Troubleshooting: Not receiving notifications from forms on your website
By Raeleen
| 3 April 2020
When you add a form to your website, it’s useful to receive a notification when someone submits it. If you’re not receiving the notifications you expect, these are some things to check.
1. Check that your notification is set up correctly
Is the notification turned on? Is it the right email address? Make sure there are no typos in the address. If someone else set up the form for you, this is especially important to check. By default notifications in WordPress go to the admin email, which isn’t always the email address you want notifications sent to.
2. Check your spam folder
Are you sure the notifications aren’t being delivered? Because notifications are often from the same address that they are sent to, they can sometimes be flagged as spam. Check your spam folder for notification emails. If you find them in there, white list the email so they don’t get marked as spam in the future. Spam gets deleted automatically though, so send a test form to yourself to get a new notification.
3. Test the email address
Does any mail get delivered to the email address? Even if it’s been working before, it’s still worth sending a normal email to the address to check it. Sometimes mail servers have problems and mailboxes get full.
If you didn’t receive any email at that address, or your email bounces, contact the person who looks after your mail server. This isn’t a problem with your website or hosting server.
4. Try sending to an email address on a different domain
Is it only email addresses on the same domain as your website that have this issue? Try adding an email address on a different domain, like a gmail address, as a notification email. Does that address receive a notification when the same-domain address doesn’t? Then it could be a problem with the hosting configuration.
If you have access to cPanel, and are confident you know what you’re doing, log into cPanel and go to MX Entry. Check what Email Routing is set to and if there is an MX Record. If there is an MX Record set, but the mail is actually handled by a remote server, it can interfere with mail delivery. Deleting the record, and setting the Email Routing to Remote Mail Exchanger may fix the problem.
If you are at all unsure about what the settings should be, contact the person who handles your hosting server.