No Notifications for New Comment / Awaiting Moderation

Just went through another round of testing, because I couldn’t sleep. I created a new notification that sends an e-mail when a page is updated. I, incidentally, updated my HTML sitemap page a couple times, and BNFW sent me the notification e-mails as expected.

So – it appears the issue (at least,, in my case) is solely with the “New Comment / Awaiting Moderation” notifications.

I have also tried updating the content of the notification (the New Comment / Awaiting Moderation) to be plain text (no shortcodes). That didn’t work, either.

Then I went so far as to delete the notification I had set up, and recreated it from scratch. Still nothing. Really leaning toward there being a problem with just notifications for “New Comment / Awaiting Moderation,” which is unfortunate, since that is the #1 reason I downloaded the plugin ??

Hi brandon.w,
Thanks for your message.

Have you set the comment settings on your website to match those in the FAQ?

Thanks.
Jack

Unfortunately, yes, I tried that as well. And various combinations of those settings. I tried it again, just now, nothing in the e-mail log when a new comment is added.

Oh – when editing a specific notification I setup (for the New Comments), if I click on the link to send a test message, the test message is sent, delivered and logged.

Hi brandon.w,
Ok, thanks.

Do you have any other plugins installed that might alter the comment notifications? Jetpack for example?

If you haven’t already, it might be worth going through this support document and letting me know how you get on.

Jack

The only thing I didn’t do was try a different theme. As I mentioned in my OP, I already tried deactivating all the other plugins, but nothing showed up in the email log even then. So It is not a problem with another plugin.

I just tested this on a shared server environment using a different existing WP install on another domain, and the e-mails sent successfully.

I’m guessing that the e-mails are not sending on the dedicated server because of some server setting, but I’m not sure where to begin looking…

Hi brandon.w,
Glad you found the problem.

A few things to check on the dedicated server would be:

• If php mail() is installed and working.
• DKIM & SPF settings.

If none of those work, it might be worth installing an SMTP WordPress plugin on the dedicated server.

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks,
Jack

Hi voltronik –

Is phpmail() necessary when using the Postman SMTP plugin? I thought that plugin bypassed the phpmail()?

What SPF or DKIM records need to exist for BNFW to work properly? This shouldn’t be the culprit, though, as my SPF allows for soft fails.

I currently have my web host tech support team looking at the server to see if they can figure it out, but as I said, there isn’t even an attempted delivery in the Email Log that Postman SMTP provides.

Even more odd, this is only happening for the trigger of “New Comment / Awaiting Moderation” – the other triggers are working as intended. Again, this tells me there is not a problem with the e-mail configuration on the server (since other e-mails are being delivered).

Any other ideas on what might be causing this issue?

Hi brandon.w,
Thanks for clarifying.

Some hosts / servers are very hot on WordPress comment SPAM and so this might be the reason why this particular notification is failing.

Another test – if you disable BNFW, does all the default WordPress comment notifications work?

Jack

Hi Jack –

My host is very open to any configuration I want, as it is a dedicated server. They have, so far, been unable to identify any issues on the server preventing this from working, so I don’t imagine it’s related to any type of spam settings. The message itself just isn’t getting triggered by BNFW.

Yes, if I disable BNFW, all of the native WP notifications work as intended. That is actually why I sought out your plugin to begin with, because the native WP notifications were so terrible and didn’t offer any way to have them be sent to specific people, like BNFW does.

Hi Jack –

I just got an update from the web host – who was unable to ascertain why this particular trigger was not working. They gave me a list of differences between the shared server and the dedicated server, but none of those things should be affecting the plugin’s operation.

I just tried deactivating, deleting and reinstalling the plugin, but the notifications still are not being triggered for new comments. As I mentioned before, this is odd because other triggers are successfully attempting to send notifications (such as Page Updated). As a test, I created a new notification for “Page Updated” and then updated a page. Success!

But for whatever reason, notifications for new comments just aren’t being triggered.

Is there some type of error reporting I can do with BNFW, so I can see if there is some kind of error message when the notification is supposed to be triggered?

AHHHHH! I figured it out!

This trigger ONLY works if the post type is “post” – it does NOT work if the post type is “page”.

On the dedicated server, almost all of my published posts are “pages,” while the reverse is true on the shared server. (Client preference).

So – is it possible to tweak the plugin code to send notifications for new comments, regardless of the post type? It would be nice to know that the trigger fires for ALL post types, including any potential custom post types….

Hi brandon.w,
Glad you found out what it was!

You’ll want to use the ‘Page – New Comment’ notification which is listed under the ‘Pages’ section when choosing a notification from the selection box.

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks,
Jack