Subscribe2 2.1.6

Subscribe2 version 2.1.6 is now available!

This version fixes some more mail header issues, introduces one new feature, and slightly changes the way that mail is delivered.

If you have selected to send excerpts instead of full posts in the update notification, and there is no excerpt, subscribe2 will take any text before a <!--more--> tag and use that as an excerpt. If there is no <!--more--> tag then subscribe2 will send nothing, assuming that if you wanted to send the whole post that you should bloody well select that in the options. ;)

Remember that the excerpt that subscribe2 uses is not automatically generated. You must manually compose the excerpt if you want to use one.

Version 2.1.6 also switches mail delivery from PHP's mail() function to the WordPress wrapper function wp_mail(). For most people, this will not result in any change whatsoever to the functioning of my plugin. But for those struggling with mail delivery issues, they can use Scott Reilly's excellent wpPHPmailer plugin, which allows WordPress to speak SMTP directly to a mail server, instead of using the server's sendmail command-line utility for mail delivery. I have tested subscribe2 with wpPHPmailer, and can confirm that it works quite well (at least for me!).


87 Responses to Subscribe2 2.1.6

  1. 1740 George 2005-10-12 01:31:54

    The file name for the plugin doesn't specify a dot ending. I'm guessing this is a zip file, but you may want to fix the file name.

  2. 1724 Viper007Bond 2005-10-12 10:38:58

    Working great over at FinalGear.com! :)

    However, it'd be cool if the date/time of when a person signed up was stored so that I could clean out unconfirmed users over X days/weeks old.

  3. 1715 skippy 2005-10-12 10:59:45

    That's not a bad idea, Viper007Bond; but it's one I'm unlikely to implement. If any name is present in the "unconfirmed" box for more than a day, it's unlikely that they will manually confirm. At least that's been my experience to date.

  4. 1737 skippy 2005-10-12 12:39:11

    George: thanks for the heads-up. Fixed!

  5. 1727 Elmar 2005-10-12 20:36:16

    Hi,

    thanks for the great plugin. It´s working very smooth in test einvironment. I tested it with 110 email adresses using the batch mode (aka dreamhost). It did not send me a confirmation to the admin-adress neither did it stop after each batch. Shouldn´t it do that, since otherwise the script would time out?

    My problem ist, that i´m shifting my news-system to WP an i already have 2500 subscriptions to my newsletter which is probably going to time out the script.

    Last point: When calling subscribe2.php it shows the subscribed adresses. With 2500 of them the page ist loading forever. So far, I just cut out the call for the list in subscribe2.php. It would be more convenient to show the subscribers on additional pages, maybe in lists of a couple of hundred adresses on each page...

    Any idea? Experiences with such a large number of suscriptions? Thanks for the plugin and your help using it.

    Elmar
    (sorry for my german english)

  6. 1721 skippy 2005-10-12 21:33:08

    Elmar: I don't know of anyone using subscribe2 with that many subscribers. In theory, it ought not take too long to fire off batches to the mail server. I don't know what kind of time-out issues you might experience. Maybe the wpPHPmailer plugin would help speed things along, too.

    Good suggestion for paged subscriber listing. I'll have to evaluate how best to integrate that functionality. Don't hold your breath.

    And subscribe2 may not be the right tool for the job, with that many subscribers. Perhaps a real mailing list package like GNU Mailman for the actual list, combined with my cat2email plugin as glue to feed new posts to Mailman...

  7. 1741 Clint 2005-10-12 21:56:31

    Hey Skip, If I am just upgrading, should I deactivate the old version of your plugin, and install the new one? Also, back to the old version, I noticed that I get emails sent to my addresses no problem when I manually sent the update to the list, but if I tried to allow the automatic update email I was getting nothing sent. Any thoughts real quick?

