Is Your WordPress Blog Not Notifying You Of Comments?
November 9, 2007
I upgraded all my blogs a couple of weeks ago to 2.3.1. Ever since then I have not received any notifications when someone has left me a comment. It was driving me crazy!
So I posted for help on the WP support forum. At first, it looked like I was destined for the lonely sound of crickets. But then a wonderful person, CreativeChick, found the solution in another thread and brought it to my attention.
I don’t claim to know the why’s and what’s, but the solution is really very simple. The solution that worked for me was to make a slight modification to my pluggable.php file. This is located in every WP install at: root > wp-includes > pluggable.php.
You’ll want to comment out line 228:
$phpmailer->Sender = apply_filters( 'wp_mail_from', $from_email );
So it should look like this:
//$phpmailer->Sender = apply_filters( 'wp_mail_from', $from_email );
Once I uploaded the file, I made a quick test comment. Seconds later I received the glorious sound of Gmail notifying me I had a gift arrive in my inbox.
Ah, yes, my blog is speaking to me now. 
| 2.8 |
Written by 
Mark · Filed Under Blogging
Comments
23 Responses to “Is Your WordPress Blog Not Notifying You Of Comments?”
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Mark,
This is very useful!
I’ve noticed I get notifications for some comments, but not all comments, though I only get notifications for new commentators.
Kyle Eslick’s last blog post is: Firefox Extension: Better Gmail 2.0
@Kyle
With me, it was EVERY comment and I hate silence. What I find odd is that the WP guys haven’t pounced upon this as it would seem to be quite a significant problem for bloggers. Oh well, at least it’s fixed for now and hopefully they will have made a permanent fix in the next release.
I was wondering if you had heard of this.
I might have to give this a shot as I’ve got one blog that tells me when regular users leave a comment, but never tells me when someone new comes along.
Of course, those are usually the spam comments that I really don’t want clogging my blog.
Christine Senter’s last blog post is: I broke the 10K mark
@Christine
Can I just tell you what a pleasure it is to be receiving notifications about these comments? LOL
Hey everybody, go over to Christine’s blog and give her some words of encouragement for her nano novel she’s working on. She only has 40,000 more words to go. Woo-hoo! You go girl!
LOLOLOL,
Thanks Mark. I appreciate that little boost. LOL.
And I actually only have 36,293 words to go, but who’s counting. LOLOLOL
Christine Senter’s last blog post is: I broke the 10K mark
[…] Is Your WordPress Blog Not Notifying You of Comments? by Mark - The title scares me enough! And after reading the article, I just updated Wordpress on a couple of my sites, so this behavior will be something I’ll be keeping an eye open for. Thanks Mark! […]
I don’t be notified of my comments but I’m having another problem - now, people can’t comment at all. I haven’t done any upgrades or anything at all lately but I did just add the Sphinn, PlugIM, and Blogging Zoom plugins. Now when I comment on my site I get a blank page and the comment never sends, and someone else got an error. I also cannot view my plugins page. People were able to comment after I installed all those plugins for quite a while, so I doubt that’s the problem. However, I’m not sure if the two are connected and I’m hoping it’s a temporary problem. I’m not good at figuring things like this out so if anyone knows what’s wrong I’d appreciate your advice.
Tay’s last blog post is: Calling For Your Articles About Blogging
@Tay:
When I tried commenting on your blog, it kept asking me to download your wp-comments.php file. Do those plugins have anything to do with that page?
Since you can’t get to your plugins page, I recommend you go in behind the scenes to remove those plugins manually. Then let’s see what happens. Let me know!
Thanks Mark. None of those comments have anything to do with it that I know of, so I’m not sure. I’m still receiving comments so some people are obviously able to get through, but others aren’t. It’s very strange. I am guessing it has something to do with one of my plugins though so I’ll try to get it straightened out. Thanks for your help!
Tay’s last blog post is: The Best of the Blogosphere: November 11, 2007
Sara’s last blog post is: Last call for Christmas cards!
@Sara:
I’m looking forward to those tons of comments coming my way! Thanks again for your help and for stopping by.
Hi Mark
I encountered similar problems (and more) ever since I upgrade to WP2.3.1
I still get notifications for some comments, but they are delayed for a few days!
In addition, the “incoming links” on the dashboard no longer report the most current incoming links. It just stop at the point when the upgrade was done.
betshopboy’s last blog post is: Bloggers Of The World Unite!
@betshopboy
Hey, good to see you here, buddy! Sorry to hear about the notification problem, but maybe this little tip will help. And I’m so glad you mentioned the problem with the incoming links on the dashboard. That was beginning to worry me, too. I’ve only had a few links added to that list, but with the increase of incoming links I KNOW I’m getting from other blogs, they’re just not showing up like I expect. I hope it sorts itself out soon.
[…] I have to agree with Mark (the wonderful creator of the Be The Blog Award award) that those who are successful at blogging are the people who make it their own. You can find Mark at his virtual home, Me And My Drum. Check out his post How To Fix WordPress When It Doesn’t Notify You Of Comments. […]
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I’ve had the same issue. A few comments sat on my niche website for days before I noticed them. Gah! I’m having problems with my incoming links also. I was going to let you know that I mentioned you in my posting today but you beat me to it.
Opal Tribble’s last blog post is: Do You Want To Be A Successful Blogger? Be The Blog
I’m so glad you posted this!
I made the change immediately, now I’ll have to see whether it’s fixed or not.
Thank you!
Sibbia’s last blog post is: So you want to be enlightened?
@Sibbia
I hope it works out for you. Thanks for stopping by!
@Opal
Thanks for the mention. I have my fingers crossed that this fix will work for you and that the link thing is also going to right itself. I’m addicted to that in my dashboard just like I need to know my stats.
You rock Sir, CreativeChick too wherever she may be. Thanks for posting this, it was driving me nuts!
Dave’s last blog post is: Going Postal on my Mail
@Dave
LOL You’re quite welcome.
[…] I have no idea why, over the last few versions, WordPress hasn’t been able to notify me of comments, etc, but I’m very glad I found this post: How to fix WordPress when it doesn’t notify you of comments | MeAndMyDrum […]
Hi Mark
I encountered similar problems (and more) ever since I upgrade to WP2.3.1
I still get notifications for some comments, but they are delayed for a few days!
@Mike
Hey there! Actually, from time to time I seem to get that same thing happening to me. Not sure what that’s about. Very frustrating though.
[…] the usual series of comment spam. (By the way, Andrew has a link to the fix, from Mark’s blog MeAndMyDrum. It worked for […]