Getting Multisite to send emails

  • I “inherited” a WP (5.4.1) multisite install that uses subdirectories and domain mapping for ~25 sites that are all on different domains. Yesterday, I received a complaint that an admin on one of the blogs was receiving spam and they thought it was coming from their blog’s contact form. In checking it out, I discovered that WP actually isn’t sending any emails at all, even though php.ini (5.6.35) shows that sendmail is enabled. (I tested the contact form in question, tried a few other contact form plugins, and then confirmed it with the Check Email plugin and looked in spam/junk folders — no emails.)

    In an effort to get emails sending, I installed and activated WP Mail SMTP. After that, I got lost. I was able to get the messages to send using G Suite SMTP settings within the plugin, but that is unacceptable to the blog admins because it causes the contact form messages to come from my email address as the Super Admin. It appears that WP Mail SMTP allows sending emails from only one email address for the whole network.

    I am the de facto admin for the network and all the subsites. However, each blog has its own named admin and that is the person who needs to receive the contact form submissions. Is this even possible? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Can someone possibly direct me on how to set this up in a way that hopefully makes everyone happy?

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by James Huff. Reason: moved to Networking WordPress forum since this is a multisite issue
Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • Interesting bit about the SMTP mail plugin but I think that would because the plugin was set up under the network instead of each individual account. I was hoping to dig into the subject a bit more but ran out of time today.

    Can you disable the plugin and re-enable it just on the sites that must have a working outbound email? Even though that could be a nightmare to work with also with ‘clients’.

    Probably be best to fix the server to handle the email by turning on PHP Mail via the server control panel or PHP.ini file and then be done with it.

    I’m also a bit confused about the WP version you are running. I thought at first you mistakenly reported the PHP version but then you listed a different PHP version yet.

    It would be best to be running a 7.2 or higher PHP if you can but that probably isn’t causing the email problem itself.

    Also, in regards to spam, do you think that user reporting spam might have been seeing ‘comment section spam’? That could be alleviated some via Akismet and judicious settings of the comments system.

    Thread Starter singer74

    (@singer74)

    Hey @jnashhawkins. I think you helped out on my last issue too (multisite single sign-on problems). Honestly I’d like to take this whole multisite network and chuck it out the window… figuratively of course.

    I definitely reported the wrong WP version, it’s actually 5.1.4, NOT 5.4.1 (ha). I’ve been instructed not to update that at this time for fear of what else may go wrong, especially because these are all live sites for our “biggest” customer and the last several months have been bumpy. Same with PHP, I’d love to upgrade but that won’t be possible for a while.

    Interesting point about the network plugin activation as opposed to site-by-site, I hadn’t thought of that. Come Monday I’ll try what you said and report back.

    Thanks for the information, but do you think that user reporting spam might have been seeing ‘comment section spam’?

    Thread Starter singer74

    (@singer74)

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Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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