[Resolved] Help! Activation Email not sent–nothing works
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WordPress 3.5
BuddyPress 1.6.2
Dreamhost hosting
Custom Community ThemeI’ve looked all over the Web and this forum and it seems that activation emails not being sent to new signups is a common issue, but the solutions are often specific to each case Most of the solutions I find involve specific plugins and things I am not using.
My case: I have just starting using BuddyPress and am in the process of creating my WordPress site. It is currently in maintenance mode. I tried to test the registration system by logging out of admin and signing up with a different email than my WordPress email. The system then tells me that an activation email has been sent to me, but I never receive one.
I then installed the BuddyPress Pending Activations plugin and resent the email, but still, I did not receive it!
Are there any solutions to this or possible explanations as to WHY this happens–bug? I can’t have a BuddyPress site if no one can sign up!
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Do they end up in the spam / junk / trash folder?
Have you tried the suggestions in BuddyPress isn’t sending out emails (eg. activation emails, email notifications) on the following page: https://codex.buddypress.org/troubleshooting/frequently-asked-questions/ ?Did WordPress send emails before you installed buddypress?
Hi Aces,
I meant to write in the original post that it does not go the junk/spam or trash folders either.
Also, I’ve visited the link you posted and the only advice it gives is:
Members of the BP community have had success using:
It doesn’t elaborate on how these plugins are supposed to help, but I installed the WP Mail SMTP, anyway.
I resent the activation key and still no email. WordPress did/does send me admin emails with no problems
Hi Aces,
I meant to write in the original post that the emails are not in the trash/spam/junk folders.
Also, I’ve visited the link you posted and the only advice given is:
Members of the BP community have had success using:
I installed the WP Mail SMTP plugin and resent the activation key. Still, no email.
WP did/does send me admin emails without a problem.
What does the WP Mail SMTP plugin email debug report say?
Does the email leave your host or have you tried googling the error numbers?
The plugin still needs the right settings. The reply from setting can cause email to fail if wrong. pop3 email or smtp also needs to be selected…
I am also having this issue on the site I am constructing with Buddypress-Buddyboss. Validation emails are not going out as well as changed password emails. I need a fix before 2 weeks into January and hundres of ppl start logging in on 8 sites. We chose buddy press / buddy boss for its groups and forum features but this is a serious problem I can not move forward with out fixing and the launch date is coming soon. Thanks for any assistance.
Aces, I’m not sure how to read the report , but the error messages are:
SMTP -> FROM SERVER:554 5.7.1 : Recipient address rejected: Access denied
SMTP -> ERROR: RCPT not accepted from server: 554 5.7.1 : Recipient address rejected: Access denied
SMTP Error: The following recipients failed:
after changing some of the plugin settings, I get:
SMTP -> ERROR: Failed to connect to server: (0)
The following From address failed:
I am new to BuddyPress and creating a site using WordPress.com
Any idea as to what address/program sends the activation email? That is, what defualt email address do the activation emails come from? And is it WordPress, BuddyPress or my host that sends out the email?
Should I have done some configuring to this address first?
Email should work but much can go wrong including things connected to plugins, themes and functions.php or bp-custom.php files.
Presuming the email didn’t go into spam, and WordPress sent emails before installing BuddyPress, then one thing that can be tried is disabling all plugins except except buddypress and the ( un-customised ) bp-default theme.
If this is a localhost/dev site then php / server has to be correctly configured and/or upgraded for email. Alternatively WP Mail SMTP may be useful in this situation…
The main email address is set on the wordpress Settings > General page.
There may be other issues with buddypress in some situations. For more info see: https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4689 and relevant links on that page.
**SOLVED**
Thank you @Aces for answering and being helpful. All seems to be working now. I will post the solution below for those, like @Whisprr, who have the same problem:
Basically, the “WP Mail SMTP” plugin method from the link Aces provided worked. I just think the link is very vague and doesn’t explain at all how these plugins are supposed to help or what exactly you are supposed to do with them–it just says ‘most people found these helpful’. So I had to watch this youtube video, which explained how to solve the issue using the WP Mail SMTP, step by step: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GsHbf4Gitw
Watch it! I would just skip the part about using the FTP to finish installing the plugin (skip 3:00-6:20). The plugin should install perfectly fine.
Essentially, anyone who has the activation/registration email problem needs to download the “WP Mail SMTP” plugin and then enter the correct settings, as described in the video. I ran into a problem (mentioned earlier in this post) because GMAIL does not allow the plugin access to the account and labels it as suspicious activity–this kept returning an error message in the debug (test email). I also didn’t feel comfortable putting my real email’s username and password, un-hidden, into the username and password form, so I created a new YAHOO account especially for sending emails from my wordpress blog instead of my normal account, to use for this plugin.