    C

  8. 1742 skippy 2005-10-12 22:00:10

    Clint: version 2.1.6 should be a drop-in replacement for 2.1.5. There are no changes to the database, so you can simply replace the old subscribe2.php (and optionally subscribe.php, though it hasn't chnaged much).

    I'm not entirely sure I understand your second question. Can you please rephrase it?

  9. 1680 Viper007Bond 2005-10-12 22:21:57

    That’s not a bad idea, Viper007Bond; but it’s one I’m unlikely to implement. If any name is present in the “unconfirmed” box for more than a day, it’s unlikely that they will manually confirm. At least that’s been my experience to date.

    True, but how am I to know if they've been there for a day or not?

    Your plugin is going to get some decent use at my site (100 subscribers or so in the day or two since I've set the plugin up) and it's hard for me to keep track of who's who, especially since they are sorted alphabetically (i.e. I just can't keep an eye on the old ones near the top).

  10. 1729 Clint 2005-10-13 01:18:38

    When I update the page I do not get the automatic email sent saying the site was updated. When I send an email to the list via the 'send an email to subscribers' box on the right side of management screen, the email does send to everyone. I was wondering if you knew why that was...

  11. 1718 skippy 2005-10-13 12:33:28

    Clint: Are you using a remote publishing tool like Ecto or w.Bloggar? If so, those seem to still have trouble triggering the publish_post action on which subscribe2 relies.

    Are you certain that the update notification email is not being flagged as spam in your email client? If you can send notices to all subscribers through use of the Management screen, then there should be nothing to prevent the update notification emails from being delivered. Do you have access to the mail server logs?

  12. 1708 Clint 2005-10-13 22:41:02

    I do not use Ecto or w.Blogger, and I am not sure if I have access to my mail server logs, I will call Godaddy and see. It is the weirdest thing, I don't get any emails, but some people are in the list and some are not. I sent a mass email using my outlook and got the messages just fine in my accounts, but when I use your plugin, it just will not send me anything. I'll keep trying to figure out what is going on. Oh and when you said mail server did you mean on my hosting server or the mail server with the email address I am usging for the blog. They currently are not the same.

  13. 1701 skippy 2005-10-13 23:06:39

    Clint: sending mail through Outlook to your list of subscribers is not at all the same thing as using the mass-email option available at Manage->Subscribers.

    If some people are receiving email from my plugin, and some people are not, then the problem is almost certainly not my plugin. If you can demonstrate that all users are failing to receive messages, then I might suspect my plugin.

    It's almost certainly spam filtering preventing some recipients from accepting the messages.

  14. 1697 Clint 2005-10-14 21:02:44

    Riddle me this batman, why do I get the email to all of my email accounts when I send the note through outlook, and None of my accounts when I just let the auto update send feature work? I have all my spam settings set to save spam on all of my accounts. I am sorry to be a pain, I just want some closure as to why... Hope you understand. Thanks for your time, Clint

  15. 1707 skippy 2005-10-14 21:51:58

    Clint: the reason mail generated by Outlook is delivered is largely due to the way the mail "looks" to the receiving mail server(s). Mail generated by Outlook comes from your account, is labelled as coming from you, and is delivered to the recipient from your host's mail server.

    Mail generated by subscribe2 is generated on your web server, using the account details used by the web server software (often a user named "www-data" or "nobody"). The mail claims to be from you, but the mail server(s) know right away that it is in fact coming from a different user. This is, unfortunately, the exact same tactic used by many spammers.

    Some mail server admins configure their systems to strongly penalize -- or outright reject -- mail that looks spammy. I've taken steps to make subscribe2 look as legitimate as I can, but many things are outside my abilities to configre in the context of the plugin.

    wpPHPmailer helps, but making the entire SMTP conversation with your host's mail server appear to come from your user account (and optionally authenticating, if your provider requires that). This may help, but there's no guarantee.

