jfores19

okay that did not work. i deactivated the plugin, and then went on the testimonials page and submitted a form. The site owner called me and read to me that he got it, but in the “TO” line, it still had it going to the wrong admin email, and forwarding to him.

So i guess the next step is to delete that admin user but need to make sure i have the correct back up files to restore it if it causes issues.

1. i couldn’t change the email on that particular admin user so i wonder if i will even be able to delete it??

2. will i be prompted to edit user roles and author post issues after i do that or do i have to figure out how to do it manually?

3. backup what database or files to restore if it causes something to go horrible wrong.

We may be getting somewhere! its not in WP panel…but on the server i found a plugin called “comment-moderation-to-author.php” there is a read me file as well.

Here is the entire php code:
/*
Plugin Name: Comment Moderation E-mail only to Author
Plugin URI: https://status301.net/wordpress-plugins/comment-moderation-e-mail-to-post-author/
Description: Send comment moderation notifications **only** to the posts Author, not to the site Administration address (as configured on Settings > General) any more, unless the author in question has no moderation rights. There are no options, just activate and the site admin will no longer be bothered with notifications about posts from other authors. Happy with it? Buy me a coffee… Thanks! ??
Version: 0.4
Author: RavanH
Author URI: https://status301.net/
*/

/**
* Filters wp_notify_moderator() recipients: $emails includes only author e-mail,
* unless the authors e-mail is missing or the author has no moderator rights.
*
* @since 0.4
*
* @param array $emails List of email addresses to notify for comment moderation.
* @param int $comment_id Comment ID.
* @return array
*/
function comment_moderation_post_author_only($emails, $comment_id)
{
$comment = get_comment($comment_id);
$post = get_post($comment->comment_post_ID);
$user = get_userdata($post->post_author);

// Return only the post author if the author can modify.
if ( user_can($user->ID, ‘edit_comment’, $comment_id) && !empty($user->user_email) )
return array( $user->user_email );

return $emails;
}

add_filter(‘comment_moderation_recipients’, ‘comment_moderation_post_author_only’, 11, 2);

maybe i just delete this plugin?? if you read the text file, and the top of that code, it says that this plugin overrides the email that should get sent to the site administrator as configured in settings. And i just found the plugin on the plugins page so i can try deactivating it as well. I dont see anything in that code that sends it to that one particular email address, but its got to be one of those short codes??

there is a quick way to search for it you have SSH access to your server (you may have to ask for it on a shared hosting account). After logging in via SSH, you would change into the /public_html folder:

Honestly i am not sure how to get into SSH, or if i have access to it. I can login to his go daddy account and direct to cpanel/files etc.

I know you don’t want to cause a problem by deleting the old admin until you’re sure it won’t cause an issue, but if you backed up the database before you did it, you could just restore the database if it doesn’t work and be back where you are now.

Thats what i was going to try but not sure which file/database to back up. go daddy does auto backups on this site daily, and i downloaded full backups but not sure what i would need to restore, or how to restore individual files or databases.

It’s possible that if you deleted that old admin account and reassigned all the content to the user whose email you want the emails to go to, you would be in good shape

again, that was my plan. But wanted to make sure i knew what to backup and restore if it it screws things up. if i do that, will it prompt me to reassign content and such or do i have to figure out how to do that manually?

I don’t think the answer is in the database, but I’m not sure. I’m thinking more that it comes from wherever the Testimonials are coming from. Maybe your theme or a plugin?

Yes it could be. i could search through all the plugin script on the server and hopefully find something. The theme is a custom theme by the company who designed it. I have been through the functions.php and other php dealing with their theme but hadn’t found anything in there.

I really appreciate your help. I know this is a pain!

I have scoured that whole wordpress panel, the PHP codes, the code inspector for CSS and HTML and i have not been able to find ANYWHERE that tells that submit button to send email to that first admin email…where i can subsequently change it.

