Aleksandrrazor

Hello @miri171 ,

We are very sorry that you have encountered such an issue. We hope the previously suggested solution — disabling the plugin by deleting its folder via FTP or Hosting Panel (WEBSITE_ROOT/wp-content/plugins/cleantalk-spam-protect) — helped you regain access to your website. Could you please let us know if this resolved the problem?

If the issue persists or you need further assistance, we’d be happy to investigate it more thoroughly. To help us understand the root cause and provide a solution, could you please share:

Any error messages displayed on your site or in your WordPress console.
Screenshots of the issue or error logs (if available).

Please submit these details in a ticket via our private ticket system here:
https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused and we’ll do everything we can to resolve this issue promptly.

Best regards,

To understand what exactly the problem is, we need more specific data, such as screenshots, console error messages, or a description of which pages were broken. Without this data, it is impossible to determine the cause of the problem. As one of the possible options, try to disable the The Real Person option and check the result.

Our support specialists are ready to help you resolve any conflicts or other issues that may have arisen.

Hello @nboliver

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We are very sorry to hear that you had a negative experience with our plugin.

We understand how frustrating it must be to encounter such issues, and we want to help resolve them.

If your site was broken, it could be due to a conflict with another plugin, theme, or even custom modifications on your website. Чтобы понять, в чем именно проблема, нам необходимы более конкретные данные, такие как скриншоты, сообщения об ошибках в консоли, или описание, какие страницы были сломаны. Без этих данных определить причину проблемы невозможно. As one of the possible options, try to disable the The Real Person option and check the result.

Наши специалисты по поддержке готовы помочь вам устранить любые конфликты или другие проблемы, которые могли возникнуть.

Please contact our support team at https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open, and we will do our best to assist you and improve your experience.

Best regards,

Hello @hernanromero24

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your feedback. We are very sorry that you had a negative experience with our service.

To clarify, CleanTalk uses email notifications to communicate important updates related to your account, including trial expirations and service conditions. This is a common practice among online services to keep users informed.

You have an account with us, and when your trial period ended, our system automatically notified you and offered a solution to continue protecting your website by extending your subscription.

If you prefer not to receive emails from us, you can adjust your email preferences in your account settings or disable all notifications.

If you no longer wish to use our service, you can also delete your account and remove the plugin.

We understand that sometimes the trial period may not be sufficient to fully evaluate the value of the service. If you need more time or have any other questions, please feel free to contact us at https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open.

We are committed to providing transparent and effective spam protection, and your feedback helps us improve.

Best regards,

Hello @troyw2015 ,

Thank you for sharing your feedback. We’re sorry to hear that you had a negative experience.

Our plugin requires sign-up to provide users with access to our cloud-based security services. The access key is necessary to establish a secure connection between your website and our cloud servers, ensuring real-time protection and accurate malware scans. Without this connection, our cloud servers wouldn’t be able to function effectively with a plugin on website.

Please rest assured that we only send necessary service-related emails.

If there’s anything specific you would like us to address or improve, please let us know. We value your input and are always looking for ways to enhance our service.

Thank you!

Hello @adwheeler

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience caused. CleanTalk Cloud offers a 14-day free trial, and it is mentioned in our plugin description that our plugin works with a paid cloud service (Software as a Service). Our plugin complies with WordPress repository guidelines and does not violate any rules.

The [ACTION REQUIRED] email is intended to remind users about the trial expiration and prevent service interruption.

Regarding the deactivation issue, please ensure you are using the latest version of the plugin. If the problem persists, kindly contact our support team at [email protected] or open a ticket at https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open so we can assist you promptly.

Thank you for your feedback. We are committed to improving our service.

Hello @manhattancenters

I just wanted to add a little to the answer above. We would like to emphasize that the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin and service are complex systems with numerous integrations and functions. Each version is thoroughly tested to ensure reliability and performance.

In this case, two bugs occurred that were only discovered after the release. We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. While we strive to ensure that all of our releases are bug-free, unfortunately, not all issues are caught during testing.

We hope that this experience does not change your overall perception of our service and that you will consider updating your rating.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

As we mentioned earlier, the plugin does not affect the manual moderation option “Comment must be manually approved”, it always works.

Your screenshot of our plugin option “Skip manual approving for the very first comment if a comment has been allowed by CleanTalk Anti-Spam protection” affects the option “Comment author must have a previously approved comment”. This is one of the plugin’s features.

