dtynan

I tried your form and I get the same error when clicking on the file link to download the file. I did actually get the email, though it went into my spam folder. The link in the email is the same as the link on the page, so it gave the same error.

Make sure you have WP_DEBUG turned off. You don’t want any Worpress or PHP errors going to the screen. I think that might fix things, but if it doesn’t there’s more we can try.

If turning off WP_DEBUG didn’t fix things, then I suggest you:

Turn off any wordpress caching plugins you have, if any.
Set EBD to not hide/mask.
Turn on attachments in the EBD settings.

Then do the following:
1) add two new downloads to Download Monitor. Make both of the downloads be .jpg files. Give them filenames you have never used before.
2) Make a new form in CF7 that is the sam as your current one (we want to make a new one to get a new contact_form_id value).
3) Using the info from #1 and #2, make a new shortcode using the new CF7 form id and download ids.
4) Make a new Page in WordPress and put the new shortcode in it.
5) test it and see if has the same problem or not

The point of those steps is to get an all new set of IDs and new info into the database. We don’t want to use anything you’ve used before for IDs or names of things. If things still don’t work, leave the settings as they are & update this item so I’ll know to go try it myself.

Ok, I tried your page a few times. I think I know the main problem, but I suspect you are going to have another issue getting email through after we fix the first problem (maybe).

So, first things first, please tell me the version number of all 3 of the plugins. I’m using the latest of everything and it’s been a while since I looked at anything but the latest versions so just in case it makes a difference I want to make sure I look at the right thing.

Next, I noticed that your page is setting an email_from hidden variable. I suspect this is happening because you are on an older version of EBD, or maybe it does that on the first run until it sets it in the options table, I’m not sure. Anyway, if you set something somewhere for the From: field of the EBD email let me know (this might be in EBD settings or maybe you put something in the shortcode or you have another plugin or something). Note that I am not referring to anything in CF7 .. I don’t care about the From: there.

Also, I’d like you to temporarily change the EBD setting to ‘both’ (you can change it back to ’email’ after we’ve got things working).

Ok, so I think the main problem is that your field names are “name” and “email” rather than “your-name” and “your-email” (though this might not be the problem if your EBD is really old, not sure…). Anyway, go into your CF7 form where you laid out the input fields and change the form field names to “your-name” and “your-email”.

I suspect that will fix it, but it’s still possible the email won’t make it into the recipients Inbox. We’ll address that next if it is a problem. But, for now, just answer the above questions and fix the form field names and do nothing else except updating this item.

I’ll need to try this to figure it out. Can you post the URL to your page?

Also, please set it to ‘both’ and leave attachments turned on. That way I can see the attachment and get the email and also see the link appear on the page.

Are you set to Hide/Masked or not?

What version of everything are you using?

I think it’s a bit weird that you have 0 for group permission on the files. I don’t know if that’s a problem, but it seems unusual to me. Are you using Apache or nginx? Generally, things should have just worked without the need to muck around with the permissions, so if you changed permissions that could be the issue. Anyway, we’ll see … answer the above questions and I’ll take a look.

fyi – here’s a blog post that has a section about Contact Form DB. It gives kind of an overview of what it does – https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/best-contact-form-7-extensions

I’m not really sure how Custom Sender For Email Before Download actually works (never looked at the code). EBD itself reads some things out of the database (if it had previously stored something in there). It’s possible that the From: is being picked up from your database based on that combination of CF7 form id and the download_id (maybe, that’s just a guess).

Anyway, the good news is that I tried your form using an existing gmail account and an existing yahoo mail account that I have and in both cases your email appeared in the Inbox. So, at least for me, it seems to be working well. I’m not sure if you are testing using real live accounts or using an inbox-testing type tool. If you want to see that it works, I suggest you make brand new accounts in gmail & yahoo and then use those to test with — that way, there is no chance of prior emails influencing the spam routing.

One thing I did notice is that when I hit submit on your form there is a noticeable delay of 2 or 3 or 4 seconds before it says that the email has been sent. Normally, the message appears almost instantly. So, I’m guessing something you’re doing with routing the email out to those delivery services is slowing things down a bit. Not a big concern, though I did notice I was able to hit the submit button a second time before the email-has-been-sent message appeared and it caused me to get 2 emails. Again, not a big deal, just pointing it out.

Looking at the message itself, I noticed a List-Unsubscribe header, which I assume is being added by SES or whatever, though I was a bit surprised to see it for a “transactional” email … normally that stuff goes with actual lists that one subscribes & unsubscribes to, but maybe SES puts that in there no matter what. Then, I guess the only other thing was that it looks like it’s appending a 1×1 transparent gif for tracking purposes I suspect. Otherwise, looked pretty normal. I don’t think either of those things is a problem — and, like I said, I got emails to both addresses in the Inbox, no problem.

What is the From: of those emails? You need to make it match your domain and use a real working email account. Most people use Postman SMTP to do this (the wordpress plugin). Alternatively, you can use the plugin Custom Sender For Email Before Download (another wordpress plugin).

If you use the latter plugin, then be aware that every time you resave your EBD settings it may wipe out the value you’ve put into the Custom Sender For Email Before Download settings (the From: value) and you might have to go put it back in there.

No. If you set it to ‘inline’ then when the user submits the form a link will appear on the page and he must click the link to view the file in the browser, or you can try to force it to download at that point, rather than display in-browser .. this is the difference, for example, between seeing a PDF file [if that was your download file] appear in the browser or instead getting the little file-save popup window that lets you save it as a file locally and doesn’t display in the browser). So, no, you cannot get around the part where the user has to click the link first (after submitting the form).

That said, if you set it to ’email’ rather than ‘inline’, then when the user submits the form an email will be kicked out to him rather than a link being displayed on the page. If you turn on attachments, then the email will have the file attached (rather than a link he has to click to download the file). So, that’s not what you’re looking for, but it is an alternative way that some people like — I use this on some of my sites because I know for sure that the user isn’t getting a file unless he gives me a good email address. Otherwise, he might just put some random stuff into the email address field.

Anyway, the answer to your question is no. Sorry.