The testimonials tab in WP actually has nothing under it but an initial post that said welcome to vision motorcycle tours, the comments section does have all the testimonials that have been posted but that is it. There are no settings or anything like that. I have been through the pages, the settings – nothing. the company set up a “custom fields” tab on the WP dashboard, and i have been through that as well. I can find no reference.

I have started looking at home directory in the server and started looking through a lot of that PHP code on there but don’t really know what script to look for, or how to search for it. I went into the mysql databases but have never tried to mess with those so I’m not sure how to do that either.

sorry if this is a baffling problem. Im doing my best to describe it correctly.

sadly that is the first place i went and the email address in there is the correct one. I will attached two screen shots: first is the general settings page so you can see how its set up, with the email address. second is the “users” page. there you will see the different users and their roles. The top “admin” user is the one where all those emails go. The 3rd one “larry_admin” is where we want them to go, and ideally we’d like to delete the top “admin” user but i don’t want to screw things up more by doing that.

Hope that helps??

okay – i can open the mysql database in the hosting panel but not sure what to do with it. Never worked in databases before. There are two users in there but they don’t have the same screen name as the users in WP…so I’m not really sure how to manipulate it.

what follows is the code that i found in a file in the editor called “comments-testimonials.php”. Now..it seems to have different fields than the actual form. If you look at the form page itself (www.visionmotorcycletours.com/testimonials) you will see only two fields, plus a captcha field, and then the submit button. However, when i copied the “text area” comment field and pasted it just below the first one in this PHP file…it added another comment text area on the site itself. thats how i knew this is the PHP that created the form.

here s the code:
<?php

if (!empty($_SERVER[‘SCRIPT_FILENAME’]) && ‘comments.php’ == basename($_SERVER[‘SCRIPT_FILENAME’]))
die (‘Please do not load this page directly. Thanks!’);

if ( post_password_required() ) { ?>
This post is password protected. Enter the password to view comments.
<?php
return;
}
?>

<?php if ( comments_open() ) : ?>

<div id=”respond”>

<div class=”cancel-comment-reply”>
<?php cancel_comment_reply_link(); ?>
</div>

<?php if ( get_option(‘comment_registration’) && !is_user_logged_in() ) : ?>
<p>You must be “>logged in to post a comment.</p>
<?php else : ?>

<form action=”<?php echo get_option(‘siteurl’); ?>/wp-comments-post.php” method=”post” id=”commentform”>

<?php if ( is_user_logged_in() ) : ?>

<p>Logged in as /wp-admin/profile.php”><?php echo $user_identity; ?>. ” title=”Log out of this account”>Log out »</p>

<?php else : ?>

<div>
<label for=”author”>Name <?php if ($req) echo “(required)”; ?></label>
<input type=”text” name=”author” id=”author” value=”<?php echo esc_attr($comment_author); ?>” size=”22″ tabindex=”1″ <?php if ($req) echo “aria-required=’true'”; ?> />
</div>
<!–
<div>
<label for=”email”>Mail (will not be published) <?php if ($req) echo “(required)”; ?></label>
<input type=”text” name=”email” id=”email” value=”<?php echo esc_attr($comment_author_email); ?>” size=”22″ tabindex=”2″ <?php if ($req) echo “aria-required=’true'”; ?> />
</div>

<div>
<label for=”url”>Website</label>
<input type=”text” name=”url” id=”url” value=”<?php echo esc_attr($comment_author_url); ?>” size=”22″ tabindex=”3″ />
</div>

–>
<?php endif; ?>
<!–<p>You can use these tags: <?php echo allowed_tags(); ?></p>–>

<div>
<label for=”comment”>Testimonial</label>
<textarea name=”comment” id=”comment” cols=”58″ rows=”10″ tabindex=”4″></textarea>
</div>

<div>
<input name=”submit” type=”submit” id=”submit” tabindex=”5″ value=”Send Testimonial” />
<?php comment_id_fields(); ?>
</div>

<?php do_action(‘comment_form’, $post->ID); ?>

</form>

Honestly i just don’t know. i can’t find any reference in the general settings to the admin email. aside from a spot that just says Email Address: [email protected]
This address is used for admin purposes, like new user notification.

but as you can see, that would be the correct email address for the owner, not the main admin role which is that vmt@jwd….email. i checked the discussion settings and i don’t see any box that would tell it to send to the email in the general settings either.

