WordPress › Support » Subscribe2 not sending email

kalanit74
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

Hi there.
I am the admin of this site which has a small list of registered members (around 40). They all have usernames and passwords so that they can access "member" areas of the site.

They used to receive emails when the site updated but no longer do as whatever plugin/service was being used to do this was erased/deactivated prior to the site coming to me. In other words, these people have already consented to receive email updates.

My problem is, although I have manually added all the email addresses from the registered member list (so that they are also "registered subscribers"), no one receives email updates except me (the admin) and the one user I have who is only a subscriber.

I have done everything I can think of to fix this problem and am approaching "throw the computer out the window" time. I'm thrilled to find that there's actually a forum for this plugin...any suggestions?
MattyRob
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

@kalanit74,

In Tools->Subscribers have you clicked on the (edit) next to a Registered Subscribers email address and made sure that they are subscribed to your categories?

Have you tried settings the number of recipients per email to 1 in Settings->Subscribe2?

It would be helpful to have a list of the things you've already tried so we can save time and avoid suggesting things you've already done.

Have you contacted your hosting provider to ask if the emails are being blocked for any reason?
kalanit74
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

Yes, the registered users have been subscribed to the blog post categories. I have also tried both daily and once-per-post mailings with no difference in result. I have changed the admin email address to an on-site address (although previously an external email address was used with no problems). I have made sure that the tickbox on the post pages is unchecked by default. I have created a page on the site for the subscription code to reside (even though I understand that is no longer necessary). No, I have not tried setting the email to "1" because I don't know who that email would go out to and have no way to check. However, as I said before, the server will send email to only public subscribers (which are almost all people I have manually subscribed)--this to me says that my emails are not being blocked at the server level. Also, when I couldn't get the plugin to work, I manually sent a notification to all subscribers via the website email. I bcc'd all of them. If the account were under suspicion, I'm assuming that wouldn't have been possible. In addition, prior to my taking over the site, mails were sent to the same number of people as now.

I'm further frustrated by the fact that I run this plugin on two other sites and it works perfectly for both subscribers and registered subscribers. To me, this is beginning to look like some sort of database corruption, either with the member list or the database itself. I'm not sure how to fix this since my predecessor did not pass on any database backups he might have done. Plus, I'm not sure I'd want to restore to previous point even if I could--the site has been massively redesigned in the last month. Other than corruption, it could be a server issue--the other two websites are with a different provider. (This one runs on iPower, the other two run on Total Choice.)

I should say also that I'm running version 6.4 of the plugin and wordpress release 3.2.1. My problems with the plugin started before the WP upgrade, so I'm pretty comfortable assuming that it's not part of the issue.
MattyRob
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

@kalanit74,

Try setting the number of recipients to 1. You should get the email at your check email address and maybe at your admin address if that is subscribed.

This would avoid using the BCC header which may aid sending and delivery.

You could maybe look at database corruption by exporting the public subscribers, deleting the plugin and then re-installing Subscribe2. You'd loose some of the specific preferences of your Registered subscribers but it's maybe worth a try.

To be honest though, as this is an issue on one site hosted by a different company I'd be looking at email restrictions still. They way these are implemented on some hosts can make it seem like it simply cannot be that as the source of the problem because sometimes the emails send and sometimes they don't. This is usually down to time based limitations where you are only allowed to send x emails / hour. If you approach or exceed this emails are then dropped and blocked for the next 24 hours or some other period and then the limitation is lifted again.
kalanit74
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

Okay, the "1" setting did send to both the site admin email and to the "webmaster" email (which is where the plugin is set to send email from in its control panel). This is not a new thing. Both of these addresses have been receiving the emails no matter what I change them to (on or off-site, existing subscriber or not).

Edit to add: I just did the deactivate/delete plugin thing, and here's what I got (I'll edit this out after you respond):

EDITED OUT

I'm assuming I need to go and delete manually via FTP since I'm still seeing the plugin greyed out on the plugin list...
MattyRob
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

@kalanit74,

If changing to "1" worked for your two users can you confirm with other subscribers? Did they get the email too?

The Uninstaller in 6.4 has a known bug (as you've found). It's fixed in the trunk code so if you want to uninstall use the trunk uninstaller from here.

Download this file and replaced the version you have on your server at wp-content/plugins/subscribe2/
kalanit74
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

I have heard from a few of the subscribers and they did get the email as well. (YAY!)

I uninstalled the plugin with the trunk uninstaller and everything went well. I reinstalled, re-edited all the users email subscription preferences, reloaded the public subscribers, and reset the number of recipients to 1.

Shortly, we're sending out another post, and I will update you here if everything goes through.

