My Wordpress blog subscribers aren't getting updates.

October 4, 2012 5:28 AM

Blog at Dreamhost, using Wordpress - After many months of posting with few to no email issues, the last two posts did not send emails to my subscribers. Suggestions?

For the second time in a row, a new post at my blog did not go out to my subscribers. The widget I am using is Epicwin but I'm hoping someone can suggest a widget that will work or alternatively, an explanation for why this may have happened? Wordpress does update periodically, and may have updated between the last post that emailed correctly, and the last two that did not.

I have had issues in the past with my emails going to spam. Last time that seemed to be caused by my using an email address for new post emails that did not have the blog address in it, so I changed it to my blog email address (i.e. [e-mail] rather than [e-mail]). This seemed to fix the problem.

One other thing that may or may not be relevant, is that my theme has wanted to update for many months, but I have chosen not to update it because I'm worried about re-creating all the changes I made to it. I've been told this probably won't affect security or anything dire. (If useful, it is the Scherzo theme by Leon Paternoster)

I switched from SpamFree Wordpress to Akismet recently, but that did not affect the first couple posts/emails after installing it. Any suggestions related to this issue are welcome!

posted by Glinn to computers & internet (5 answers total)

>>>I've been told this probably won't affect security or anything dire.
Yikes! I'd worry about that! You need to worry about security on wordpress sites.

First question is, of course, you're sure it didn't go out to anyone at all? It just completely failed to send?

Did you try asking Dreamhost support? They might be able to look at the mailserver logs and see if it's at least getting there. They might be able to tell you if there's something in the web server logs as well, if you can't see those.
posted by Blake at 5:31 AM on October 4, 2012

Are general emails going through - like if you request a forgot password email, or the like? You may need to use something like the Configure SMTP plugin to route your mail through another server (gmail for example).

I've had some issues with Dreamhost taking a while to actually send messages, although they usually go through eventually.
posted by backwards guitar at 5:43 AM on October 4, 2012

you're sure it didn't go out to anyone at all?
I am subscribed myself with a separate email address, and I have not gotten either one, not in spam or anywhere else. I am in the process of getting some feedback from a couple others. At least one got the first email but it went into spam.

You need to worry about security on wordpress sites.
I agree! And I've taken steps including changing the "Admin" name, and I do all Wordpress and all widget updates. I have been told the theme itself shouldn't affect security, though if someone tells me otherwise I will certainly do it.

I don't know about other emails getting through because I haven't tried any others. I'll work on some of these suggestions this evening.
posted by Glinn at 6:48 AM on October 4, 2012

If your theme is using timthumb, you'll need to address that, otherwise you're probably okay with the theme, security wise. It's doubtful it'd be causing your mail issues either, but you could try switching momentarily to another theme and see if that makes a difference.
posted by backwards guitar at 12:15 PM on October 4, 2012

Make sure that the "from" email address is correct, and the address is registered with Dreamhost (in your panel under "Email"). I had a similar problem as you, but with a Wordpress contact form not being able to send emails. Dreamhost enforces mail restrictions to keep their customers from spamming everyone. Basically if Dreamhost doesn't "know" about the outgoing email address they will refuse to send it.

If your address is [e-mail], you should probably create a forward from [e-mail] to GMail, and then send the emails from [e-mail] instead.

If you know how to log in using SSH, poke around your home directory and you might see a directory with the rejected emails in it. I forget exactly where they get kept though. Sorry my details are vague, but this was a couple months ago and the website in question is no longer up!

Tangentially, upgrading plugins shouldn't mess with your settings (unless the plugin is poorly designed, I suppose), unless you've been messing around with the PHP code directly. Personally I use Git to snapshot my Wordpress install in case something goes wonky, but that's an advanced topic...
posted by neckro23 at 3:27 PM on October 4, 2012