MailChimp API error when not logged in

  • Resolved websitesforanything

    (@websitesforanything)


    8 years, 4 months ago

    Hello,

    Thank you for a great plugin. We have found it to be well-balanced between ease of setup and flexibility of use. We are encountering one problem in particular however.

    Upon attempting to sign up, we seem to quite frequently receive the error message “Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again.” On the admin side in the Debug Log, these show up as simply “[TIMESTAMP] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error:” where 732 is the id of our form.

    You can see our form on the homepage of our client’s website at https://ut1859.com/ and also on the mailing list page at https://ut1859.com/mailing-list/

    In testing, we have not particularly been able to isolate the issue. It appears to be entirely intermittent. Often times subsequent submission will display a success message several times, then error messages several times until we give up.

    One thing we tried was turning on a maintenance mode plugin and testing with a default (TwentySixteen) theme. As the site is live to customers, this seemed our best option. All tests seemed to work, regardless of whether we were using the default theme or our theme.

    As soon as we turned off the maintenance mode plugin, we noticed that test from a non-logged-in browser failed frequently, while the logged-in browser seemed to succeed every time. We even ran the risk of switching back to TwentySixteen theme with the site live, and saw the same results.

    Your help would be greatly appreciated. As we cannot find a pattern yet, it is very confusing. If you wish backend access, please let us know.

    Sincerely,
    Josh

    NOTE: If we have the site in maintenance mode when you go to test, there will be NO MENU across the top. When in maintenance mode, you will see a different MailChimp signup form in use.

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/mailchimp-for-wp/

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Plugin Author Danny van Kooten

    (@dvankooten)

    Hi there,

    Thank you so much for the detailed report, that is super helpful to us. This is a weird issue for several reasons, so I can only imagine what you have been through in your testing…

    1) The plugin logs to the debug log but fails to show a detailed error message.
    2) That the issue seems to occur mostly for logged-out users is weird, as the part of the error message that is logged shows that the plugin successfully completes the form validation and then proceeds to make the call to the MailChimp API servers. At this point, it doesn’t really matter when someone is logged-in or out to your site…

    If you have a minute, could you give the latest development version of the plugin a try? It will include the numerical API error code that MailChimp returns, so that will hopefully give us something to work with. You can download it from the GitHub project page: https://github.com/ibericode/mailchimp-for-wordpress

    Let me know please – would love to get this fixed for you!

    Thread Starter websitesforanything

    (@websitesforanything)

    Hi Danny,

    Thank you so much for your help!! WE have installed the development version from GitHub. Interestingly, this is the error we now receive:

    “[2016-07-19 15:28:32] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0”

    If it means anything, the client is on some kind of GoDaddy hosting which uses some kind of internal cache. While we would love to tell them it’s a hosting related issue, we haven’t been able to find a direct relationship between “clearing the cache” and the errors.

    A few more details on the site, in case they help:

    THEME: Elegance, Version 2.1 (by MySite MyWay)
    PLUGINS ACTIVE:
    Admin Columns. v2.5.6.3 by AdminColumns.com
    Akismet v3.1.11
    Better WordPress Google XML Sitemaps v1.4.1 by Khang Minh
    Custom Product Order v1.5.11 by Norbert Dreszer
    eCommerce Product Catalog by impleCode v2.4.18 by impleCode
    eCommerce Product Catalog PayPal Gateway v1.4.8 by Norbert Dreszer
    Gravity Forms v2.0.2 by rocketgenius
    Mailchimp for WordPress v3.1.12-beta by ibericode
    Minimal Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode v1.1 by akshitsethi
    Product Gallery Advanced v1.3.6 by Norbert Dreszer
    Product Page Customizer v1.8.3 by Norbert Dreszer
    Regenerate Thumbnails v2.2.6 by Alex Mills (Vipber007Bond)
    Sidekick v2.6.8 by Sidekick.pro
    Who Hit The Page – Hit Counter v1.4.3 by mahlamusa

    Some of these plugins are a little out of date. Particularly the eCommerce Product Catalog by impleCode and related customization plugins as the client had some customization requests that went mostly into functions.php but also I think some we had no option but to put customizations straight into the plugins, so we are very loathe to update them if not absolutely necessary.

    Just trying to provide as much information as possible!

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter websitesforanything

    (@websitesforanything)

    One more piece of info. Just now I added enabled the full debug log as you provide instructions for here:

    The results is that ERROR messages have not really changed, though we do see INFO (success) messages. I.E.

    [2016-07-20 12:21:37] INFO: Form 732 > Successfully subscribed [redacted]@[redacted].com
    [2016-07-20 12:21:47] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0

    Additionally, in the past 5 minutes I have run about 20 test submissions, each using the same email address. It appears that all the failures happened from the NOT LOGGED IN browser.

    I am beginning to suspect a conflict with another plugin. Not sure why or how, but something is awry. I would still greatly appreciate your insight. Meanwhile I will be meeting with the client in a few minutes and am going to recommend a staging site for additional testing, as clearly being logged-in/out makes a difference.

    Thank you for your patience and assistance.

    Thread Starter websitesforanything

    (@websitesforanything)

    Additional info and testing.

    The client has their website hosted on GoDaddy Managed WordPress (or whatever it’s called – not straight Linux, but the actual WP config plan).

