There is a pending change of the admin email – Unable to change general email

  • Resolved Eric Hepperle

    (@codeslayer2010)


    6 years, 4 months ago

    I’m having trouble with a new client site. Everything else on the site seems to be working correctly except the contact page. I am using Contact Form 7 and so far have been unable to successfully submit a message. While troubleshooting the contact form I discovered I am also unable to change the General Settings email for some reason. Here is the error:

    There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later.

    What I have tried already:

    I’ve tried everything I can think of, based on much research, all to no avail:

    • Disabled all plugins except Contact Form 7.
    • Canceled email change, Saved General Settings, entered an email that goes with the site: [email protected], [this is a placeholder for security purposes, but I entered the actual email].
    • Called GoDaddy to find out if this was a known issue. Representative checked the email servers and we did some tests and verified the following:
    • There are no email issues on the GoDaddy’s server
    • Emails can be sent to the @feelandheal.be email just fine through other services
    • They don’t have any knowledge base documenting this particular issue

    Funnily enough, GoDaddy’s email goes through (maybe it is served from?) Microsoft Office 365, when becomes another node for troubleshooting. However, I was able to login to the Office.com account and saw some test emails that the GoDaddy rep and I sent, but none of the emails from the contact form.

    What almost worked

    Interestingly, disabling Easy WP SMTP fixed something, but I’m not sure what. Now I get this ‘success’ message, surrounded by a green rectangular border, but I don’t actually receive any emails:

    Thank you for your message. It has been sent.

    NOTE: I examined several web articles and YouTube videos that purport to address this issue, including those recommended by Contact Form 7’s website. Unfortunately, they all are outdated, and/or don’t address this issue. Some mention using an SMTP plugin, but none say “When using such-and-such theme/plugin/GoDaddy (etc.) do this”. None of them address this issue and I’ve all of the troubleshooting steps that have been offered. I’m stumped and not sure where to go from here.

    Conclusion … so Far

    • WordPress is not the problem
    • The plugins are not the problem
    • GoDaddy could still be the source of the problem, but if so, they are unaware of it
    • Office 365 online may be the problem, but it doesn’t seem likely

    The only thing I haven’t tried is switching themes (I’m using a child theme of WooCommerce’s own Storefront theme), because it is heavily customized and I don’t want to lose any more of my changes (Disabling JetPack already means I’m going to have to re-add 4 widgets again. I watched a video indicating that custom functions that disable WordPress API could be a culprit, but I have no such customization.

    • This topic was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Eric Hepperle. Reason: Add formatting
    • This topic was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Eric Hepperle. Reason: Remove style from ul tag; it doesn't appear to be accepted
    • This topic was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Eric Hepperle.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

  • From info provided I conclude the following:

    1. Easy WP SMTP was not setup correctly. When you disabled it – CF7 sent the email.
    2. That sent email was likely rejected somewhere as spam – the article linked to from the CF7 Docs deals with that issue.
    3. GoDaddy support response is unreliable – they’ve been asked several times to clearly document their specific requirements for sending of emails from WordPress. I’m not aware of any response at this stage.
    4. Office 365 online may DEFINITELY be the problem – don’t know why you would think that is not likely.

    I’d recommend you focus on GoDaddy & Microsoft Office 365 – they are known common problems and your issue seems pretty basic.

    I have the same problem: “the forms are not sent” and the opinion is related to the message is considered as spam.

    the email that I use is the same as the General Settings of wordpress and from nowhere I started to give this problem.

    the email that I use belongs to google education so I discard that it is the problem of the email accounts as it presents @ codeslayer2010 with godaddy or office 365

    my email account is active, without spam filters which check from the email account.

    the form worked without problems until it detected that it failed yesterday.

    thanks for the plugin and we hope this problem can be solved soon.

    Thread Starter Eric Hepperle

    (@codeslayer2010)

    Thanks for your response, Neil.

    I read the points you noted and tried to reconfigure WP SMTP, as well as reading that CF7 document. It is disheartening that none of that worked. You may be right about GoDaddy, but then how are so many people able to send contact forms perfectly fine?

    The link you provided for CF7, if I understood correctly, or something else I read, advised that GoDaddy is known for having issues with blocking SMTP. With that knowledge, I searched for and found a tutorial on correctly setting up SMTP for GoDaddy. It is from 2016, but it is the best I personally could find:

    The steps given did not work when running the test email. I suspect the issue I’m running into is based on all the different email locations and the plugin’s instructions not being clear enough to explain what email is what. For instance, Does the “General Settings” email have <b>anything at all</b> to do with Contact Form 7, or is it ignored completely by the emails I’ve set up in the CF7 fields?

    I’v exhausted at this point and the only thing I haven’t tried is somehow putting somewhere something about “blahblah@no-reply”. This rabbit hole is to long.

    Finally, you said

    Office 365 online may DEFINITELY be the problem

    If that is the case, how would you suggest I set about troubleshooting that.

    Thanks for your help so far.

