We received an unexpected error: null

Hi Jan,

First, do you have a link to a page where you are having issues with the form so I can test?

Are your custom messages in english or a different language?

Also, as a note – When you have ‘Debugging’ enabled on the settings page, the default response will be returned from MailChimp, ignoring what you have set in ‘custom messages’. This is to help with the debug process. You may want to ensure you have debugging turned off, and a custom message set.

I did just do some testing and confirm that the custom messages are working as intended for both ajax and non-ajax forms.

Let me know if you have debugging turned off, and the custom message is still not displaying properly.

Thanks!
Evan

Hi Evan,

Thanks a lot for the tip hat enabling the Debugging will change the error messages from the Custom Messages to the error messages as sent by MailChimp. That explains why I first got the General Error Message I had set myself, but later started to receive the “We received an unexpected error: null”. Obviously it was because I later enabled the Debugging. I would suggest that you better clarify that under the check box for the Enable Debugging by adding something like “If you encounter an issue with Easy Forms for MailChimp you can toggle on debugging to display advanced error messages instead of the Custom Messages and start logging errors.”.

(Another thing you could clarify with regards to error messages, is to add a note under Custom Messages mentioning that some error messages in the form are generated through HTML5 Form Validation and will be presented in the language as set by the browser. I noticed this confuses some of your users.)

Anyway, if I turn off the debugging, and try to subscribe with an already subscribed email, then the Custom Message that will be returned is the General Error Message, which is incorrect. The error message that should be returned if a user is already subscribed should be the Email Already Subscribed error.

The Custom Messages I used, were in Swedish, but I have now done a form for you in English, with English Custom Messages and the error is still the same. I also tried changing a field in MailChimp that had a Field Label with a Swedish character, but even if I remove the Swedish character, I still get the same error.

I have included a form using your plugin here: https://www.miamitravel.se/halloween-miami-beach/

Please scroll down to the form in cyan color and the 3 input fields and a button saying “Yes, Please!”.

Right now I have enabled the Debugging so that you can see the actual error messages returned from MailChimp.

In that form I have also included all Field Labels in that mail list, i.e. mail address, name and surname.

To replicate the error you will have to subscribe with an email twice. The first time you will receive an optin email from MailChimp as usual. When you confirm the subscription and then try to subscribe again with the same email in the form above, you should receive the error “We received an unexpected error: null”.

In the sidebar to the right I have also included a similar form using the standard MailChimp embed code where you can subscribe to the same mail list. If you try to subscribe in that form with an email that you have already subscribed in the other form using your plugin, you will receive a correct error message saying that the user is already subscribed and providing a link for the user to update the user’s profile (the text is in Swedish) and MailChimp will then send an email for the user to update their profile.

As I mentioned before, if I instead change the Optin Settings > Update Existing Subscriber from ‘No’ to ‘Yes’, things works properly and the already subscribed users details will be updated in the MailChimp mail list. But setting it back to ‘No’ and I will receive the incorrect behavior from your plugin.

Please let me know what else I can do assist you in finding the cause of this.

Cheers

Hi Jan Martin,

Are you still having issues. I just signed up for your list, accepted the double optin email, and tried to subscribe again and got the correct response:

[email protected] is already subscribed to the list.

In regards to the response back from MailChimp with a link to update their profile, our plugin does not support that. There is multi-step authentication that needs to take place to generate that link and we just don’t have that set up at the moment.

Thanks,
Evan

Hi Evan,

Thanks, I just noticed that you signed up to the list.

I tried to replicate the error again, just like I described for you, but now I am not getting the “We received an unexpected error: null”.

It is strange. I haven’t done much changes since my last message to you 2 weeks ago, except upgrading your plugin to version 6.0.3.5. I have now just updated to version 6.0.3.7 and that version also seems to work OK.

Maybe MailChimp has done some changes to their code that solved the problem?

With regards to your last paragraph in your response above, the links provided by MailChimp works fine for updating the profile.

So, I guess we can close this ticket for the time being, and if I encounter the error again I will let you know.

Thanks a lot for great support!

Hi Jan,

That is strange, but none-the-less I’m glad that things worked itself out. I will have a look into updating some of the ‘sub’ help text below some of the settings to help clarify what each setting does in detail.

Finally, I will continue looking into adding the two factor authentication to allow users to generate the ‘update’ email sent over by MailChimp. We had it implemented in a previous version of the plugin, but removed it to keep the plugin code lean.

In a future update we will certainly look into getting that back in there as it seems to be a fairly popular feature request.

Thanks for keeping us posted on the issue, and I hope you have a wonderful start to your new year!

Evan

My pleasure and very much appreciate your efforts, support, plugin and future roadmap! Wish you and your team all the best for 2016! Cheers

If you find that you are enjoying the plugin and it’s helpful to your efforts, we would greatly appreciate it if you can find the time to leave us a review.

The reviews help reinforce the time and effort put in to maintaining and supporting this plugin.

https://www.ads-software.com/support/view/plugin-reviews/yikes-inc-easy-mailchimp-extender

Thanks again, Jan!
Evan

Thank you so much, Jan.

Happy 2016 to you, too!
-Tracy