David Bisset
Forum Replies Created
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We are going to go ahead and close this thread for now. But if you’d like us to assist further, please feel welcome to continue the conversation.
Thanks!
@itapress Thank you! I will pass this along to the team. Likely will see a fix in the next maintenance release coming shortly. I’m going to mark this as resolved however if you wish to be nodified when the release is out or if there’s any further questions – please continue the conversation. 👍🏻
@dlongneckercomcastnet Great. Marking this as resolved then. Let me know if you have any further questions! 🙂
@dlongneckercomcastnet that’s a custom field, so I would look for any code in code snippets or in the functions.php of your existing theme (if it’s in the theme, if you switch to a default theme that field would likely disappear). Hope this helps, let me know if you can spot it. 🙂
@alvarocustos Thanks for reaching out. Can you confirm exactly where you are doing this (screenshot would help confirm). Are you talking about the title in the Campaign Visual Builder? If so the recent release of Charitable (1.8.9.5) might have this resolved (example: https://a.supportally.com/i/zPZvmC). Feel free to give it a try (after clearing browser cache). If you continue to run into issues, let us know and we’ll get some additional information from you. Thanks!
We are going to go ahead and close this thread for now. But if you’d like us to assist further, please feel welcome to continue the conversation.
Thanks!We are going to go ahead and close this thread for now. But if you’d like us to assist further, please feel welcome to continue the conversation.
FYI: In addition to the above update in which mentioned the release of Charitable with the additional debugging tools we do have one further suggestion. One recent customer had a bag “email tag” in their offline email donation settings that didn’t allow the email to be sent. Unknown if that is related to this issue, but in short time a new Charitable version (as of now 1.8.9.5) will have a fix for this edge-case and it might something to explore further to see if there are issues after that upgrade.
Thanks!@blenki101 I wanted to follow up and let you know that we have just released Charitable 1.8.9.3.
While we are still awaiting the details requested in my previous reply to help identify the root cause, this update includes new diagnostic tools that will be very useful for your situation.
Please update the plugin and navigate to Charitable → Tools. There you will find:
- Email System Diagnostics: To verify exactly how and when emails are being triggered.
- Debug Log Scanner & Donation Form Error Logs: To check for any server-side errors that occurred during the time your donation dates were modified.
Please review these logs and share any relevant (and privacy-safe) information here. This data is essential for us to determine if an external process or server conflict triggered those updates. Thank you in advance for your patience as we review any info you provide.
@daktulus Thank you for the update. We have been investigating this thoroughly on our end, including testing with the YooTheme framework.
To be transparent: we have not been able to reproduce these issues (the email delivery failure or the preview redirect) in our testing environments. Because this appears to be isolated to your specific site, it strongly suggests a conflict within your WordPress configuration or server environment rather than a global bug in the plugin.
We have just released Charitable 1.8.9.3. Please update to this version. While it contains several refinements, its most important addition for you is a suite of new diagnostic tools designed to help us see what is happening “under the hood” on your specific server.
Next Steps:
- Update to 1.8.9.3: First backup. Then update.
- Review the New Logs: Navigate to Charitable → Tools and check the new Email System Diagnostics, Debug Log Scanner, and Donation Form Error Logs.
- These logs are designed to respect donor privacy. Please review them and share any error messages or “Fail” statuses you see here. This data is much more helpful to us than general observations.
- Address the Theme Conflict: Our tests with YooTheme 5 showed no issues, but we see you are running version 4. We strongly recommend updating your theme to the latest version.
- If you are concerned about making changes to your live site, we suggest creating a staged/backup environment. On that backup, switch to a default WordPress theme (like Twenty Twenty-Four), reset your permalinks, and test again. This is the only definitive way to rule out a theme conflict. If you aren’t comfortable doing this, your hosting provider can likely assist you in setting up a safe testing area.
Without the data from the new logs or the results of a default theme test, we are limited in how much further we can troubleshoot so I’ll be happy to provide the additional information to our team. Thank you in advance.
@daktulus @khjobst A quick update: we have been actively analyzing the details gathered from this thread. While we haven’t been able to reproduce these specific issues across our test configurations, we have identified several adjustments regarding email handling that may improve compatibility with certain server environments.
We are planning to release an update shortly that includes these refinements, along with additional diagnostic tools. These tools will allow us to gather more targeted information on specific environments if troubleshooting is still required.
I will notify this thread as soon as the release is available. In the meantime, I wanted to ensure you are aware that we are continuing to look into this. Thank you for your patience as we put the finishing touches on this update.
@daktulus Thank you for that information! That definitely helped narrow things down potentially a bit. I would like for you to try running a debug tester tool specific for this issue. Forgive me asking a few questions again but it’s important i’m 100% clear on a few details.
- The preview window issue is happening on 8.2, 8.4, or both? Email issue was with both as well (while i’m asking)?