Thank you so much for your help!!
kalanit74
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

One more quick question in the interim:

Can I use html to style the post notification emails? For example, I would like to add a horizontal line to break up sections and bold tags to differentiate the title of the post from the text.
MattyRob
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

@kalanit74,

Yes, you can use HTML to style the email for Registered subscribers who have opted for the HTML style email.

HTML will be stripped out for people who have chose plain text emails and for Public Subscribers.

Test the output first by using the preview button after editing the templates at Settings->Subscribe2.
kalanit74
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

Ok! The mailing list is sending out as it should now, so PROBLEM SOLVED!

I'm curious: right now the number of recipients is set to 1. Did we set it this way because we knew the webhost would allow one email at a time? If I talk to them and find out their limit on such things would I be able to send more at a time?
MattyRob
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

@kalanit74,

Setting the number of recipients per email to one sends the emails to single recipients using only the TO: field, once you use a number other than 1 the emails are sent to admin with individual recipient email address added to the BCC: field of the email.

Some hosts really don't like this for some reason even though they can count each recipient as an individual email. It takes longer in Subscribe2 (but still in the fractions of a second on the vast majority of sites) sending emails individually but on such sites it does seem to work better.

If it's working for you now, I'd suggest you leave it alone!
kalanit74
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

Will do! Thanks again for all your help!
Gil
Member
Posted 5 months ago #

I have been having the same problem with v. 6.5. Have done all of the steps that kalanit74 did. Then uninstalled 6.5 and installed the newest 7.x version. Still not sending.
wayside
Member
Posted 4 months ago #

I'm on board with this same problem. My Subscribe2 had been working properly up until 2 weeks ago when it suddenly stopped sending. No modifications were made to the site. We have checked with GoDaddy, our ISP, and everything is fine there. We have uninstalled the plugin and reinstalled it manually, changed the setting from 0 to 1. Help!!!
sjsartidea
Member
Posted 4 months ago #

Same problem here....working properly and then just stopped. Subscribe2 stopped working on 1/12/12. To try to "fix" the problem, I updated Subscribe 2 to the 7.1 version, I changed the no. of recipients to 1, uninstalled and reinstalled...it seems now some people are getting notifications and others still aren't.

Could this be a problem/conflict with updating WordPress to 3.3.1? I updated about the time Subscribe2 first stopped working.

Ditto from Wayside: Help.
MattyRob
Member
Posted 4 months ago #

@sjsartidea,

Are you hosted with GoDaddy by any chance? There are big problems with Subscribe2 on their hosting at the moment. In another thread wayside found a fix by leaving GoDaddy.

To date nobody who has remained with GoDaddy has given me any information from the hosting company that I can use to make a workaround.
envecreative
Member
Posted 5 days ago #

I have a site hosted on Bluehost and I've been unable to send to all users for the past couple months. It sends to a set of them and then doesn't send to any past a certain point. I uninstalled the plugin tonight and reinstalled and tried re-publishing a post, and now no emails have gone out. I'm running v. 8.2 on WordPress 3.3.2. Please help, as my client isn't able to get out timely information to her subscribers.
MattyRob
Member
Posted 5 days ago #

@envecreative,

What you describe sounds very much like a server side emailing restriction - you are reaching a limit when sending the emails, the emails sent before that limit send and after it they are dropped and not sent.

You need a mail queue solution I think, this can be done with a server binary if bluehost offer it on your level of hosting, or you can use the WordPress database and a plugin like WordPress Mail Queue or the alternatives on WordPress.org.
envecreative
Member
Posted 5 days ago #

You were so right! I installed Mail Queues by PCBI and tested until I couldn't test any more. Now that I've set up the SMTP physically through there, it appears to be working. Thank you so so much!
concentre
Member
Posted 11 hours ago #

I just wanted to mention that I spoke with GoDaddy today and that they confirmed that their servers do have an email limitation for number of subscribers. I have been struggling with this issue for my client's blog which has 97 public subscribers. That does not seem like a lot to me, but is apparantly too many for GoDaddy.

The support tech was unable to tell me what the max number is, but suggested I try adding a few at a time until it stops working?!?

For all you who have experienced your Subscribe2 plugin spontaneously stop working, I'd venture to guess this happened when you crossed the mysterious threshold. Our plugin works just fine with a small number of subscribers, but stops working when we add the full public list (97 subscribers).

@MattyRob, can you recommend a host known for reliability that does not impose a limitation?
MattyRob
Member
Posted 11 hours ago #

@concentre,

If a hosting provider did not impose any limitations I'd actively advised against using them. No restrictions means an open door to spammers.

I do not endorse any particular hosting provider but feel that any that are open and honest about their restrictions would be good places to start. Bluehost and hostgator seem to get the thumbs up from a good number of Subscribe2's users.