Force notification of trackbacks

  • Resolved Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)


    9 years, 4 months ago

    I’ve alwaysbeen notified of trackbacks (others linking to my site) under my comment section. They would show as new comments just like normal comments show up. That just stopped recently. (Possibly when I updated to 4.1 though I can’t swear to it.)

    I need to know when someone links to my site. Any ideas?

    Thank you!
    Nancy
    http://www.ourpeacefulplanet.com

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Barrett Golding

    (@hearvox)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    A few things to check…

    Are you sure your Dashboard> Settings> Discussion: Default article settings still has the boxes checked for :
    _ Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article
    _ Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)
    http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging#Using_Pingbacks_and_Trackbacks

    If so, have you checked in your admin All Comments list to see if any trackbacks/pingbacks have been received?

    If they’re in All Comments but aren’t showing on your site, check your theme’s files (single.php, or maybe content.php) to make sure something isn’t set to show only submitted comments (ie, to not display trackbacks/pingbacks).

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Appreciate the info hearvox. Yes those two items in Settings/Discussions have always been selected. And no… trackbacks have stopped showing in my ALL comments section since December 12th which was the last time I received a notice. So I don’t know when someone links to me unless they tell me via email which two people recently did.

    There is also a big site that has featured some of my posts that I just visited and saw they featured me twice recently and I received no notice. Once on Dec 16th and once on the 22nd. Nothing is in my All Comments. Example: http://inspirationdiy.com/christmas-spider-diy-with-printable-poem/

    I have no idea what is blocking these suddenly. I’ve certainly changed nothing in my php theme files. FYI I also checked my SPAM area and they are not in there.

    Barrett Golding

    (@hearvox)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    The next two things I’d check:

    1. Might the pingback comments have been marked as sapm, by a plugin like Akismet? Check you comment spam list to be sure?

    2. It is possible that inspirationdiy.com decided to disable sending pingbacks (ie, uncheck “_ Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article”). Pingbacks have been exploited (in DDoS attacks) and many sites have chose to turn them off:

    http://wptavern.com/how-to-prevent-wordpress-from-participating-in-pingback-denial-of-service-attacks
    http://blog.sucuri.net/2014/03/more-than-162000-wordpress-sites-used-for-distributed-denial-of-service-attack.html
    http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/wordpress-trackbacks-and-pingbacks
    http://www.seoblog.com/2014/02/approving-wordpress-trackbacks-devastating-seo/

    As a test, I just sent a pingback to one of your old posts:
    http://ourpeacefulplanet.com/2010/04/02/a-tree-in-the-living-room-vinyl-that-is/

    Check to see if it arrived (sent from this test site: dev.pubmedia.us — if it did get there, delete it).

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    I sure appreciate you going the extra mile here to help. Your test is not showing up anywhere including in my All Comment area. Also none of the trackbacks are in my spam folder. So that’s four different sites now including yours that I know linked to me that are not showing. Something happened after the 12th… I checked my plugin updates and installs between the 12th and 16th. Nothing accept an Akisment update. But if that did it it seems it would be in the SPAM area and none of the trackbacks are in there.

    Barrett Golding

    (@hearvox)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    OK, we’re down to checking some more complicated stuff. I see your site is using the latest WP 4.1 — great. The next thing to do is round-up the usual suspects: plugins and theme, and run tests — ‘least this is how I’d proceed…

    I’d deactivate all plugins, if that doesn’t fix it, then I’d switch themes — this’ll mess w/ you site temporarily, so you may want to test during low-use times, like maybe the middle of the night.

    I’d also have another test site — w/ “_ Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article” setting enabled, and after each step (1. deactivating plugins, then, 2. switching publish a post w/ a link to a post at your real site, to see if the pingback got there.

    If removing all plugins allows the pingback, tho, no need to switch theme. Just enable the plugins one-by-one and send test pingback until the problem plugin is revealed (ie, a pingback did get there before activation and doesn’t after).

    (Good to have a test site anyway, eg, for trying plugins before deploying them on real site. In fact, if you set up your test site just like your real site — same plugins, settings, and theme, then import the content, and if test site also won’t receive pingbacks, then you can try the following only on the test site and not mess w/ the live one — except maybe to test-send pingbacks the other way, from the real to the test site.)

    One interim test before the above nuke-option is If you have a plugin that interacts w/ comments, I’d you could just disable that, send test pingback and see if that gets there.

    Others may have better, less-involved ideas for testing, but the above is what I’d do next.

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    So if I disable my plugins… will that make past one’s show up or will it only effect new trackbacks that are added.

    Barrett Golding

    (@hearvox)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Pretty sure once a pingback is sent, it;s not sent again, whether received or not at the other end. So the answer is: only new pingbacks will post as comments. AFAIK, past pingback’s are lost and I don’t know of a way to recover them..

    Others might have some ideas, so you could report another support topic once/if you get pingback reception working again.

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Thanks again for ideas. I’ll definitely report back once I figure out what’s causing it.

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    I found out what was doing it. I decided to start disabling plugins one at a time. If you remember I said the only plugin that had updated when this problem started happening was Akismet. Well guess what… that was it. Luckily it was first on my plugin list. Ü My trackbacks show up immediately when I disable it. I test it using another site I have.

    Going to have to research this issue with it as there are no real settings for it I can see. I do need it though as it catches a LOT of spam for me.

    That’s a huge relief though. I sure appreciate you helping walk me through some things.

    Nancy

    Barrett Golding

    (@hearvox)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Excellent work, Nancy, and I see you’ve already posted at the Akismet plugin support forum, which is exactly the thing to do next.

    But I suspect the problem isn’t just Akismet — since others on Akismet’s fourm haven’t also reported the same prob — but rather Akismet and another plugin together interfering w/ your site’s ability to recieve pingbacks.

    If you want to stay w/ your one-at-a-time plugin-testing approach you could keep Akismet activated, then deactivate other pligins — starting w/ those most likely to affect comments, and see if you can find another one that is blocking pingbacks w/ Akismet enabled.

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Thanks a bunch. I’m glad I was able to narrow it down so quickly. I have LOT of other plugins but I will probably do a few at a time and see what happens. I’ll report back again once I find the culprit!

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Not surprisingly the issue was a plugin that removed trackbacks. I had to do some testing as it was not doing it all the time. But that appears to be the problem. The thing was this plugin only removed them from under each post. I would still get them in my admin comment area. But when askismet updated last it now removes them everywhere. I’m on the search for another one as I really don’t like those trackbacks under each post. It looks messy and unprofessional.

    Barrett Golding

    (@hearvox)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Glad you figured things out: good work. Please mark this topic as resolved (if indeed it is resolved): Thanks.

    BTW, what plugin was the prob?

    Also, if you’re familiar w/ editing themes, you can edit the comments display to exclude pingbacks/trackbacks by specifiying only comment in the type argument:
    http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_list_comments

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    This is the plugin. https://github.com/cferdinandi/remove-trackbacks

    Thanks for that info. That’s just what I need. I’d rather do that than use a plugin. Ü

    Thread Starter Nancy Rector

    (@nanrector)

    9 years, 3 months ago

    Oops. Closed it!

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
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