Title: Error: Filename cannot be empty
Last modified: September 1, 2016

---

# Error: Filename cannot be empty

 *  [Zetona](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zetona/)
 * (@zetona)
 * [10 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-filename-cannot-be-empty-1/)
 * When i click on the inline link to download the file, this message comes up:
   
   Warning: readfile(): Filename cannot be empty in /wp-content/plugins/email-before-
   download/download.php on line 236
 * There was no update or change to the installation and it worked before.
    I have
   no clue what happened, it suddenly broke.
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/)

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  Thread Starter [Zetona](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zetona/)
 * (@zetona)
 * [10 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-filename-cannot-be-empty-1/#post-7570642)
 * I found the problem: the contact form needs to have an email field!
    Now im looking
   for a way to work around this. Any ideas how to enable the download after completing
   a form that contains no email field?
 *  [dtynan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dtynan/)
 * (@dtynan)
 * [10 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-filename-cannot-be-empty-1/#post-7570737)
 * You must have a field named your-email in the CF7 form or else it will fail trying
   to insert a row into wp_ebd_link table because the email column cannot be null.
 * I have never tried it, but you might be able to make your-name a hidden field
   and just put some value in it in the form like “junk@junk.com” or something like
   that. As long as you don’t care about that value & as long as you are set to ‘
   inline’ then it should never try to send email to it & you wouldn’t care that
   it was [junk@junk.com](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-filename-cannot-be-empty-1/junk@junk.com?output_format=md).
   That might work…

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Error: Filename cannot be empty’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/email-before-download/assets/icon-256x256.jpg?rev=1813522)
 * [Email Before Download](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/email-before-download/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/email-before-download/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/email-before-download/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/email-before-download/reviews/)

 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [dtynan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dtynan/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/error-filename-cannot-be-empty-1/#post-7570737)
 * Status: not resolved