Form not sending, please just rollback

@bjornroiverhogen I thought it was only me but 9 out of my 10 sites stopped working. Looking at this thread seems like many are also having this issue. Also, I rolled back to 5.3 and it did not fix my issue. Definitely disappointed and lost some trust in this plugin as I always recommend it to clients. The only thing different on the one site where it is working still is that the site uses the WP SMTP plugin to send emails. The others send via the server. Wonder what’s up. Don’t know why 5.3 didn’t fix my issue. I am getting the error “There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later.”

@markob17 Thanks for backing up the story.

I’m currently having your issue for only 1 site where it was reCaptcha. Disabling reCaptcha fixed the problem and I installed Honeypot to keep the spam to a minimum which seems to be working great so far.
Not sure why this is as it’s only for 1 site. I believe it has something to do with a script conflict with maps but as this is working for me I haven’t dug deep. Perhaps this is helpful.

@bjornroiverhogen So, I tried to send test email from another plugin that uses wp_mail() and it fails. I then sent a test from another plugin that uses PHP Mail and it works. I assume contact form 7 also uses wp_mail() but have not confirmed. So, maybe something with latest WP version? That said, it’s very weird because on another server I have an exact clone of my site and it sends email via Contact Form 7 without issues. So, maybe a compatibility issue with latest version of WordPress and some server configs??? Any thoughts? Cheers, -mark

@bjornroiverhogen Maybe not necessarily a contact form 7 issue specifically after all. Could by why it is taking them so long to “fix it”. I say this because the other plugin did not send a test email either. Yet exact clone of my site sends email fine. Only difference is it’s running on a different server.

@markob17 My thought would be async loading of scripts as the new version of CF7 works for me when using define('wpcf7_load_js' false) in wp-config. Downside is that I would need to install redirect plugin for CF7 and create a thank-you-page for all installations. Also I feel like this solution would be error-sensitive as I think it skips scripts by CF7 alltogether.

@bjornroiverhogen Yeah, not sure that is an ideal solution. You would be better off installing a plugin like WP SMTP which bypasses WordPress WP_mail (which appears to be the problem or part of the problem here). My other plugin also doesn’t send anymore, so it’s not necessarily a Contact Form 7 issue but seemingly a WordPress issue with some hosting/server configs. This might be one of those issues where a WordPress update fixes things, if it’s not an issue with the two plugins (maybe others as well) I used for testing (used this one and Wordfence). Weird that it works fine on another server I am using. Tested on yet another server (3rd server) just now and also works fine. I can wait but sucks to have the contact forms not working. I have 10 sites I’d have to install SMTP and I don’t really want to. Kind of time consuming, and if you have 50 sites, good luck.

@markob17 Perhaps it is as you say and sounds like a legit issue. But then, what bothers me; why ask on every post with the same issue for a plugin/theme conflict check? Why not just mention that they’re working on a fix or that it is out of their control for now untill WP’s new release? I have not checked for the WP_mail functionality and I’m fairly certain I use exclussively CF7 but for 1 site. I will check for that odd-duckling and see if it has the same issue. To be continued!

@bjornroiverhogen Yeah, this issue is perplexing. Now I ran another test on another site of mine with similar config and the other plugin sent a test email successfully using wp_mail, but contact form 7 still did not. So at this point I have no idea what is the deal. I did see on some other threads here that some people are having on and off issues with contact form 7 sending, so maybe a case of this. Anyways, my sites aren’t mission critical so I may just wait. Not sure how much more troubleshooting I can do with my limited knowledge. Will test a few things and update you if I find anything out. Please do the same. Good luck!

@bjornroiverhogen Hello, sir. I have an update. So, I just checked my email SPAM folder and I am getting messages in there. “Mail failure – rejected by local scanning code”. More details of message: A message that you sent was rejected by the local scanning code that checks incoming messages on this system. The following error was given:

This message was classified as SPAM and may not be delivered

Not sure if this is same issue you are having, but googling this error seems like it’s a server (cpanel maybe) thing. This explains why an exact clone of my site works on the other servers.

Combing through my spam folder where my contact form emails are received, I see weeks worth of contact form inquires that were never received. This seems to have been broken for awhile. I will dig deeper and contact me hosting provider perhaps. You may want to check SPAM folders to see if same.

Now I know why I haven’t been receiving many inquires these past few days/weeks. Good thing 9 out of my 10 sites are low priority. I will update more details after I dig deeper and/or contact my hosting provider to possibly install a fix if I can’t do myself. Good luck!

@bjornroiverhogen Fixed mine. Turns out it was a server issue as I suspected. That being said, I am not sure if you are having the same issue as me. I use a VPS. I have no idea why it broke because I have not touched my VPS configuration literally ever. Perhaps the latest WP version sends emails slightly differently using wp_mail(). I will maybe test this theory by installing the previous version of WordPress. Anyways, what fixed this for me was to adjust Apache SpamAssassin in WHM. You may want to check this out yourself.

Cheers!

We just updated WP 5.3 to WP 5.7 and that seems to have fixed the issue, which for us has lasted for two weeks.