    Here's a simple test you can try: Save the following as test.php:

    <?php
    $to = "you@example.com";
    $headers = "From: \"$myname\";
    $headers .= " <you@example.com>\n";
    $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
    $headers .= "Content-type: text/plain;";
    $headers .= " charset=\"utf-8\"\n";
    $headers .= "Bcc: other@example.com\n";

    mail($to, 'Test', 'A test', $headers);
    ?>

    Change you@example.com and other@example.com to two email addresses under your control. Then load that page, and see if the mail is delivered. Let me know what happens.

  16. 1696 James 2005-10-17 04:43:35

    Thanks Skippy, you da man :)

  17. 1695 Dim 2005-10-17 06:40:12

    Hi,
    I'm getting this after clicking on subscribe.php link
    Any ideas?

    =========================================================
    XML Parsing Error: mismatched tag. Expected: . Location: http://www.*****.com/home/subscribe.php
    Line Number 206, Column 3
    ==========================================================

  18. 1694 Dim 2005-10-17 06:43:13

    oops...
    In expected: closing div tag was erased.

  19. 1684 Dim 2005-10-17 20:22:27

    Never mind, found the problem. I have a strict XHTML 1.1 served and it didn't like a missing closing div tag.

    Here's the solution:

    change the code on line 104 from:

    echo "\r\n";

    to:

    echo "\r\n";

    Nice plugin btw.

    Regards,
    D.

  20. 1710 Dim 2005-10-17 20:27:06

    Never mind, found the problem. I have a strict XHTML 1.1 served and it didn’t like a missing closing div tag.

    Here’s the solution:

    change the code on line 104 from:

    echo "\r\n";

    to:

    echo "\r\n";

    Nice plugin btw.

    Regards,
    D.

  21. 1682 Dim 2005-10-17 20:28:19

    Not again...OK the solution is to add one more closing div tag on line 104 right after the second closing div.

  22. 1693 David Steeman 2005-10-18 17:07:24

    Skippy,

    Just dropped by to let you know that your plugin works like a charm! Thanks for the hard work you no doubt put into it, be sure that many people benefit from it.

  23. 1678 Uri 2005-10-19 06:55:18

    I found that I had to move get_sidebar(); in subscribe.php from under get_header(); to above get_footer(); so that the subscribe text appeared in the right place.
    Might be a problem with my template.

    One other comment - I noticed that the "From" name in the emails is just the first name, and not the full first and last name. How do I modify that?

  24. 1752 skippy 2005-10-19 16:25:06

    David Steeman: Thanks!

    Uri: the get_sidebar() placement is documented in the subscribe2.README included in the zip file. It's also mentioned here and here.

    Starting at line 78 of subscribe2.php, the plugin tries to figure out how to display the name for the From: header. It should use whatever format you've defined in your profile.

  25. 1768 sojust 2005-10-22 12:30:58

    hello skippy,

    i use your plugin with the modified kubrick theme .

    when i tested the plugin with another e-mail address, i got the confirmation mail and klicked on the link.

    but when i published a new post, the plugin did not notifie the e-mail-address.

    i do not know how to solve this problem :|
    have you got any idea?

    bye,
    sojust

    (p.s.: please excuse my bad english.)

  26. 1766 skippy 2005-10-22 13:47:29

    sojust: most of the time mail problems fall into two categories: 1) the mail is delivered, but flagged as spam in the receiving mail client. 2) some restriction at your site's ISP prevents delivery.

    Please confirm that #1 is not the case for you; then check with your ISP about #2.

  27. 1770 sojust 2005-10-22 15:50:42

    thanks for the answer :)
    a friend of mine has the same problem.
    how can we check if our site’s ISP prevents delivery?

  28. 1772 George 2005-10-22 20:18:12

    Do Uncomfirmed Subscribers receive email notifications?

    I was hoping to store email addresses of people who did NOT want to receive email notifications in the Unconfirmed Subscribers list, so that I don't resubscribe them at a later date by accident. Thanks.

