Bluehost Contact Form 7 Stopped Working

GoDaddy + Contact Form 7 Stopped Working too

Called GoDaddy and it is not on their end. Something is up at ContactForm7.

See Contact Form 7 Email Issues. There is a link at the bottom of the page to a comprehensive and detailed article which covers many issues. Most people that work through this information appear to be able to resolve their email sending & receiving issues.

??To avoid Bluehost email sending issues you could try using an SMTP plugin like https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/postman-smtp/.

@josh, @dlllb, what FROM addresses are each of you using on your emails? (Please respond with the domain only)

AFAIK, both Bluehost and GoDaddy block the standard SMTP ports which puts certain restrictions on how you configure your email delivery.

After a 2nd conversation with GoDaddy, they advised to install
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wp-mail-smtp/
for use with Contact form 7 they said SMTP address is:
relay-hosting.secureserver.net
port 25

As a possible work around, we are also testing Fast Secure Contact Form in place of Contact Form 7. Results are yet to be seen.

Same here on HostGator – No emails being received.

Did you find that wp-mail-smtp worked?

@the818studios @ HostGator:

You can just use your domain name as the SMTP host and the username is the username for the account you set up in cPanel (be sure to include @yourdomain in the username in your email program.) You should also be sure that you have SMTP Authentication turned on in your SMTP plugin.

Are you sure your problem is the same? The other two posted about email that was working and now suddenly no longer works.

@postman SMTP:

It doesn’t matter what email I put in the “from”, “to”, or “reply-to:” (in additional headers) fields. The error continuously occurs. I even tried a few different contact form plugins and the issue happens with those, too, so it’s not just Contact Form 7.

Keep in mind, I had over a dozen Contact Form 7 forms on multiple websites on the same server that were working great, and then they all got knocked-out at once, so I think it’s my Bluehost server.

I’ve tried all of the normal work-arounds except SMTP. I’d rather not go the SMTP route every time I create a website, but it would probably resolve the issue. I’d like to get to the bottom of the core issue first, though.

I have a support ticket in with Bluehost, so we’ll see if they can find anything. I’ll report back if I get an update.

@josh, you can’t send mail without SMTP. All mail on the Internet is sent with SMTP. By not installing an SMTP plugin, you are telling WordPress “just use the default configured on my server” .. and who knows what that is. Maybe localhost:25… maybe not. Since you’re on Bluehost, I’m 99% sure your SMTP server is mail.domain.com, with authentication, not whatever WordPress is trying to use.

Secondly, you haven’t stated what domain you are trying to use in your from address, but if it’s owned by an email service provider, you have to use their SMTP server with authentication, not your own. Long gone are the days of the open relay.

@postman SMTP:

I’m mostly using email accounts associated with each domain. So [email protected] for the website at example.com, [email protected] for otherwebsite.com, etc. Some of these have emails accounts set up with Bluehost, some of them are going through Google Apps for Business.

I’m fine using an SMTP plugin if absolutely necessary, but I’m more concerned about what happened within the last 24 hours that would have caused this issue in the first place. It doesn’t make sense that everything just stopped working all of the sudden across dozens of websites using different configurations. These were working for more than two years without issues, and now it stopped. It just doesn’t make sense.

For the Google-managed email, a likely cause is they have slated your accounts for security upgrades: https://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.ca/2014/04/new-security-measures-will-affect-older.html

Sending Google Apps email reliably through Bluehost is complicated, but I believe they have something called a remote MX relay option that might work. YMMV. Normally I recommend https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/postman-gmail-extension/

For the Bluehost managed domains, the same security concern above could prevent the reception of these emails at Google. The solution there is to verify that you SPF record on those domains points to the correct Bluehost SMTP server.

Too many hours wasted on getting Contact Form 7 back up and running. Currently using a work around.

UPDATE: All of my contact forms started working again without making any changes. Bluehost did some extensive digging and couldn’t pinpoint the issue, so it may have just been a fluke. It resolved after about 36 hours of downtime.

dlllb what is the work around you are using?

I have experienced the same issue, except that my Contact Form 7 is still not working on my bluehost-hosted site.

Could anyone steer me to where the mail settings are configured in bluehost?

Both my From and To email addresses are associated with the same domain, and were purchased through bluehost.

Thanks!

the818studios – after much work by two techs, Contact Form 7 still unplugged. Now using – Contact Form DB -and- Fast Secure Contact Form

The site is in a worse state right now with gobs of malware. New problem.