Help with FAQ

Was there ever a time when a user could add a question? If so, can you remember what you might have changed on your blog at the time it stopped working?

This problem is mostly resolved.

I discovered under “options” that the URL was set to domain.com. I changed it to https://www.domain.com, and suddenly it started working.

Even still, the FAQ does not send an email to anyone when a question gets posted — but it does record the question and mark it for approval as it should. I have searched the code and it seems to rely on WP’s own admin address, but no mail is coming through.

This is a relatively minor issue, but if anyone has any ideas, I am all ears. ??

have searched the code and it seems to rely on WP’s own admin address

Usually, when something is sent to moderation, WP uses the address of “[email protected]” to let you know it’s coming from your wordpress site.

If you aren’t getting the emails, then most likely it’s something on your host’s server. You may have a blacklist for your emails set up, or using some kind of anti-spam program that is capturing these emails and marking them as spam, then filtering them to a spambox on your server. Or blackholing them (sending them away, never to be seen or heard from again).

You can probably get around this by logging into your host’s control panel and making an actual email address and associating it with your mail program of choice so you can check the mail like any other account. Or, you can “whitelist” the name, so it just gets redirected to your regular email account.

There *is* a spot in the WP files where this is set (*probably* wp-admin/functions.php), but it’s in the core code, and I can’t remember which file it is. You could probably find it and change it by opening up admin files and searching for “@” or “wordpress@” – eventually you’ll come across it, and you can change the “wordpress” part to whatever you want. However, if you ever upgrade, that’ll change, or if you ever change your email address, you’ll have to go through this again.

Actually, this sounds like something that *could* be plugged into a function file or be a plugin of sorts…maybe even an idea to add to the next release to have the moderation emails sent to the email address you enter when you set up (which seems like a more logical idea) – but for now, that’s how it’s set up.

Hm….interesting thought….I have checked my spam filters (which are all in my own email client, not server based) and have not found anything. To clarify….are you saying WP uses this as a FROM address? If so, how would setting up an email account in this name help? If it was the TO address, it seems this would be a huge problem for a lot of people. If it’s the FROM address, that would make more sense, but it would so rarely cause a problem.

Good point – this is true. It *does* send it as the FROM address, not the TO address. I must not have had all of my coffee the morning I made that long reply ??

Does other mail get sent from your WP site just fine? Like if your comments are moderated, do they come through to you okay?

Perhaps the issue is that the plugin is set so that when the end user types in a question, it sends it to the WP database *and* sends it to the admin email address – this *may* cause issues, depending on your server setup. (I had a client that wanted to do this once, but they were using a IIS server that wouldn’t allow relays – so the only emails that would come through were ones from people who had email address from that domain only. I had to use an extra script to get it to work right.)

Could this be a possibility? I’m not familiar with the plugin, or I’d give it a peek to see what it does.

Thanks Doodlebee. Sorry it took me so long to respond. This isn’t a super high priority, but nonetheless it would be nice to resolve.

I will try paste the code here, at least a piece of it, which might help identify the problem:

if ($should_email) {
	  	// email
		$message = "Person Asking: $question_author\n";
		$message .="Email: $question_author_email\n";
		$message .="IP: $question_author_IP\n";
		$message .="Question: $question\n\n\n";
		$message .="To Answer this question, go here: " . get_option('faq_wordpress_url') . "/wp-admin/edit.php?page=faq/faq_admin.php\n\n\n";

		wp_mail(get_settings('admin_email'), 'Someone just asked you a question.', $message);
	  }
          return $q_id;
	} else {
	  return -1;
	}

That is the only function that sends email to the admin. Hope it helps.