Hi @jeffscroggs,
Thanks for the details. There are a couple of things specific to the File Change notification that explain why it can stay silent even when everything looks enabled, and the good news is they’re easy to check.
First, the most important difference from Site Scan: the File Change email is event-driven. It only goes out when a scan actually detects added, removed, or changed files compared to the previous scan. A scan that finds no changes sends nothing at all, by design. Site Scan behaves differently, which is why it can look like one works and the other is broken when in fact File Change simply had nothing to report. So the first question is whether scans are running and whether they’re finding changes.
You can confirm both in one place: go to Security > Logs and filter the Module to “File Change”. Each completed scan logs an entry there. If you see scans completing but reporting no changes, that’s expected silence, nothing is wrong. If you see an entry where changes were found but no email arrived, then it’s a recipient or delivery issue, which brings me to the second point.
The File Change notification has its own recipient list, separate from the global From Email / Default Recipients at the top of the Notifications screen. It does not automatically inherit the default recipients just because your other notifications do, since each notification carries its own recipient configuration. This is the most common reason it goes quiet: the notification is enabled, but its recipient list is empty or set to “custom” with no valid address. Head to Security > Settings > Notification Center, open the File Change notification, and confirm it actually resolves to a real address (either pointed at your Default Recipients, or a custom user/email list that contains a valid mailbox). If that list is empty, no email is sent even when changes are detected.
While you’re in there, it’s also worth a quick look at the Alerts area on your Security Dashboard. Failed notification sends surface there as a Dynamic Highlight, and the Notification Center records the last mail error, so if a send was attempted and bounced you’ll see it rather than having to guess.
If you’d like to prove the whole path end to end, make a small deliberate change to a file on the site (for example add a blank line to a file via SFTP), let the next File Change scan run, then check Security > Logs for the change entry and confirm the email lands. That confirms detection, recipients, and delivery in one pass.
One last note: if you have Security Digest enabled, file change activity is folded into that digest summary as well, so it’s possible you’ve been receiving the brief mention there instead of standalone File Change emails. The full list of changed files always lives in Security > Logs regardless.
If the logs show changes being found but the email still doesn’t arrive after confirming recipients, reply back here with what the File Change log entries look like and I’ll dig in further.
Kind regards,
Paweł