  29. 1755 skippy 2005-10-23 20:53:01

    George: unconfirmed subscribers do not receive update emails.

  30. 1774 skippy 2005-10-23 20:54:34

    sojust: you'll have to contact your ISP and ask them.

  31. 1781 derek 2005-10-25 05:06:58

    When I install the plugin and go to Options > Subscribers I get the following error:

    Fatal error: Cannot redeclare subscribe2_menu() (previously declared in /www/wordpress-1.5.2/wp-content/plugins/subscribe2.php:25) in /www/wordpress-1.5.2/wp-content/plugins/subscribe2.php on line 24

    any ideas?

  32. 1790 skippy 2005-10-25 16:05:55

    derek: try re-uploading the subscribe2.php file again.

  33. 1775 Viper007Bond 2005-10-25 22:01:45

    No reply to my last comment? :( I'm at over 300 subscribers now and out of the 25 confirmed subscribers, I dunno who's been there how long. :/

  34. 1776 skippy 2005-10-25 22:51:43

    Viper007Bond: to store the timestamp of a user's subscription will require a change to the database table, which is something I'm extremely hesitant to introduce. You're in luck, though, that I've little going on tonight so I'll see what I can do.

  35. 1822 Goulven 2005-11-07 13:35:55

    Hi Skippy,

    could you please explain how to use .mo and .po files? I uploaded subscribe2_fr.mo and subscribe2_fr.po to the plugins directory with subscribe2.php but subscribe is never in french... What is wrong?

  36. 1823 skippy 2005-11-07 13:44:47

    The name of the translation files needs to be the same as the language setting in your wp-config.php:
    define ('WPLANG', 'fr');

  37. 1825 wayne 2005-11-07 21:35:09

    Hello I had the plugin working at one time, but now when I got to manage I don't see the Subscribers link.

    I'm using the lastest version of wordpress also.

    I have deleted it, and reloaded and still nothing, the options page is there but no manage.

    any ideas?

    thanks

    Wayne

  38. 1842 skippy 2005-11-07 21:45:32

    Wayne: are you logged in as an administrator of level 9 or above?

  39. 1843 wayne 2005-11-07 22:09:26

    as Administrator but I think I found the problem, do it not work with Subscribe To Comments activted also?

  40. 1844 wayne 2005-11-07 22:25:59

    nope that didn't do it, still nothing on manage

  41. 1846 skippy 2005-11-08 00:05:32

    Wayne: can you elaborate on your problem? Do you see the Subscribe2 menu item at all inside Options? Or, if you do see the Subscribe2 menu item, clicking it presents nothing (or the wrong screen)?

  42. 1845 wayne 2005-11-08 00:10:15

    Hey yes I seen Subscribe2 inside of options, it just doesn't show up under manage. I was able to access it by going to
    http://myblogurl/blog/wp-admin/edit.php?page=subscribe2.php

    So it's working that way but the link is not there in the manage page.

    Thanks Wayne

  43. 1857 skippy 2005-11-08 00:51:15

    wayne: that's weird. No one else has reported any such problems. If you can, try disabling all your plugins. Then re-enable them one by one, making sure that after each activation you can still see the subscribe2 manage page.

  44. 1858 wayne 2005-11-08 04:48:08

    ok, will do,

  45. 1817 Arthur 2005-11-10 13:27:48

    Hi Skippy! Thanks for your plugin(s), they are all really great. I would suggest a parameter for Subscribe2 plugin:

    Could you give an option for sending a mail not for every post, but for all the posts for the last (day/week/month)? Or for the last n posts? Or for each post in selected categories and for the other for the last (day/week/month)?

    I do not know if this is difficult. Again thanks for your great job!

  46. 1835 skippy 2005-11-11 15:00:14

    Arthur: in WordPress 1.5.x, your proposed suggestions are quite difficult. It's unlikely that the forthcoming 1.6 release will make it any easier.

    If you really want that functionality, I encourage you to investigate Bloglet.