It worked! The debug/test email did not return an error and when I tested the registration for my site, I finally received the activation email–albeit buried in my spam folder.
Hopefully this helps others because BuddyPress and Word Press do not make it clear that this needs to be done in order to SEND (rather than receive) email from your account or for member registration to work–this is why many people who are Word Press novices can become confused when site registration doesn’t work.
I am going to check the solution you defined above. I really hope this will be resolved with this solution. Thank you for the info.
For the record you do not really need to be adding further plugins to WP to sort out what is actually not an issue ever related to an application but rests at the server / domain level and in correct server sendmail or other versions of smpt/relay programs configurations and of properly configured email dns records, and requires a little technical knowledge when things don’t work out of the box. Plugins will try and bridge that gap between correct configurations, and users technical knowledge and I guess if they work alls well and good, but better is that things are sorted out at the real point of breakage.
So just to clarify this does not need to be done so that WP/ BuddyPress can send emails they have no problem sending emails as long as the server and domain records are correctly setup.
If your emails are being continually dropped into spam folders it’s because the email server receiving them isn’t able to validate the server as valid for the domain and you likely need to set an SPF record and possibly reverse DNS records but the latter is usually something the host providing the IP address for the server needs to set.
Thank you Hugo, unfortunately we have checked and IT has checked, we have created test accounts and registered, setup other accounts and tested for password change emails. They are simply not arriving. Can you make a suggestion other than the above where we may have made a mistake in the set-up. Something that needs to be checked? I am really running out of time… Thank you for any assistance on this.
Without detailed knowledge and access to your server it would be hard to speculate as to where the issue lies. A plain vanilla WP install will send out emails quite happily, that is if the server is configured correctly, sendmail is sometimes problematic and postfix often recommended as an alternative. If you have things working now using a plugin to manage the issue then all well and good, it’s just that it masks an issue elsewhere really, and personally I’m not in favour of plugins used to manage aspects such as this.
I would advise you check you have correct PTR record for your IP address, and also set a SPF record along with your MX records doing these two things can drastically affect how mail servers receive your mail or reject it if not happy these two items exist and check out as valid.
@Hugo. Thanks that is good to know. That is what I figured was the case (see my 5th post to this thread, 9th reply) , but alas no one was able to describe that before I found the video for the plugin method from the link @Aces provided, which worked perfectly. Also, instead of saying “Members of the BP community have had success using: WP Mail SMTP” the advice Buddy Press FAQ gives for this problem should explain what you’ve explained.
But as you said, without detailed knowledge abut the server and or hired tech help, it is difficult to solve that problem. @Whisprr, I recommend the plugin method BuddyPress suggests for now as you try to find the underlying problem. For me, I am using a credible host and simply used a “one click install” for wordpress. I am not sure why my email is not working properly (btw, the mail didn’t go to spam–the email server just rejects the message all together, according to the debug test) and don’t really have the time, knowledge or resources to deal with it immediately.
Note of warning one click installs can and often are problematic and not recommended. As for credible host, I take your word for that 🙂 Ask them to ensure your IP has a correct PTR record set and go to http://www.openspf.org/ and create a txt SPF entry to add to your MX records this will help certain email hosts to accept email from your server when it comes via your domain records or associates your MX records and the server as being allowed to send email on behalf of that domain and isn’t just some open spam relay.
Oh and yes perhaps the codex/ or that thread could do with a preface about the nature of this problem, sadly I have actually written in depth twice iirc on this issue when in the past there seemed to be a spate of this troublesome aspect, but not sure it’s possible to find those now.
Big problem is that many email providers latched onto a series of email protocols to use as a means of checking that received emails were from genuine sources and not spam, problem was/is these protocols are not mandatory ones to have such as PTR records but due to this those sorts of records, as arcane and complicated as they are become necessary.
Thank you, we will check it All out. I would rather not have to have another plugin so if your recommendations will fix this it would be great.
buddy press never worked, and will never work. do you think facebook is going to seet around let you create social network all over the web. it is not happning and this people work for facebook and they just looking how stupid we are trying to make our own social network while there is facebook out there.
so let just give up, buddypress never work@asnakea3 No trolling. If you need help, ask for it and we’ll try to help. As I mentioned in your topic, there are plenty of happy BuddyPress campers. Closing this topic.
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