The upgrade to WordPress 2.3.1 may have fixed a lot of bugs that existed in the original 2.3 release but it seems that it created another rather large one. For a lot of folks who upgraded they found that they no longer received email notifications when a reader left a comment on one of their posts. And if they were running the invaluable and now standard “Subscribe to Comments” plugin, that no longer sent out email notifications either. All very frustrating to say the least especially for those trying to find answers on the WordPress forums when they turned up nada unless they knew exactly what to look for and/or knew their way around WordPress Trac.
Through a completely unrelated problem that my friend Sixty encountered when his host switched his server over to PHP 5, (which prompted me to check my profile/forum posts on the WordPress.org forums) I finally found a fix for this problem in the form of a tiny plugin from a WordPress Trac member called “westi” which I’ve tested on two different WordPress blogs (one being my own and the other is Sixty’s) and it works just great. Both email notifications and comment subscription notifications are now working again. So until this shows up on the WordPress.org’s plugin directory, I’ve zipped up the plugin for download purposes for any who may need it.
Just click the link to download.
Installation is simple. Just extract the file and upload it to your wp-content/plugins directory and activate via your WP Admin’s Plugins page. All your comment email notifications should now be working again.
I highly recommend using this plugin rather than any core file hacks that are also offered in the Trac ticket link above since you would have to redo the hack every time a security release came out. Using the plugin instead means that no hack has to be done in the first place. By what I understand, this problem should be fixed in WP 2.3.2.
Hope this helps folks and thanks westi.
Note: If you install this plugin and you’re still not receiving notifications you might have to get into your hosting account’s cPanel (or the equivalent) and simply create a new email account that looks like this (without the quotes):
wordpress@(yourblogurl).com/.net/.org/.etc
That and the plugin should solve your problem.
Technorati tags: wordpress 2.3.1
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Tags: Wordpress, Wordpress 2.3.1
November 11th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I actually just created an e-mail account called ‘wordpress @ mydomain.com’ and it worked.
I’m still waiting for the e-mail thing for post subscriptions though. If my readers don’t get the e-mail, I’ll be grabbing this plug-in.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Glad you found a fix that worked. That’s the one I initially used and added a forwarder to my original Gmail address. The plugin does fix post subscriptions notifications if you find they’re not getting sent out.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Hmm.. I wonder why we didn’t notice this in testing.
I really should upgrade to wordpress 2.3
November 12th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
It seems to depend on the host also as to whether or not any given host validates the email address of any site sending out email. If that email address isn’t valid, in other words, it’s not part of the domain and not setup up for said domain at the host, then no go. Several hosts have recently gone over to this email address verification process recently in an effort to combat spammers who use temporary email addresses and also to decrease the load on their servers.
On 2.3.x. It’s definitely worth it but as you know the old WP DB table structure is completely changed over to a new one with the 2.3 series and anything that directly queries the old DB tables in regards to categories and term relationships thereof will no longer work however, anything that uses the API to work the DB should be fine. I’m sure you know this but it bears repeating.
Now get hot!
December 23rd, 2007 at 5:48 am
Thanks for posting this information. WordPress should be ashamed for causing such a massive cockup in a maintenance release. I’m so sick of things breaking when I “upgrade” WordPress. Sorry. Rant over.
Anyway, creating wordpress@mydomain.com solved this for me, too. I didn’t try the plugin.
December 23rd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Hi Joe,
The plugin works fine also for using a non-”WordPress” email address in your Admin settings but the wordpress@mydomain is required for comment notification and contact forms I believe. Either way it’s a good “just in case” addition.
You’re right that this should never have happened and this bug was originally supposed to be fixed in WP 2.3.2 which is currently 4 weeks late. I suspect that the maintenance release has been put off and everything added to the WP 2.4 major release scheduled for January 24th.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:41 am
I do use the email@mysite.com email. I have never used an off site address and it still stopped working. My subscribers were still getting their emails - but I wasn’t getting any. This plugin worked immediately. Thanks so much for directing me this way from the WP forums.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Hi April,
Glad it worked for you. Hopefully they’ll have this problem corrected in the WP 2.5 release. I believe I did read about a fix for this in the open tickets for 2.5 at WordPress Trac awhile back. The plugin itself came from one of the developers that was working of WP 2.3.2 but it never seemed to make into the final release for some reason.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Thank you for this. I upgraded to 2.3.2 and the email stopped working. This plug in also works for this version as well.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Always glad to provide the fixes I find. Doesn’t pay to be selfish you know. By the way, congratulations on becoming a new father…again. Saw it on your blog when I meandered over to take a look.
September 25th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Kirk
Perhaps you can help me?
I’ve got the same or a similar problem.
I had no emails working for comment notifications on version 2.0 so I updated to 2.7. My blog is installed like this:
http://www.mydomain.com/blog
I am getting new user emails but none for comments.
I’ve looked on the forums about this but most of the threads point to this article so here I am.
Nice blog by the way, I did pause to read several posts.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Michael Whilta,
I checked the source code of your page (WP 2.7 hasn’t been released yet) and find that you’re running WP 2.5.1. Did you install the plugin mentioned in the post? You might also want to check the “Settings/Discussion” “Email Me” section to make sure you’re supposed to get email notification every time someone comments. If this and the plugin don’t help then get back to me.
Good luck.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Kirk
Actually the blog I put in my comment s not that blog that that I am working on and you are right that 2.7 is not released. I installed 2.6.2 on the blog in question. Also it is one that I have secured by a htaccess password as it is for staff of mine and is not open to the public.
I tried installing the plugin and and yes I have the Settings set for “email me when ever anybody makes a comments”
I tried setting up an email alias wordpress@mydomain.com too but that also bore no fruit.
I’d be happy to send you the link to the blog and an access login info but I would need to have your email address to send you this information. I’d also be happy to pay you for your time.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Michael Whitla,
I’m headed out the door for the day but I’ll send you an email address tonight when I get back. I’m a bit rushed right now but I’ll be glad to help. I’ll send it to the email address you used in the comment form if that’s okay. If not, just use my contact form on this site to give me another email address I can reply to.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Thanks Kirk,
I’ll look forward to hearing from you.