- Install WPCode Lite and activate it. Copy this code snippet (the page is a little odd, but the copy link works and it at the bottom) and paste it into a new PHP snippet in WPCode. Make sure the code is ACTIVATED in WPCODE (blue toggle switch). Also Make sure the code is running “everywhere” in WPCode. https://library.wpcode.com/snippet/g5gxnkxo/ Follow the instructions at the top of the code snippet. If successful you should see a report at yoursite.com/?charitable_debug=1 – showing you some vital info (green or red markers) and a button to re-test. I’ll need to know if the preview works and need to get all the info in that report.
- If you are showing any “red” or errors then you need to run one more additional script. Add a new snippet and set it to run “Everywhere.” Choose the snippet below that matches your PHP version: For PHP 8.2: Use this WPCode Snippet For PHP 8.4: Use this WPCode Snippet – Once these are installed, activated in WPCode AND “running “Everywhere” then reload the script and see if any errors change and if email preview redirects. We’ll want that report as well.
The purpose of these reports is confirm if any environmental server factors might be involved, since we currently ruled out just PHP version conflicts with Charitable. We cannot reproduce the issue on multiple test servers in either PHP version, but your environment might be running something unique currently or at the time of plugin install or upgrade. The information you provide might help us narrow things down a bit, since we don’t have full access to all the information on your server setup. We have a few things left to try on the preview email issue but let’s try this for now. Let me know if you have any questions.
@blenki101 I am very sorry to hear this has happened and we want to help you get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.
First can you answer:
- What version of WordPress are you running?Which versions of the Charitable plugin(s) are currently active?
- Please go to Charitable > Tools > System Info and share the results (via Pastebin) here so we can see your full environment.
Investigating the Emails & Dates In Charitable, donor emails are triggered when a donation is “saved.” Since there is no native “bulk email past donors” feature, the emails and date changes are likely linked to a process that forced a bulk update on your donation records.
- The Content: What was the subject line and body of the emails? Did they all go out at once?
- Email Logs: Do you have an email logging plugin (like WP Mail Logging) or an SMTP service (like SendGrid/Mailgun) where we can see any logs generated by these?
- Recent Changes: Were any updates, imports, or migrations performed recently? Did anyone run a database search-and-replace (e.g., Better Search Replace or a migration plugin)?
- Individual Logs: Go to the view/edit screen for an affected donation and look at the Donation Log. and confirm if the first entry in that log still shows the original correct date/time. Confirm if the dates changes are on the donations list page and outside the logs on the donation pages as well.
Technical Error Logs We need to see if the server caught any specific failures during this event. Please check your server error logs for warnings or messages related to the Charitable plugin and share them here or via Pastebin
If logs are not currently enabled, your hosting panel may have an option to turn them on, or you can follow the WordPress debug guide here:
https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/debug/debug-wordpress/
To prevent any further emails from being sent to donors immediately, go to Charitable > Settings > Emails and disable the “Donation Receipt” and “New Donation” notifications until we find the cause.
- Before attempting any fixes or restores you have the option to go to Charitable > Tools and exporting your current donation so you have a snapshot of the current state.
- The most reliable fix is a database restoration from your host. However, if the Donation Logs mentioned above are still intact, please let us know, as there may be a way to restore dates from that internal log.
As soon as we can get additional information we can try to determine what triggered this. For privacy concerns, please be careful not to share donor email/information in the replies. Our team will continue to investigate this with the information we have at the moment and if there’s any additional questions or recommendations, we will reach out. Thank you!
@daktulus If you want to test Stripe, you can switch Charitable into test mode https://a.supportally.com/i/0Ja5iZ and connect to your test Stripe account in Stripe settings. Then you can use a test CC to test Stripe https://docs.stripe.com/testing More information on this can be found here: https://www.wpcharitable.com/documentation/charitable-stripe/
So it sounds like offline emails are now working, because the email settings were activated. Just wanted to confirm? So we don’t need to focus on it.
Are you talking about his preview button? https://a.supportally.com/i/bWObx9 Does all preview buttons on all email screens do this or just one? Have you reset your permalinks (There is plenty of documentation online to learn how to do this, like https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-regenerate-your-permalinks-in-wordpress )
The “Preview email” button is supposed to open a new tab with a URL like: https://yoursite.com/?charitable_action=preview_email&email_id=donation_receipt If that request is changed or redirected before our code runs, you’ll see the homepage instead of the preview. To narrow it down, we need a bit more info and a couple of quick tests.1. Exact URL when it fails
- Click “Preview email” (e.g. on the Donation Receipt email settings).
- As soon as the new tab opens, before any redirect:
- Copy the full URL from the browser address bar and paste it here, or
- If it redirects too fast: right‑click “Preview email” (the same button here https://a.supportally.com/i/bWObx9 )→ “Copy link address” and send us that URL.
