Email Alert – unformatted

Hi @mwarbinek,

Can you see any warnings/errors in the PHP logs for that site?

No PHP errors/warnings – WP_DEBUG – Not activate
No PHP errors/warnings – WP_DEBUG – activate
No debug log when WP_DEBUG_LOG activate

There is an error_log file created by the website host server in the root, it has only 51 entries since Aug 2017 (when the site was installed) and none of them refer to WordFence.

As for PHP warnings, seems like a really clean install, including the theme.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by mwarbinek.

Hi @mwarbinek,

Are you still experiencing this issue?

Have you checked with your hosting provider to see if this could be related to the mail server’s configuration?

Yes, the issue continues.

It is not the hosting provider, because I have a couple other websites using the same provider and they are fine, it is just this one site.

I just went into “Tools” of WordFence, used the “send a test email” and that did not help because it was a one line sentence, in basic text. So that did not help, unless it was suppose to be formatted and not basic text.

I used the “send test activity report” and that worked fine, all was formatted, but that was not showing the issue anyway.

I did these same tests disabling the plugins and then the theme and nothing was found, mainly because the test email was a one line message.

This is what the message unformatted looks like,

This email was sent from your website "MyBlog" by the Wordfence plugin at Monday 26th of February 2018 at 06:29:34 PM The Wordfence administrative URL for this site is: **** A user with username "*****" who has administrator access signed in to your WordPress site. User IP: ****** User hostname: ***** User location: Vernon, Canada NOTE: You are using the free version of Wordfence. Upgrade today: - Advanced features like IP reputation monitoring, country blocking, an advanced comment spam filter and cell phone sign-in give you the best protection available - Remote, frequent and scheduled scans - Access to Premium Support - Discounts of up to 90% for multiyear and multi-license purchases Click here to upgrade to Wordfence Premium: https://www.wordfence.com/zz1/wordfence-signup/ -- To change your alert options for Wordfence, visit: (this URL was not formatted, it was plain text) To see current Wordfence alerts, visit: (this URL was not formatted, it was plain text) 

( I blocked out some info with **** and replaced the URL’s with “(this URL was not formatted, it was plain text)”)

That example is exactly what it looks like, one large text paragraph.

Is there a way to send the same message as the example as a test so I can test the plugins and theme again?

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by mwarbinek.

I found the problem.

To send a test email, unfortunately, I had to use a different browser to login into the same WordPress site, switching between 2 other different user accounts than the one I was already logged in with. I had to use 2 other accounts because it appears WordFence does not send the login alert when the same account logs in, then out and back in. It seems switching between 2 accounts bypasses that and alerts me who logs in each time.

Having said that, I deactivated the plugins that were not common between the other WordPress sites, since the common ones used were not causing issues on the other sites.

As a result, I found the plugin that caused the issue, the plugin was “ThemeREX Addons”. When active, this caused the formatting issue in the WordFence alert emails, forcing the emails to be one large bulk paragraph. When deactivated, the emails were properly formatted (several paragraphs and lines dividing the information to make it easy to read).

This is the website URL for the plugin:
https://themerex.net/

This is a theme required plugin, it is not a free plugin and not in the WordPress plugin library.

Suggestion
So something in the plugin conflicts with WordFence. I think this is important for WordFence to address.

I speak about whether or not this ThemeRex plugin is affecting something else. WordFence would need to test their plugin against it to see if there are security issues caused by it, things that happen that are unseen. If ThemeRex causes something as simple as unformatting emails, what else is it doing that we won’t know about?

Hi @mwarbinek,

Does the problem still occur if you temporarily switch the Firewall Status to “Learning Mode” when the ThemeRex plugin is activated?

Did not think of that, so I went and tried that. The firewall was placed in learning mode (WordFence > Firewall > All Firewall Options > Web Application Firewall Status > Learning mode [activated]).

Result – same problem, made no difference.

So I went a bit further, I disabled the firewall and tested it,

Result – same problem, made no difference.

I deactivated the plugin, problem resolves and all works fine for WordFence alerts.

Unfortunately, the theme requires this “ThemeRex Addons” plugin. As much as the issue itself is minor and nothing “visible” appears to affect WordFence security, I am still hoping that WordFence can address the issue because I do not know how this issue truly affects security to things unseen or whether this issue, however minor on the surface, may pose serious issues if a hacker can use it to bypass WordFence.

I am facing the exact same issue and I do not have “ThemeRex Addons” plugin installed. I tried @mwarbinek’s method of logging in and out while disabling the plugins one-by-one. It doesn’t change the text, it still comes out in a block with no formatting.

Update: I’ve managed to find a workaround. I switched the WordPress plugin for SMTP from WP Mail SMTP to Easy WP SMTP and the email text are formatted properly now. I’m using Mailgun SMTP.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by joshuatj. Reason: Update solution

What @joshuatj is telling us, when matching with my instance is this, plugins with certain scripting interferes with WordFence email formatting.

This means that the plugin “ThemeRex” and plugin WP Mail SMTP, both have a type of scripting that is the same or similar and that interferes with WordFence.

I have had no response from “@wfyann” so I am wondering if they caught this and are going to reply??