I’m sorry to hear you’re having issues Leo. Unfortunately, email issues like this can be a real pain to troubleshoot since the issue can be caused by so many different things. There are a few things I’d suggest you try:
- Check the plugin settings to make sure the number of days in advance to send the reminder emails is a positive integer such as 3, 4, or 10.
- Make sure you have set the dates for events to take place correctly. Obviously, if the dates aren’t input correctly the reminder emails won’t be sent at the right time.
- Check with your hosting company to see if they can check that the emails are being sent. Sometimes automated emails like this can be blocked by your hosting company to prevent spam.
Let us know what you find out Leo. Good luck.
Jonathan
Wired Impact
Jonathan, the event reminders are set for 7 days, the events are fixed dates and the dates of the events are set correctly. Other automated tasks run correctly.
What else can we look at to solve this issue?
Leo
Hi Leo,
I’d still recommend you check with your hosting company to see if they can see what emails are being sent. Sometimes automated emails like this can be blocked by your hosting company to prevent spam.
Let me know what they say and we can go from there.
Jonathan
Jonathan, if I can send out the email manually, it makes no sense that an automated email would fail because of the number of email addresses being sent to. To simplify and test this further, I created a test opportunity for Saturday (fixed event, limited to 1 volunteer). I signed up for the event and set the reminder interval for one day. Following the logic of the application, I should get an automatic email tomorrow reminding me about the event.
Leo
Jonathan, I also turned on debugging on our site and have access to the debug log.
Leo
Thanks for setting up the test Leo. And I hear what you’re saying about the logic, but unfortunately, email is a very tricky subject when it comes to websites. We’ve seen a number of situations where some emails go out, while others from the same website are blocked for various reasons.
Once tomorrow comes and goes, let us know what you found and please share anything you see from the debug logs.
I’ll be out of town until Tuesday, but should be able to get back to you by the middle of next week.
Jonathan
Wired Impact
Jonathan, I didn’t get an automatic reminder from the test event. I manually sent one from the event, which worked fine. I changed the data of the test event to 10/27 and the reminder interval to two days, which means I should get an reminder email.
As I mentioned, other automated events (like backups work – which manages to send me an email when a backup is done) but not events.
What would be different between the email being sent out by the backup plugin working but not the notice for events?
What file/process is responsible for the email being sent out?
Leo
Hi Leo,
Thanks for all of your testing. We’re going to run a manual test on our end this week to see if we can find any issues.
Would you be willing to provide us a WordPress user account on your website so we can have a look at it? If so, please fill out the form on https://wiredimpact.com/about/contact/ with your contact details and I’ll reach out with next steps.
In regards to your questions about the differences between our plugin and the backup plugin, it’s hard to know without having more details about the backup plugin. The volunteer management system uses the default WordPress cron scheduling system as well as the built-in email functions within WordPress. That said, like any piece of software, the issue could be happening in a wide number of places.
Jonathan
Wired Impact
Jonathan, I would be glad to create an account for this purpose. What kind of access will it need?
Leo
Hi Leo,
We’ll need administrator access to the site. Thanks for reaching out through our contact form. I’ll get in touch with you there. We can leave this support request open while we work through the problem.
Jonathan
Hi Leo,
Have you had a chance to test the updated plugin to make sure it fixes this problem for you?
Thanks and have a good day.
Jonathan
Hey Leo,
Just wanted to follow up to see if you had a chance to test the updated plugin to make sure it fixes this problem for you?
Thanks.
Jonathan
Hi Leo,
Since we haven’t heard back from you I’m going to assume this is working well for you now. I’ll go ahead and mark this resolved. Take care.
Jonathan
