Title: Emails
Last modified: August 10, 2026

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# Emails

 *  Resolved [angelicamf91](https://wordpress.org/support/users/angelicamf91/)
 * (@angelicamf91)
 * [3 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/)
 * Thanks again Remi, I feel like I’m playing whack-a-mole here lol. Previous issue
   resolved and people are checking out as normal but now they are not receiving
   confirmation emails. I setup WP SMTP which helped with the confirmation emails
   but they aren’t getting the milo subscription related emails anymore but they
   were before. I’ve already checked that all notifications are turned on. Anywhere
   else to check?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Remi Corson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corsonr/)
 * (@corsonr)
 * Automattic Happiness Engineer
 * [3 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18989719)
 * Ha! Sorry about the whack-a-mole – but this one may be a quick answer.
   Milo has
   a safety feature that stops a staging or development copy of a store from emailing
   real customers. When it triggers, it silences only the subscription emails and
   leaves WooCommerce’s own order emails alone – which is exactly the pattern you’re
   describing. And here’s the part that’s our fault: WooCommerce → Settings → Emails
   keeps showing them all as “Enabled”, because the block is applied on top of those
   settings rather than through them. So you were right that everything was turned
   on, and there was nothing there to tell you otherwise.Could you check one thing:
   in wp-admin, on any page other than the Milo screens (your Plugins list is fine),
   do you see a yellow notice saying “Milo Subscriptions: Staging Site Detected”?
   If it’s there, click the “This is the production site” button in it and your 
   subscription emails will start sending again immediately.If that notice is not
   there, then this isn’t the cause and I’ll dig further – in that case, could you
   tell me whether anything changed on the site around when the emails stopped: 
   a move to https, a domain or URL change, a migration or a restore from a staging
   copy, or anything added to wp-config.php while we were debugging the payment 
   issue? Any of those can make the plugin think it’s looking at a copy of your 
   store.Either way, the next release makes this impossible to miss: the email settings
   screen itself will say the emails are being held back and why, and the staging
   notice will list emails among what it disables instead of only mentioning payments.
 *  Thread Starter [angelicamf91](https://wordpress.org/support/users/angelicamf91/)
 * (@angelicamf91)
 * [3 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18989729)
 * Yes, I didn’t have debug logs showing before so I had to update the wp-config
   file earlier to get the errors for the payment issue. Other than that, no other
   changes to the site or settings
 *  Plugin Author [Remi Corson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corsonr/)
 * (@corsonr)
 * Automattic Happiness Engineer
 * [3 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18989792)
 * That’s almost certainly it, and it’s a quick fix.
   What to look for: open your
   wp-config.php and look for a line like this. Many “how to enable debug logging
   in WordPress” snippets include it alongside the WP_DEBUG ones, so it may well
   have come in with the lines you added for the payment issue:define( ‘WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE’,‘
   development’ );It might say ‘staging’ or ‘local’ instead of ‘development’. Your
   WP_DEBUG and WP_DEBUG_LOG lines are fine and can stay – they have no effect on
   this.WordPress uses it to tell every plugin “this is not a live store”. Milo 
   takes it at its word and switches into a protective mode designed for staging
   copies: it holds back all subscription emails so a duplicate of a store can never
   email real customers. It deliberately leaves WooCommerce’s own order emails alone,
   which is exactly the split you’re seeing.And here is the part that’s our fault:
   WooCommerce → Settings → Emails keeps showing every subscription email as “Enabled”,
   because this is applied on top of those settings rather than through them. So
   you were right that everything was turned on, and there was nothing on that screen
   to tell you otherwise. Sorry for the hunt.Two ways to fix it, either is fine:
   1. Delete that line from wp-config.php (or change ‘development’ to ‘production’),
   or2. In wp-admin, find the yellow “Milo Subscriptions: Staging Site Detected”
   notice and click “This is the production site”. That overrides the detection 
   permanently, and works whatever the underlying cause turns out to be.Worth doing
   today rather than later: what’s wrong here isn’t that Milo holds things back 
   on staging – that’s deliberate, so a copy of a store can never charge real customers
   or email them. It’s that your live store is being read as a copy. The same switch
   that silenced your emails also pauses automatic renewal payments and their scheduled
   events. Your subscriptions bill every 2 months, so nothing has come due yet; 
   clearing this now means you never find out the hard way.If that line isn’t in
   your wp-config.php, then something else is triggering the detection. Do you see
   the yellow “Staging Site Detected” notice in wp-admin (on any page except the
   Milo screens)? If yes, click its button and you’re sorted either way. If no, 
   then this isn’t the cause and I’ll keep digging — just let me know.Either way,
   this was far too hard to find, and that’s on us. The next release makes it impossible
   to miss: the email settings screen itself will say the subscription emails are
   being held back and why, right under the toggles that currently claim they’re
   on, and the staging notice will list emails among what it disables instead of
   mentioning only payments.
