Users not receiving emails to activate their own sites

If no one is getting any emails – including you – then it’s your server.

Have you asked your host?

Andrea:

I did not…I changed my theme back to Twenty Ten and also some other ones, and everything works fine. And then switched back to the theme I had been using, and nothing…So I have decided to simply not use the theme that was not working.

And all seems OK now.

Strange though.

It could be something in the functions.php of the other theme.

I spoke too soon. Why it was working last night, further tests this morning failed.

I spoke with my host, who was looking into it further.

From my end, as my network is still in testing, might it be useful to simply reinstall and reactivate the network? When I initially changed to multisite, I did not delete all my existing plugins that I had earlier installed (when I did not have the network enabled). Is it possible that one of these plugins generated a conflict?

Thanks again for your insight.

Sure, it’s possible. You could do the standard debugging. Turn off all plugins and try again.

Well that did not help. I actually deleted all my plugins that I was not using,

Still no emails being sent to allow users to activate sites.

As an aside, the information provided is being added to the wp_signups table in my database.

My host continues to look into this issue, but I am thinking I might have to try a complete reinstall, and start over.

Please try and see if *any* other emails are being sent – comment moderation emails, for example.

Do you have email set up on the box?

If *no* emails are being sent at all… then it’s the server. reinstalling won’t fix a thing.

In my experience, when something suddenly stops working like that… the host messed something up. yes, it happens, even when they do routine upgrades to the OS.

Andrea…I sincerely appreciate your engagement…

Thanks for the suggestion…I submitted 3 test comments, and all 3 were received.

as another tidbit of info, I have spent the past few hours registering different ‘test sites’, and I have received the activiation emails for 2 of about 10. I activated one of the 2, but never received the final confirmation that included account info for that particular site.

2 out of 10 means they *are* being sent. Sending emails is one thing – receiving them is another. ??

What email address were they? Hotmail or comcast? Cuz those ones get trashed. Also check the spam filters on those accounts.

9 times out of 10, emails that are not received are because of the email host (ie; not you).

interesting point.

The majority of the email addresses being registered were going to the same domain, although various email names (some of which I rely on the catchall to capture)

However, I have also used my corporate domain, and had another friend register using a corporate domain (and my host provider also tested with no success). Is it possible when you state they are getting trashed, they are not even making it to the spam filter? If so, is there any suggestion for overcoming this?

After your comment above, I used a yahoo account, and was able to receive my email.

I’d check my domain here for starters: https://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

Sometimes things get stupid.

Thanks…I did check, I am not there!

Based on Andrea’s feedback, I have spent this evening trying to find some alternative or workaround. But to no avail.

However, I did come across some documentation that supports what Andrea had stated – that it could be I am being blocked by companies (like Time Warner Cable, as an example.)

To continue to troubleshoot, I deleted all my existing user accounts (except the primary). I then began to recreate sites…and strangely, my yahoo account does not recognize this anymore.

So, now I am searching for workarounds…With a single install, I have been able to successfully use the PieRegister plugin to allow users to set their own passwords. This does not seem to work for multisites…any suggestions on a plugin I could use to allow users to set their own passwords? If I could also implement some sort of captcha feature, this might work to avoid the spammers.

As an aside, I use GoDaddy hosting, with a dedicated IP, and while the official statement is that GoDaddy does not support multisite subdomains, I saw a post from Andrea that seems to imply there is a workaround for that…any comments if that is still true?

Best,

David

To clarify the above…I registered my yahoo account again, and never received an email. I also used a different domain, and did receive the email, so I am more confused than ever.

I am thinking that at this point an entirely clean install might be best.

Oh yeah, yahoo will trash the emails.

You can *try* to set up a Reverse DNS entry so that yahoo sees the mail headers and says “Okay, this is probably legit and not automated..” but that can take up to three days to make sure it works.

So, basically you could set that now, then check on monday. Enjoy the holidays instead.