  47. 1805 Arthur 2005-11-11 18:05:04

    Thanks, but I use your plugin and subscribe2 autoregister to make things easier for my authors. I can wait for WP 1.6.

  48. 1807 wayne 2005-11-12 04:40:30

    Hello, just an update, all is working well, don't know what was going on, but it works great.

    Thanks

    Wayne

  49. 1921 steven 2005-11-16 08:07:32

    When I run subscribe.php I get the following errors any ideas?

    thanks in advance for your help

    Warning: load_template(/home/content/m/a/r/maroulis/html/bargains/wp-content/themes/default/sidebar.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/content/m/a/r/maroulis/html/bargains/wp-includes/functions.php on line 1815

    Fatal error: load_template(): Failed opening required '/home/content/m/a/r/maroulis/html/bargains/wp-content/themes/default/sidebar.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/content/m/a/r/maroulis/html/bargains/wp-includes/functions.php on line 1815

  50. 1922 Pirere 2005-11-16 09:52:51

    Thanks for this great plugin!
    Is there a way to make it alert about page changes too (as opposed to posts and comments only)?

  51. 1920 skippy 2005-11-16 15:07:21

    steven: does your theme have a sidebar? Is there a sidebar.php in wp-content/themes/default/ ?

    Pirere: When you say "page changes", do you mean updates to a published post, or do you mean modifications to a static WordPress Page? In either case, you could edit my plugin to generate notifications for these; but I likely won't make this a default feature.

  52. 1919 Pirere 2005-11-16 15:24:08

    Hi Skippy,

    Thanks for your quick answer!
    Yes, I do use the default theme and sidebar.php. I'm talking about a wordpress page (i.e. "static" content). I understand it's not standard practice, but the thing is I update my pages frequently, so it would be cool if they would be considered like posts / comments by the plugin.

    Is there an easy fix for this?

  53. 1925 skippy 2005-11-16 15:37:15

    Pirere: subscribe2 isn't designed to notify subscribers when you update something -- only when you add a new entry. Updating existing posts does not generate notifications, so you'd need to change a few things inside subscribe2.

    It might be better to use RSS or Atom feeds. If you absolutely must use email, take a look at Bloglet, which will convert your RSS feeds into emails.

  54. 1926 steven 2005-11-16 16:39:07

    Hi skippy thanks for quick response I really appreciate it. No I don't have a sidebar.php I'm using a theme called bionic jive everything else works fine and I get no errors in my site (www.cheaplet.com / masked or bargains.maroulis.com / ABS)

    thanks

  55. 1927 skippy 2005-11-16 17:10:43

    steven: either create a blank file named sidebar.php inside your template, or edit subscribe.php and remove all instances of get_sidebar().

  56. 1928 steven 2005-11-16 17:49:06

    you are a STAR!!! :) done it and it works FLAWLESSLY - I just donated some money using paypal - THANKS AGAIN!

  57. 1929 skippy 2005-11-16 18:41:25

    steven: thank you!

  58. 1930 E-Mail Infos at balswing & balboa galaxy 2005-11-16 22:39:27

    [...] Ich habe gerade einen tollen plugin installiert, subscribe2 von skippy. Es ermöglicht dass man sich an dem Blog abonniert, und sobal es ein neues Post gibt, bekommen die Abonnenten eine automatische e-mail Benachrichtigung. Ich muss nur noch das plugin verdeutschen und den php-code für mich anpassen. I have just installed a funky plugin von skippy, called subscribe2. It makes possible that the blog readers can subscribe to the new posts and they will get an e-mail as soon as I will write something new. I only have to translate the plugin in german and adapt some pieces pf the php-code for my needs. skippy // Used for showing and hiding user information in the comment form function ShowUtils() { document.getElementById("authorinfo").style.display = ""; document.getElementById("showinfo").style.display = "none"; document.getElementById("hideinfo").style.display = ""; } function HideUtils() { document.getElementById("authorinfo").style.display = "none"; document.getElementById("showinfo").style.display = ""; document.getElementById("hideinfo").style.display = "none"; } [...]