 *  Thread Starter [angelicamf91](https://wordpress.org/support/users/angelicamf91/)
 * (@angelicamf91)
 * [3 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18989813)
 * Hi that line is nowhere to be found in my config. I only added:
 * define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true ); 
   define( ‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, false );define( ‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’,
   true );and no I do not see the yellow “Milo Subscriptions: Staging Site Detected”
   notice 
 *  Plugin Author [Remi Corson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corsonr/)
 * (@corsonr)
 * Automattic Happiness Engineer
 * [3 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18990188)
 * Thanks – that rules out my first theory. Could you open one recent subscription(
   Subscriptions → click one that should have triggered an email) and tell me two
   things:
   1. Does it show a customer email address? Ours are addressed from the
   subscription, whereas WooCommerce’s order emails are addressed from the order–
   so a subscription that lost its email address would show exactly what you’re 
   seeing.2. What do its notes say? Specifically, is there a “Subscription status
   changed from … to …” entry around the time of a checkout? If the status never
   changed, no email would have been triggered in the first place – a different 
   problem from one that was sent and lost.A screenshot of that subscription screen
   would answer both at once.That second point matters because it splits the problem
   cleanly: never sent, or sent and not delivered. WP Mail SMTP fixed delivery for
   your order emails, so if ours were being sent they should be arriving too – which
   points at them not being triggered or having nobody to send to.
 *  Thread Starter [angelicamf91](https://wordpress.org/support/users/angelicamf91/)
 * (@angelicamf91)
 * [3 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18990513)
 * Good morning,
 * Here is how it looks for one of the subscribers who didn’t receive any emails.
   [https://postimg.cc/VdX4Ldjd](https://postimg.cc/VdX4Ldjd)
 * I checked with a few new subscribers throughout the day yesterday and it seems
   that the emails started coming through after a while so it seems that issue resolved
   itself but just needed some time to reset maybe?
 *  Plugin Author [Remi Corson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corsonr/)
 * (@corsonr)
 * Automattic Happiness Engineer
 * [3 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18990572)
 * Perfect!
   Look at the first line: Email “Activated Subscription” sent, at 3:04
   PM, in the same second as the activation. So Milo did trigger and hand off that
   email at the right moment. Everything below it is the chain working exactly as
   it should: subscription created from the order, order activated, subscription
   activated, email sent.Which means this was never about the emails being sent.
   It was about them being delivered, and that fits what you saw: you’d just set
   up WP Mail SMTP, and when a site starts sending through a newly configured sender,
   receiving servers commonly hold the first messages back for a while before accepting
   them. Nothing was lost, and nothing reset itself; the deferred ones were released
   once your sending domain settled. That’s also why your order confirmations came
   good first and the subscription emails followed: they simply queued behind.Nothing
   to change on your side. If you want to make it stick, it’s worth checking that
   your SPF (and DKIM if your provider offers it) records are in place for the sending
   domain in WP Mail SMTP – that’s what shortens or removes that settling period,
   and it protects you if you ever change sender again.Thanks for sticking with 
   this one and for the screenshot; it made the difference between guessing and 
   knowing.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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 * 7 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Remi Corson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corsonr/)
 * Last activity: [3 weeks ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/emails-71/#post-18990572)
 * Status: resolved