My Blog Is Finally Talking To Me Again!
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Twice I’ve posted about easily configuring your blog to send you notifications when someone comments on your posts. That was so nerve-racking to wonder why no one was commenting on my posts only to find out there were several comments that had already been made or awaiting moderation when I logged in to my dashboard.
But if you have the fix in place (which had to do with commenting out a line of code in your pluggable.php file), it could easily be overlooked each time you upgraded WordPress. And lately, I’ve found that my blog just stopped sending me notifications all together even with the fix, leaving me to check my comment queue regularly. Ugh!
Well, I think I found a permanent fix.
After doing more searching on the WordPress support forums, I found a recent conversation that had taken place that held the solution. It’s a plugin called no-sender, which I found over at Just Thinkin’.Just activate it like any other plugin and you should be set. I say “should” because there seems to be some instances (like my blog) where that may not be enough, BUT it requires just a few extra steps.
So if the plugin itself doesn’t start sending you notifications, then try this in addition to it:
- Go to your hosting cpanel.
- Create a new email address in this format: wordpress@(yourdomainhere).com (or .net, whatever the TLD)
- Then configure that email address to forward to your email of choice.
That’s it. Now whenever you have to upgrade, there’s nothing more to worry about.
Leave a Comment
April 7, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Wow cool. I have the same problem.
It is nice to know, though, that you and your blog are on speaking terms again. LOL
Christine Senter’s last blog post..Sell Your Stuff On Amazon.com
April 7, 2008 at 10:55 pm
@Christine
You see? It worked. I got notified that you commented! Woo-hoo!
And yes, MAMD is a bit finicky at times, I have to keep her happy.
April 9, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Can’t you just use WordPress and check the box under Options > Discussion that says, “Email me whenever: Anyone posts a comment”?
Jagdu’s last blog post..Truck Driving Jobs in Fresno Ca
April 9, 2008 at 8:30 pm
@Jagdu
Thanks for commenting! Oh yes, that’s always been turned on, it’s just that one day it stopped working, or perhaps it’s better to say that the service that allowed it to work stopped working. I’m not real clear on the details, but according to what I’ve read it has something to do with the server the blog is hosted on and how the server is configured to respond to emails coming from the blog. I believe the ISPs are just trying to protect their interests by not allowing what seems as spam to go through. I could be wrong, but it has definitely affected quite a few people.
April 11, 2008 at 7:24 am
Hey Mark,
Thanks for the link and I’m glad folks are finding the plugin useful. The real thanks goes to Peter Westwood, WordPress developer, for coming up with the workaround. It was a simple matter of packaging the thing into a zip file for downloading.
So in case you really want to know how it works, the problem involving notifications from WordPress and notifications from the “Subscribe to Comments” plugin are two different things with two different solutions. First, notifications from your WordPress install…
You’re right about the spam prevention with the exception that it pertains to the host rather than the ISP in that most hosts these days are now requiring verification of the email sender which basically means that if the sending email address doesn’t exist on the host itself, it won’t allow it. So, for example, if your default email address you use in your WordPress Admin is a Gmail address, it would have stopped sending you notifications when your host instituted this check in your server. The “no-sender” plugin takes care of this part.
For notifications from the “Subscribe to Comments” plugin suddenly stopping at the same time, adding the email address “wordpress@yoursite.com” should have solved that conundrum.
Just so you know. Remember…information is power!
Kirk M’s last blog post..Crocus Among Us
April 11, 2008 at 11:51 pm
@Kirk
You’re very welcome! And thanks for taking the time to stop by and explain a little more about it. Indeed, information IS power and I intend to soak up as much of it as I can.
April 17, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I don’t think I did anything to my blog to get it to send me these comments. I have been having problems with spam comments though. About 200 waiting in moderation and sometimes a few legit ones get lost in there!
April 17, 2008 at 6:05 pm
@Forest
I don’t understand — are you saying you had a problem with comments being sent or not? I know what you mean though about some legitimate comments making their way to the spam queue.