There’s a lot of helpful discussion in this post:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sending-thanks-and-notifications-emails?replies=13
See if that gives you any guidance. If not, let me know.
–David
I’m having the same problem. Submitted a test donation and didnt get an email confirmation. Sent a test email from admin, never received it. No clue what I need to do for emails to go through. All other plugins that have an email/notification function work just fine. PLEASE HELP.
There are a lot of elements to email in WordPress. Basically, you’re using a server to connect to another server and since there are so many variations, there are a bunch of challenges.
Personally, I have found that using merely WordPress’ own built-in mail tends not to work. I used some SMTP plugins to connect to outside SMTP servers, but found them difficult. I’ve subsequently started using the SendGrid service (it’s free, at least at my level) with their plugin, and have had no difficulty getting messages at all.
Try that. Might give you a good leg up.
–David
David,
First of all, thank you so much for your quick reply. As far as your recommendation to use send grid, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would your plugin, if written properly, not work with standard WordPress mail functions? If all other plugins work just fine on this installation, why wouldn’t yours? I doesn’t make sense to have to install 2 additional plugins just to get your plugin to send messages/confirmations/notifications properly???
I’ll answer that in two parts. First, I have no idea yet whether the email functionality is written properly. I assume so because Allen (the original author) is a master coder. But I have yet to delve into the email sending code.
Now, here’s where voice-of-experience comes in. I have long found, across all my sites and all the plugins (not mine) that I’ve used, that using WordPress’ built in email is unreliable at best. Mostly that’s because it relies on the PHP version installed on a given host, and how that hosting provider has configured internal email sending.
I have found that plugins that allow direct SMTP links to external services to be vastly more reliable. I have recently found that services like SendGrid and Mandrill to be even more helpful because they focus on transactional mail delivery and tend to have pairing agreements with services like Gmail that helps mail go through and not get bounced like spam.
As time goes on, I will delve deeply into the mailing side of Seamless Donations and put together more in-depth help. But for now, those are my most actionable recommendations to get you a working solution sooner rather than later.
–David
I doesn’t make sense to have to install 2 additional plugins just to get your plugin to send messages/confirmations/notifications properly???
David is 100% right here. Seamless Donations simply calls the WordPress mail function and that’s it. WordPress itself is actually responsible for delivering the mail. And as he’s already pointed out, an SMTP plugin will enhance the very basic functionality provided by WordPress.
All other plugins that have an email/notification function work just fine.
Email is way too complicated a system to claim that if it works for A, then it must work for B through Z. Try a plugin and see if it helps. Mine or any of these.
