Error Message when submitting message

FAQ > After submitting the form, I get an error message stating “There was an error trying to send your message.” What is wrong?

I wrestled with this for a while, and finally got my form to work by removing the reCAPTCHA keys (Contact->Integration->reCAPTCHA).

Obviously not the best solution. I’ll have to shop around for a better validation plugin to use. I don’t want to trash all my forms (there are countless over the many sites I manage).

I have the same error since a few days/weeks.
Orange means that the message is seen as spam.
But what do we have to do to get it working again?
I don’t use a cache plugin.

Ah, thanks Tom McGee, our replies crossed.
I will try that. Thanks.

I have tried removing the reCAPTCHA, but I’m also still getting this problem, suggesting the problem is not with the reCAPTCHA.

Contact Forms 7 worked before the update to 5.1, now I just get the orange error message.

Any suggestions, anyone?!

I removed the reCAPTCHA keys and generated new ones.
Entered those and the form works again.
Thanks again Tom !!!

I’m using 5.1.1, removed the keys, AND I disabled the Really Simple CAPTCHA plugin.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by tommcgee.

Tried all the above, still no luck

@bommeltje good idea re-generating the keys. I tried it and now it works for me too.

Interestingly, I have a bunch of forms on the site and the rest of them seem to have been working normally. It was just this one, which also happened to be the longest one, that was getting caught.

I have regenerated the keys, and deactivated the Really Simple CAPTCHA plug-in. But still no luck.

I have tried it with the keys removed. I have also tried with Askimet deactivated, same problem. Suggesting the problem is not with reCAPTCHA or with Askimet.

I’d appreciate anyone’s help with this issue. Many thanks in advance.

@tommcgee – your initial solution is not at all suitable for others facing this issue.

@bommeltje – see I have the same problem! Can I just reply to someone else’s post with “Me too”?.

@glowmango – if you are willing to create a new question, which details your issues, somebody will likely be able to help you there.

Just to let you know:

I got it working, but then I have a large floating reCaptcha button on every page of my website. I do not want that. Tried all settings, but no result.
The invisible version gives the orange spam message and still shows the button.

So I deleted the plugin and downloaded the WPforms plugin.
Works great with honeypot.
You can also add the reCaptcha there, but I haven’t tried that yet.

There’s a section on the “floating badge” here: https://soundst.com/2018/12/contact-form-7-recaptcha-spam-issues/. Looks like you can hide it with some custom CSS.

One might question the reasonableness of Google’s approach, but this probably isn’t the forum for that.