We need to know whether the link itself is correct (it should contain charitable_action=preview_email and email_id=donation_receipt or similar) or if the problem starts later.
2. Manual test
- Open a new browser tab.
- Type your site’s homepage URL, then add exactly:
?charitable_action=preview_email&email_id=donation_receipt
Example: https://yoursite.com?charitable_action=preview_email&email_id=donation_receipt
- Press Enter.
Tell us what happens:
- A) You see the email preview.
- B) You’re redirected to the homepage (or somewhere else).
- C) You see a blank page or an error.
3. Plugins that often affect this: These often alter or strip query parameters, or redirect requests:
- Redirect plugins (e.g. Redirection, Simple 301 Redirects)
- Security plugins (e.g. Wordfence, Sucuri, iThemes Security)
- Caching plugins
- “Clean URL” / “remove query strings” options in any plugin
- Custom code in a plugin or theme.
Please list which of these (or similar) you have active. If you can, try temporarily disabling only redirect, security, and caching plugins (or every plugin but Charitable) and test the preview again (and the manual URL above) and tell us if the preview then works.
4. Incognito/private window
- Open an incognito/private window (no extensions, no cache).
- Log into WordPress and go to Donations → Settings → Emails → Donation Receipt.
- Click “Preview email” (or open the manual URL from step 2).
Does the preview show, or do you still get the homepage?
5. Host / server
- Are you on a managed host (e.g. WP Engine, Kinsta, Cloudways) or shared hosting?
- Do you have any server-level redirects or “SEO”/“canonical URL” rules (e.g. in cPanel, or in .htaccess that you’ve added)?
If the manual URL (step 2) works in incognito but the button still redirects when you’re logged in, we’ll focus on something that only runs when you’re in the admin. If the manual URL also redirects, the cause is likely a plugin, theme, or server rule affecting that URL. Again, this might be a good time to make a backup, switch to a default WordPress theme like we talked about, and test the preview button.
Once you can send us:
- The URL from step 1 (or confirmation that “Copy link address” shows the correct query string),
- The result of step 2 (A, B, or C),
- Which redirect/security/caching plugins you use.
- And if you spot anything in the logs (PHP warnings or errors) let us know what you see and no ChatGPT analysis please. 🙂
We can suggest the next step. Thank you!
@daktulus Thank you for the update. It is good news that the “Resend” function is working this confirms that your site can send emails. Here are the next steps:
You mentioned you couldn’t find the ofline email settings because you have the Lite version. These settings are available in the Lite version. Please check this screenshot: https://a.supportally.com/i/b1F0NC
- Go to Donations → Settings → Emails.
- Ensure “Donor: Offline Donation Receipt” is checked/enabled.
- Note: If this is disabled, the donor will never receive an email for offline donations, even if the admin does.
We need to know if Charitable tried to send the email and failed.
- Go to Donations and click on one of the donations that did not send an email.
- Look for a “Donation Log” . See this screenshot https://a.supportally.com/i/IFBFeP
- Do you see an entry that says “Email sent” like in the screenshot or “Email failed”? Or is there no mention of an email at all?
Also want to confirm that you have tested Offline Donations using a completely different email address (like a personal Yahoo or Hotmail account) than any email you have saved into Charitable settings to see if the receipt arrives there, like a test Gmail account.
Clarify PHP Version & System Info There is a discrepancy in your report. You mentioned you downgraded to PHP 8.2, but your snippet says PHP 8.4.17. Just wanted to confirm what PHP version you WERE on and what you UPGRADED to since you mentioned this in your initial message. This gives key information to our support team. Also please paste the FULL System Info report. The snippet you provided is helpful, but the full report (found at Charitable → Tools → System Info) tells us possibly more relevant info You can use a site like Pastebin.com to share the link.While ChatGPT is helpful, it can sometimes misinterpret logs. Could you please share the actual error log file (it’s the debug.log generated by WP_DEBUG_LOG, maybe the same one you shared with ChatGPT – you can share specific error lines not showing sentitive information) with us directly (Pastebin)? We could do our own analysis.
Also could you please provide a link to the donation page on your site? We would like to make a test offline donation ourselves to observe the behavior from a donor’s perspective and check the browser console for errors.
Regarding the Theme: We understand the risk of switching themes on a live site. For now, let’s check the Email Settings and the System Info first. If you are overly caustious I would make a backup of the site before switching themes and testing with just Charitable plugin.
We look forward to your reply with the additional info and with the info you provided to us so far our team will try to look into this further on our end. Thank you in advance for your patience.
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. I’m really sorry to hear about the email delivery issue you encountered after your update, and I understand how critical this is for your campaign.
I checked and we have just replied to your support ticket (within 45 minutes of your post) to help diagnose this behavior. So please check your post and please reply there with the requested info so we can resolve this for you as soon as possible. Thank you.