Upgrade to 3.1 breaks comment notification via email

Do you have any comment management plugins? Besides Akismet.

Strange. All today’s comments suddenly came to my inbox. New comments are coming in now as well. Maybe the problem was with gmail instead. Would still like to know what happened.

Sounds like a mail server problem. You can check your server’s error logs and see if there were issues SENDING, but it was probably gmail.

Hi

I am facing a similar problem after I upgraded to WordPress 3.1.

I have enabled moderation for all comments. I am getting the mail when someone posts a comment and it is held in the moderation queue.

But after I approve the comment and it gets posted, I don’t get an email for this.

I am using Akismet but everything was working fine before upgrading WordPress. I haven’t upgraded any plugins recently, before or after the WordPress upgrade.

Please let me know what could be the problem.

Regards

Vijay Padiyar

I’m assuming this was a mail server problem since it resolved itself. Was very coincidental that it occurred at the very time that I upgraded to 3.1, though. Anyway, all seems well now.

Its a new feature in WordPress 3.1. You’ll not receive comment approved email notification after you approve a comment.

But I really want to know how to enable the feature again?

Thank God. I’m not going crazy. So it is confirmed that it is a new feature? I want to enable it back also.

Please help anyone out there.

^^ Yes. Its 100% confirmed. I have read all over the net about this new feature. It was added in version 3.1 because the developer considered its absolutely useless that the author who is approving a comment, is getting another email notification that the comment has been approved.

But for me, it was a boon to get another email approved notification email so that I can reply to that comment. Now I have to open All comments page in WP admin area and then reply to it.

Well that is just incredibly stupid.

Why the hell do people take it upon themselves to decide what’s important to others and what’s not?

I usually delete the moderation request emails and retain the email that comes after approval. So that feature was quite important to me.

And why the hell are both options still available in Settings > Discussion if the post-approval email is no longer supported?

Please let me know how to re-enable the feature.

Regards

Vijay

Not to mention that there’s a fundamental flaw with this scheme.

We don’t get moderation emails for comments that go directly to spam. Many a times, these are genuine comments that got marked as spam.

But after marking them as “not spam”, we don’t get any moderation emails. And now, neither will we get the email once the comment is approved! So what is the record of that comment, if somebody wants to keep one?

Regards

Vijay

I think you can enable it in wp-admin/options.php, something with notify can′t remember now…

Hi Diana

There are two fields – comments_notify and moderation_notify – in wp-admin/options.php. Both are set to 1. That is essentially what I have selected in Settings >> Discussion page. But I am still not getting the emails after comments are posted.

So the question is: is the functionality really removed in WP 3.1? If yes, why are these options present? And if not, then the options are broken.

Regards

Vijay

Ok, I found the fix for this.

Open wp-includes/pluggable.php and comment out the following two lines in function wp_notify_postauthor():

// The author moderated a comment on his own post
if ( $post->post_author == get_current_user_id() )
return false;

This causes emails not to be sent when comments are posted and the moderator is also the post author (usually the case for single-author websites, which constitute the vast majority of sites).

Really wish they hadn’t done this. Anyway, glad I could fix it.

Regards

Vijay Padiyar

Thank you so much Vijay!!! Works like a charm!!!

Hacking core files is never a good or acceptable solution, you need to find or write a plugin to do something like this.

FWIW this also is not a new “feature” it is an enhancement intended to avoid unnecessary emails about things you already know about.

As to the question “So what is the record of that comment, if somebody wants to keep one?” the answer is simple and the question is foolish. The record is in your WordPress site, where the comment lives. You can go back any time to see the comment and check its status. You should not assume that everything that happens on your WP site should be backed up constantly to email. Do you also cry because WP doesn’t email you each of your posts when you publish them? If you want constant email backups you should use a plugin that is designed for that. WP is designed to use email to remind you about management tasks, not as a backup mechanism.

As for the settings on the settings page, they still make sense with the new behavior, though not as much as before. The option that effectively says “Email me whenever anyone posts a comment” still does what it claims; you will get an email when someone posts it regardless of whether it was held for moderation. The “A comment is held for moderation” option also still does what it says; you will get an email in that circumstance too. The confusion is that in some situations you might expect two emails, one for moderation and one for approval, but it never promised you that. There was no “Email me whenever a comment is approved” option. One option covers all comments, the other one is there in case you ONLY want moderation emails and don’t want emails about comments that are auto-approved.

Admittedly the language needs to be rewritten to be clearer. Also where it says “Email ME” the ME is confusing and unclear, as starting with 3.1 it can refer to both the admin_email form SETTINGS > GENERAL and/or the post’s author if they have the right privileges.