And quite frankly i don’t understand the filters, where to find them or how to manipulate them. I looked through all the darn php and html to find reference to email and that specific address but i couldn’t find ANYTHING!

is there a way to delete that top admin role, and make larry_admin the main admin user? he told me he would like to remove them completely off the site. Im not sure what would happen if i tried to delete that first admin user. Could I alter the email if i changed the password, logged in as that user? Maybe something along those lines would redirect the emails automatically to the right address? I did find an article that described getting rid of the admin username account, and that you would assign a different user as the default admin…and that all associations would automatically change. I don’t want to do that unless i know whats going to happen.

sorry just brainstorming here.

Okay heres an update. Take a look at this screenshot:

Now the top admin line with the vmt@jwdmc email is the one that his original web designer is using to send the testimonials to. That is not the site owners email. I think we somewhere in the code it is defaulting to send the testimonials to that main admin…is there somewhere i can simply switch that. It would not let me change the email address in the user page.

My guess is somewhere in the script or PHP code for the testimonial submit button it has a short code of sending to [admin] or something like that. so if i can’t change it on the user page, i need to find this short code or whatever and simply change that to larry_admin (the third user down) as he is the site owner and that is his email. Hope that helps.

Yeah i think the main reason is that its not a form like the others…it is a comment page, so all the comments submitted need to go to an approval email address, and the email address that is being used we can’t find. Not sure how he forwarded it to his other email, but he did do that. He just doesn’t want this other company that he doesn’t work with anymore to have access to his testimonials and such. I did a search through the settings, since that is where the “comments” or “posts” pages have their settings. bHere is a screen shot of the settings so i wonder if these are the settings that need t0 change??

Thank you so much. tremendous help…but still have a long ways to go…now i have one more question:

SO the company that initially set it up has the email from this testimonial page going to them when you hit the submit button. He was able to find someone who was able to forward the email where he wants it to go, but i cannot find the post action and email submit for that form anywhere, in order to permanently change it to his email address. Ive looked in the code, in the CSS inspector, in the contact form setup, in the captcha setup, etc. I can find it nowhere.

With most forms it is very simply in the form setup area but since this testimonial page for was a custom one its not there.

Hopefully i am describing this issue correctly…?

Thanks again.

LOL..when I first read your response, i thought it was in Aramaic. but then i looked and started finding what you were talking about.

This one line of CSS:

/*————TESTIMONIALS————*/
.testimonial_block #respond form input[type=submit]{
left: 15%;
position: relative;
margin: 80px 0px 0px;
}

where it said margin, it was 35, i changed it to 80 and it moved the submit button down to where its not being covered by captcha..which is great. I didn’t have to do anything else at this point.

Thank you – i think you’ve hit the nail on the head…unfortunately your dealing with an idiot. I have never done anything with CSS – and while I’ve tried to “learn” in a few instances, I’m not sure how to actually do that. I create all my sites without having to utilize CSS…probably would be a good idea to study it for more capability but for the here and now I have no clue how to execute what you are saying.

Also with the container that holds the captcha- i do know what you are referring to but i don’t see anything in the code that looks like it would be that container…if you’d like i can copy paste the entire page code if that would help?

Sorry and thanks.

Thank you for the fast reply!

he already has that captcha plug in installed.

disable contact form capcha from contact form backend Since this was not done with a traditional contact form there is no backend for the form on the testimonial page that i can find. There is back end for the other contact forms, but they are fine…and they use captcha through short code right in the form backend. this one is completely different and i cannot find any code that puts the captcha in the form on the testimonial page.