Random entries are not being saved

Hello,

This is really tough to say to be honest, because it is a random problem, it sounds like there could be an issue with your website or perhaps your database is corrupted.

Normally it would be all one or the other. All entries save or no entries save. This could even be a user error. You might just try disabling all plugins and re-enabling them. Perhaps something is interfering with the database write?

Thanks
Joseph
VFBPro Support

I’ve looked through the web server logs but those only show web page access, nothing about VFB script failures.

Does VFB have a log file, perhaps with debug options? If not, perhaps that would be a good feature to add, of course as a setting the admin can enable.

Also, VFB should check if the database write failed or not and if so, it should send an email to the admin notifying them of the failure, any errors messages, and include the contents of the form submission.

Its super hard to say on something like this to be honest. A random error like this can be caused by so many things, maybe they just close the window to soon you know? Like I said, it either works or doesnt. Something like this is factors you and I cannot control, like users or a problem deeper in the core of your site/database.

Does VFB put the data into the database before or after sending the confirmation email?
I see them in my Sent Mail box so it is making it that far.

I’ve run database integrity checks and there were no problems.

Sorry for the slight delay in my reply, the free version sends the email prior to saving to the database. Hope this helps.

Sorry for the slight delay in my reply, the free version sends the email prior to saving to the database. Hope this helps.

I’m having the same issue, I’ve done a checking for the last couple of months and there are several entries missing – I received the emails, but some entries are nowhere to be found. As we need to provide statistics regarding the entries/ leads, this is a major inconvenience. If a solution won’t be provided soon by the developers, I’ll need to find another reliable plugin.

This really sounds like a database issue, server or permissions issue. Inconsistent issues like this are extremely difficult to troubleshoot at best as you can imagine. There could be a conflict even, perhaps a certain browser configuration is having a problem. If it was happening all the time, the issue might be traceable, something like this could be a 100 different things, not even related to VFBPro causing the issue.

You may consider using our pro version, we certainly have no reports of this issue in our pro version.

Thanks,
Joseph
VFBPro Support

I have a client that this is happening to on the pro version but no entries are getting saved in the backend of the site?

I’m not sure when this thread was marked as Resolved but sorry Joseph, it’s still a problem.

Well, until now that is! ??

After encountering this issue yet again, I finally did a lot of troubleshooting on the server and database but was not seeing any errors. Then I dug into the VFB code and found the problem. Before I was losing at least 50% of the registration entries on each form I created. Using my fix below, I’ve had 100% complete registrations and no more issues.

With all due respect to @mmuro and his work, the issue isn’t specifically VFB’s coding but due to an intermittent failure of the very common WordPress function wpdb->insert() that he is using in VFB. Go do a web search for “wordpress insert” and “not working” or “failure” and you will see many discussions about the insert function failing.

So to fix the problem, we need to replace the insert with a proper SQL prepare and query statement.

Edit the wp-content/plugins/visual-form-builder/includes/email.php file.
On line 313, remove $wpdb->insert( $this->entries_table_name, $entry );
and replace it with the following code

$result = $wpdb->query($wpdb->prepare("
  INSERT INTO $this->entries_table_name
    (<code>form_id</code>, <code>data</code>, <code>subject</code>, <code>sender_name</code>, <code>sender_email</code>, <code>emails_to</code>, <code>date_submitted</code>, <code>ip_address</code>)
  VALUES
    ( %d, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s )
  ",
  $entry
));

if( $result === 1 ) :
  $sqlresult .= sprintf('<tr><td><strong>%1$s: </strong></td><td>%2$s</td></tr>' . "\n", "SQL Result", "Insert Successful");
else :
  $sqlresult .= sprintf('<tr><td><strong>%1$s: </strong></td><td>%2$s</td></tr>' . "\n", "SQL Result", "Insert Failed. error:" . $wpdb->last_error );
  $sqlresult .= sprintf('<tr><td><strong>%1$s: </strong></td><td>%2$s</td></tr>' . "\n", "SQL Query", $wpdb->last_query );
endif;

Then on line 326, remove $message = $header . $body . $footer;
and replace it with $message = $header . $body . $sqlresult . $footer;

Save the file and exit the editor.

If the above code blocks don’t appear proper or you have problems editing the file, you can download the fixed version VFB-email-fix.zip. This is only the email.php file with the above changes.

So, besides replacing the insert function with prepare and query, this code change also includes debug info in the email. Note: This info is ONLY in the confirmation email that is sent to you (Form settings>Email section> Emails To). The customer that filled out the form does not see it.

When successful, it adds “SQL Result: Insert Successful” to the HTML table.

If it fails, the complete error message is shown as well as the full SQL query it tried to send. Here is an example where I intentionally made an error.

@josparky I hope this helps you and anyone else that has encountered this frustrating issue.

@josephk77 and/or @mmuro, I hope you can include this fix in the next release of your product. If you are thankful for this fix, I’d be grateful for a VFB Pro license ??

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by smudgespot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by smudgespot.