    I am having the exact same problem!!! Were you able to find a fix? The only difference between our problems is that I have a different theme. I was using Contact form 7 and it use to work fine. It just stopped sending emails one day. No setting were changed on my end. I have since tried installing Easy WP SMTP but it did not solve my problem. I also discovered I could not change my general setting email either and got the same message as you. I too have my email through GoDaddy and have an Office 365 account.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by crystallea.
    Thread Starter Eric Hepperle

    (@codeslayer2010)

    Hey @crystallea,

    Sorry to hear you are having similar troubles. Out of curiosity, what theme are you using?

    I’ve made some progress, but I haven’t solved the thing. I posted this related topic (https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/is-smtp-plugin-required-to-send-contact-form-on-godaddy/), but a moderator prematurely closed it, either because they read “success” in my ticket without reading the rest of what I typed indicating the problem was not fixed, or because there were no replies for X amount of days.

    I created a new ticket to “reopen” the issue here: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/reopening-is-smtp-plugin-required-to-send-contact-form-on-godaddy/

    I believe the admin email thing is related to the contact forms not sending issue.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Eric Hepperle.
    Thread Starter Eric Hepperle

    (@codeslayer2010)

    @buzztone Neil, I’m not sure but I think the forum timed out or something and I’m not able to tag you in my previous comment. This tag is pointing you to my previous comment which it doesn’t seem that you’ve seen. I’m to blame because I tried to reply on the phone.

    If you could, kindly reply to the response I sent you 2 weeks ago as this issue is still not resolved: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/there-is-a-pending-change-of-the-admin-email-unable-to-change-general-email/#post-10559581

    I appreciate your help so far.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Eric Hepperle.
    Thread Starter Eric Hepperle

    (@codeslayer2010)

    I’m reporting back on this issue. In my case, when I disabled the WP Easy SMTP plugin email started sending. However, I was still unable locate the email (it was not in my Spam folder on Thunderbird).

    After speaking with a GoDaddy representative in the Email support division, I learned that GoDaddy’s MS Exchange email spam policy was intercepting any emails sent with my domain in the header in the “From” email section. This is supposed to be an extra pro-active layer of email spam countermeasures. The solution was to set up an email spam exception in Exchange Admin Center to allow emails from my domain.

    I created a detailed long form blog that explains my findings here:

    https://erichepperle.com/contact-form-7-broken-godaddy/

    Hope you find it useful!

    klucas0406

    (@klucas0406)

    You may be right about GoDaddy, but then how are so many people able to send contact forms perfectly fine?

    @codeslayer2010,

    So many people AREN’T sending emails perfectly fine. This has been an ongoing problem with many of our clients’ email notifications for a couple of years now. We use the Udesign and Avada themes primarily and the problem is the same regardless.

    We used to use Contact Form 7 (CF7) for all forms, but an update to 5.0 is when the problem began. After waiting for a fix for several weeks, that never came, we finally began switching all of our sites to Gravity forms thinking it was a CF7 problem. However, we began having the same issues with it.

    Every tech support we talked to told us to use SMTP, but trying to get that information from the customer is a big problem and then they change their email password.

    In many cases, we would get it all working and a few weeks later, it would quit again, but the customers’ email password wasn’t changed.

    I’ve contacted every kind of tech support possible and still cannot get a decent answer or a suggested fix. They all keep saying things like “Everything is fine on our end” and pointing fingers at each other. It has been one big vicious circle.

    If you keep searching, you will see that tons of other people are having the same kinds of issues and have been for a long time. Believe me, you are not alone. Lol!

    Below are some things I have been told affect either CF7 or WP SMTP. Please keep in mind that I am not a server tech. The fact is, I don’t really understand these things, but have been told that these things need to be checked. Perhaps they might help you figure it out.

    * Some settings in the WP Cerber plugin block CF7 from sending. I have not found a way to configure that plugin so that it works, but I only just found that it causes a problem today.
    * The mail() function is disabled by default on some servers.
    * Mod Security is blocking notifications from sending out in some cases.

    After hammering out these issue on a current client’s site, a support tech discovered that the remote email server was rejecting the email notifications.

    Here is the conversation I had with that tech guy where the site is hosted:

    [Jason K] As of now you are getting: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: 550 Rejected by header based Anti-Spoofing policy: https://community.mimecast.com/docs/DOC-1369#550

    [Jason K] So that looks like they would have to setup something with the third party mail server that they have.

    [Jason K] https://community.mimecast.com/docs/DOC-1419#jive_content_id_AntiSpoofing_Policy_to_Allow_Spoofing_Based_on_IP

    [Jason K] So they would have to setup a policy with your server’s IP to be allowed, and that should fix the issues.

    I am working on this now. It will be interesting to see if they are using GoDaddy or Office 365.

    It is interesting to note that I have experienced the exact same blow-off responses regarding this same issue from GoDaddy that others have mentioned in this thread.

    I will let you know what I have found, but this is the closest I have gotten to an answer so far. Keep your fingers crossed for me! Lol!

    Kat

    • This reply was modified 6 years ago by klucas0406.
Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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