    This includes a staging site, so I pushed the site to staging: https://d24.b72.myftpupload.com/homepage/

    I then proceeded to test as follows. S=success, F=fail

    Version 3.1.12-beta
    STAGING SITE
    LOGGED OUT
    S,S,F,F,F,F
    Switched to TwentySixteen theme
    S,S,F,F,F,F
    Deactiveated all other plugins (still TwentySixteen theme)
    S,S,F,F,F,F
    (at this point, I thought maybe it’s a caching issue. The only variables remaining are the browser (always Chrome), the theme (TwentySixteen at this point), the plugin, the host, and MailChimp)
    Flushed Cache via GoDaddy menu inside WordPress Admin, waiting 15 seconds
    S,F,S,F,F,F,F,F

    So I have eliminated plugin conflicts. I have eliminated theme conflicts. I am down to host, MailChimp, plugin, and browser.

    VERY INTESTING!! never ONCE did it tell me that I was already subscribed, even though I used the same email address every time. Something is definitely wrong there. Also, the logs show almost 100% failures, even though on-screen I showed many successes! Hmm…

    [2016-07-20 12:24:22] INFO: Form 732 > Successfully subscribed [redacted]@[redacted].com
    [2016-07-20 12:44:51] INFO: Form 732 > Successfully subscribed [redacted]@[redacted].com
    [2016-07-20 12:44:57] INFO: Form 732 > Successfully subscribed [redacted]@[redacted].com
    [2016-07-20 12:45:04] INFO: Form 732 > Successfully subscribed [redacted]@[redacted].com
    [2016-07-20 12:45:08] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:45:12] INFO: Form 732 > Successfully subscribed [redacted]@[redacted].com
    [2016-07-20 12:45:15] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:45:59] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:46:07] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:47:10] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:47:13] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:47:23] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:47:26] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:48:20] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:48:36] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:48:44] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:49:33] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:50:00] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:50:18] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:50:33] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:50:39] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0
    [2016-07-20 12:50:44] ERROR: Form 732 > MailChimp API error: 0

    Thread Starter websitesforanything

    (@websitesforanything)

    More tesing, yay!

    UT1859 Mailchimp debug testing
    Wednesday, July 20th

    S = successful
    F = failed

    1:48PM
    OUR HOSTING
    LOGGED OUT
    homepage: S, S, S, S, S
    mailing list page: S, S, S, S, S
    NOTE: 10 attempts, 10 successes. I did also receive 10 emails asking me to confirm my subscription, which is NOT what it’s supposed to do.

    1:52pm
    GODADDY STAGING SITE
    S, F, F, F, F

    1:53pm
    OUR HOSTING
    S, S, S, S, S
    NOTE: Testing demonstrates very clearly that there is an issue somehow related to GoDaddy’s hosting.

    OUR HOSTING
    LOGGED IN
    Noticed that some settings has changed or been reset. The form was set to request double opt-in. Corrected this setting and tested again. This time I received an email letting me know I had been added, rather than asking me to confirm my opt-in, so now we are seeing correct behaviour.’

    2:09pm
    OUR HOSTING
    S, S, S, S, S
    Just testing again to see if the results continue.
    NOTE: Although I receive success messages on screen, what I should be seeing is the “already subscribed” message. If I check the back-end logs, I also see ‘… successfully subscribed….’ where I should be seeing a ‘already subscribed’ message. While not as concerning as complete failures – this still indicates an issue with the system.

    2:14pm
    OUR HOSTING
    Success
    Cleared server-side cache
    Success (no ‘already subscribed’ message)
    However, only received ONE email from MailChimp. This indicates a glitch in the plugin and not MailChimp itself.

    To the client, we are going to recommend changing web hosts. Hopefully they will finally agree. However, we still would like your help as the ‘Already Subscribed’ message is not triggering.

    on OUR HOSTING, all of the log messages read:
    [DATETIME STAMP] INFO: Form 732 > Successfully subscribed [redacted]@[redacted].com

    I hope this helps. I hope you can help us figure out why the ‘Already Successful’ message is not triggering!

    Thank you for your diligent support!

    I can confirm this as well. I have a client on GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress and periodically receive the “Oops” error message from logged out tests (never when logged in).

    Also, if I test on a non-GoDaddy-hosted WP site, the plugin works (20 for 20) .

    Plugin Author Danny van Kooten

    (@dvankooten)

    Hi websitesforanything,

    Sorry for me not chiming in here before, I was swamped with trying to get version 4.0 out the door. Version 4.0 talks to the latest MailChimp API, which may or may not automatically resolve this issue on GoDaddy.

    Your testing is SUPER helpful – thank you so much for that. We’ve been seeing more obscure GoDaddy issues but in all of these cases, they were fixed by moving to a different host before we were able to find the culprit. It’s rather hard to debug as well, as shown by your thorough testing…

    Please do let me know if the issue persists on version 4.0 or later of the plugin. I’m willing to set myself with a GoDaddy account just so I can have a good look at what’s going on – but the issue here is that it doesn’t seem to appear for all GoDaddy accounts…….

    Plugin Contributor Lap

    (@lapzor)

    Since there have been no replies to this topic for awhile I will now close this ticket as resolved.
    If you still have a problem or you have a similar problem as posted above, please open a NEW topic. Thank you!

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • The topic ‘MailChimp API error when not logged in’ is closed to new replies.