My Contest is Not Working

Same thing happened to me.

@hestonfer-do you have any fixes for this?

@lloydyoun

The issue is caused mainly because of caching plugins. There could be other plugins too, that conflict with Contestfriend. Contestfriend has not been updated for a long time, however, it is one of the best plugins and I think it is the only FREE plugin currently available that lets you do a lot of things.

In my case it was the cache plugin W3-Total-Cache. This can happen with any cache plugin. Since a cache plugin is an important part of any website, Removing it is out of the equation. We may be able to add exceptions to cache plugins, but I did not want to mess up as there could be other plugins too causing unforeseen issues.

I have a workaround for making Contestfriend work.

Install Contestfriend in a sub-domain of your website and point any contest friend links from your main website to the sub-domain. (It does not cost us anything extra to create a sub-domain and install WordPress on it)

You can check my website to see how it works.
My main website is: https://www.techtantri.com

I created a sub-domain: https://www.giveaways.techtantri.com (I have the sub-domain look exactly like the main website.)
I installed Contestfriend in the sub-domain and configured the widget to show up on the home page of the sub-domain.

(The sub-domain has only minimal plugins that does not conflict with Contestfriend) But ensured, that the home navigation tab (and all other navigation tabs) on the Subd-domain points to my main website home page and respective pages.

The sub-domain will have only one page for Contestfriend and no other pages.
In my main Website Sidebar, I have a link pointing to the contest friend giveaway page.

Though you are re-directing to another website, since it is a sub-domain of your Website, Visitors will be comfortable they are on your website.

Let me know if you need any help.
You can contact me at [email protected] or [email protected]

• This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by hestonfer.

Not working for me either.

Even tried @hestonfer suggestion of installing on a separate / clean WordPress installation in a subdomain (no plugins other than contestfriend installed). Same results as my main installation. (NOTE: I am using Genesis)

I am able to create a contest and then add it to a page but entry submission does nothing. No participant added to the database or under the Dashboard tab, no confirmation email received. After clicking the submission button the page reloads back to the “before submit” rather than the “after submit”

On a lighter note, I am also experiencing the image insertion problem explained in another thread. I have to manually add each image I want to use.

So the plugin is basically worthless.

Wordpress version 4.7.2. Maybe it’s just no longer compatible with more recent installations since it’s been 2+ years since an update?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by xdtfx.

@lloydyoun @hestonfer You could just add an exception to your caching plugin, not to cache the specific URL the contest is hosted on.

@xdtfx Saying the plugin is worthless just because you have to manually add the image URL is waaaay overboard. This is the only free plugin of it’s kind, and despite it’s age, still works, so don’t bash it.