Since the cloud license does not affect or disable the plugin itself and its features, the license only affects the cloud data that the plugin works with. Therefore, the options continue to work until the plugin is deactivated or removed. This option does not depend on the cloud operation, just like the plugin options such as “Disable all comments”. If you enable this option, it is not dependent on the cloud service license, so comments will be disabled even without a license.

This works the same way as with any other plugin that adds functionality to a site. For example, if a plugin adds a logo, the logo will be displayed until you disable the plugin or the logo display setting.

To disable the plugin functions, you need to deactivate the necessary options or deactivate the plugin. In any case, we will add processing of this option to the license in order to use the default settings. This will be done in about 2 weeks.

Hello @darqcrow,

Could you send me a screenshot of your moderation settings?

How do you have the following options checked in Discussion Settings:

• Comment must be manually approved
• Comment author must have a previously approved comment

Thanks,

Thank you for clarifying the situation @darqcrow.

These reports provide statistics on how much spam was blocked on the website and how much was published. Since your license has expired, the cloud does not block spam and they are published according to your site’s moderation settings. In other words, the site is still operating in the same mode and with the same settings as before the plugin was installed. The fact that spam is increasing is due to natural reasons – it can grow or decrease, depending on spammers. The more Google indexes the pages of your site, the more visible it becomes to spammers.

I can once again note that the plugin does not overwrite the manual moderation settings, changing the site settings with the plugin is impossible, there is no such functionality in the plugin code. It is prohibited to change site settings without action by the user himself.
You can check it yourself. Remove the plugin -> install the manual moderation option -> install the plugin again.

Please write to us if you need additional time to familiarize yourself with our service. We would appreciate it if you could reconsider your rating.

Thank you!

Hello @darqcrow,

Could you tell us in what position you have the option for manual moderation? You can check it here
WP Dashboard -> Settings->Discussion->”Comment must be manually approved”.

This option is responsible for sending all comments for manual moderation. It should be marked.

Thanks,

Hello @dominatemmm,

The plugin cannot invoke such command, as there is no functionality in the plugin for overwriting the comment moderation settings. We have double-checked the plugin’s behavior and the moderation settings remain as they were set and all comments went for manual approval.

You can check this yourself.

Check the moderation settings “Comment must be manually approved”, and then remove the plugin.

Write a comment and make sure it requires manual approval.

Reinstall the plugin, enter the access key, save the settings. Write a comment and ensure it requires manual approval.

When writing a comment, make sure you have logged out of the administrator account or do it in incognito mode.

If you need help to resolve this issue, we would be happy to assist you, please contact our support team and create a ticket using the link https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open.
We would be interested in understanding the reasons for this behavior together with you.

We will be happy to help you!

Thank you!

Hello @dominatemmm,

As I already answered in a previous review,

Your information that the plugin overwrites site settings and places comments in approved, and not in the Pending folder, is not true.
It is important to note that the plugin does not overwrite settings, and this is not dependent on the license. If your site settings indicate that approved comments should be placed in the Pending folder, it will work that way.

You should check your moderation settings for comments. Perhaps this is the influence of some other plugin. Make sure that you had and currently have the “Comment must be manually approved” option enabled.

If you need our help, you can contact our technical support team and we will be happy to help you.
https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

Thank you!

Hello @darqcrow,

The plugin itself is free and open source. The fact that the plugin works with a cloud service and is a plugin as a service is written in the plugin description. We believe that it is better to have a cheap service for all users, rather than making it expensive only for premium users. Because in this case, premium users will not pay for free users. Therefore, a cloud service may have a price of $1 per month.

Your information that the plugin overwrites site settings and places comments in approved, and not in the Pending folder, is not true.
It is important to note that the plugin does not overwrite settings, and this is not dependent on the license. If your site settings indicate that approved comments should be placed in the Pending folder, it will work that way.

You should check your moderation settings for comments. Perhaps this is the influence of some other plugin. Make sure that you had and currently have the “Comment must be manually approved” option enabled.

If you need our help, you can contact our technical support team and we will be happy to help you.
https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

Thank you!

Hello @wedz,

Thank you for sharing your experience with CleanTalk anti-spam plugin. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Virus creators hide their code, hide it in various types of files and use many other methods to hide the code, sometimes it is difficult to find without examining the files.
If something does not work as required, then we provide technical support, you can contact us by email or create a ticket here https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open. This will help us understand the reasons why such code was not detected.

Thank you!