Hi @calidewberry,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review and we are sorry to hear that you experienced difficulties with using WP Mail SMTP.
Based on your review, there may be a misunderstanding because the issues you described don’t sound like they are related to WP Mail SMTP.
For example, you had mentioned, “shortcodes just disconnect”. However, WP Mail SMTP doesn’t utilize shortcodes. Were you by chance referring to a mailer connection disconnecting after setting up? If that is the case, it is a very strange occurrence that we would like to assist you with resolving.
We are also not certain why you would be getting an error from an old admin email address as well.
In case it helps, please know that we have documentation with instructions on how to setup each mailer here:
https://wpmailsmtp.com/docs/a-complete-guide-to-wp-mail-smtp-mailers/
Also, whenever you run into issues you can reach out to our support team via the support forums where we offer complimentary support:
https://www.ads-software.com/support/plugin/wp-mail-smtp/
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience, but I do hope this helps!
Thank you.