings. You DON”T just do one test and say, “oh, gee, it looks like everything’s fine. Have a nice day!” We have tested this with MANY email addresses for both Gmail and Yahoo, and we are having tons of problems. I have explained that it is an inconsistent problem. Some email domains work just fine, where others do not work at all.

    Your solution, Malay, was just “UPDATE.” Well, we are not opposed to that, however we had questions posted here and in the contact form that are being completely ignored regarding updating. Can someone, anyone, just please address these questions so we can decide how to proceed?

    1) As I mentioned before, we are concerned about updating because normally an update in WordPress is shown on a single line in the plug-ins section of WordPress. This update option is located there, but it is on a NEW and SEPARATE line (different from our current version), which makes it appear that it will be treated as a brand new and separate plug-in. If we activate that new plug-in, I assume we must deactivate the old plug-in. If we do that, will we lose all of our settings and entered data? I’ve read that the newest version is very different than the current one we are using and that some people have opted to rollback to earlier versions because they didn’t like the new format. So again, my concern is in how much work will have to be done to get the new plug-in working. Please advise.

    2) If we used a Gmail or Yahoo email account to test the functionality of the Email Subscribers plugin, and then delete that subscriber from the Subscribers list because it wasn’t a real subscriber, would the plugin not send emails if we tried to use that Gmail or Yahoo email address again in the future for testing? Would it treat the email address as unsubscribed and somehow not eligible?

    This plugin is just dreadful. Like you, Mike, I had problems several months back and it appeared to get solved, but now, nothing, even 2 hours after pressing “publish.” What aggravates me is how un-intuitive any directions are. All of the following are just noise to me.

    1. We created two lists – Main List and Test List. Also added yourself to the Test List. That way you can test campaigns on the Test List before sending them to the Main List ??
    2. We also created a lead collection / subscription form and added it the default widget area on your site. Review and rearrange the form from Widgets. You can also learn about adding a form to another place from this help article.
    3. BTW, we also sent a few test emails to the Test List. We sent both those campaigns (newsletter and new post notification). So check your email “xxx.com” and confirm you got those test emails.

    Have never received a test email after the 4.? update. Everything this developer “updates” is less and less intuitive and easy to use.

    Can anyone suggest a replacement for this ghastly, problem-ridden plugin?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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