  59. 1953 jakob.thusgaard.com » Blog Archive » Design Finalized! 2005-11-20 21:10:36

    [...] Subscribe2: Skippy’s plugin which lets you create an e-mail news alert that goes out to subscribers to news from your blog! [...]

  60. 1973 William Stewart 2005-11-22 18:08:00

    I love your plugin, but I am having issues with it now that I have many people subscribing.

    When I had about 15 people subscribed, it sent emails to every one of them. Now that I have over 150 subscribers, only some of them are getting emails. Any ideas?

    Thanks so much for a fantastic plugin!

  61. 1974 skippy 2005-11-22 18:10:05

    William: are you sure that the recipients are not filtering the subscribe2 emails as spam? This is the number one cause of the problem you report.

    Does your host limit the number of recipients per email? Do they limit the number of emails per hour, or in any other way throttle your email?

  62. 1975 William Stewart 2005-11-22 18:40:09

    Thanks for the quick reply. I use 1and1 for hosting and am not sure if they limit the number of recipients...I'll check on that.

    I forgot to mention I tried it with the "Dreamhost setting" on and off and it did not send to everyone either time.

    I tend to believe that the problem is not spam. Here's my reasoning:

    I was getting the emails on my test accounts (three total: AOL, gmail and generic pop3) before a large number of people subscribed. Now, I am not getting the emails in any of the three accounts.

    I know a few are getting the email because I get feedback from my articles.

    If the spam filters are snagging the emails, what can I do?

  63. 2023 Chester 2005-11-29 18:35:54

    Great job, Skippy! Subscibe2 is great for my purposes and thank you for developing this plugin.

    I've successfully launched the plugin on my blog (I'm not giving the link 'cause it's in Russian). Probably I didn't set up something correctly, but in the sent out e-mails with posts permalinks and unsubscribe link are plain text (though I've selected HTML as the format in Subscribe2 options). Is it the way it's supposed to work?

    Can I have the permalinks as clickable hyperlinks in the current version? If that's not the case, do you think you can do this in the future versions?

    Cheers!

  64. 2024 skippy 2005-11-29 18:43:04

    Chester: if you've selected HTML emails, you'll need to construct the anchor tag yourself:
    <a href="PERMALINK">PERMALINK</a>

  65. 2043 John V 2005-11-30 18:14:17

    is there a buglist or "incompatible with these plugins" list somewhere? I'm getting sick of posting tests. It seems that it only sends out notifications on certain messages. So I started testing to see if it had something to do with saving it as a draft first, or some of the other plugins I have affecting it or something and I can't seem to come to any conclusions. It seems that every time I remove all the actual subscribers and put a list of my eMail addresses in the subscribers list, it sends notifications,no matter how much saving as a draft and including or activating and deactivating all the other plugins happens, but as soon as I add my actual subscribers... even just writing a post and hitting publish doesn't send anything to anoyone, even my admin address. I just don't get it.

  66. 2044 skippy 2005-12-01 03:38:28

    John: no, I have no compatability list. It would impossible for me to construct such a list.

    If you're having email trouble, you really ought to contact your hosting provider to investigate the mail server's logs. Only your hosting provider can confirm whether the messages are being sent out.

  67. 2055 John V 2005-12-03 01:21:14

    well, I'm fairly certain whether or not they go out or not, as I have a list of 7-10 addresses on the list myself, and if I don't get a notification to any of them, it didn't send at all.

    I've found that if I'm very careful and just type a post and publish it, it'll send... but if I do anything weird, add a custom field, for example, save & continue editing, or just save (as draft), chances are, it won't send any notifications.

    So my solution, so far, has been to add my custom fields and do my editing after the fact... I could've sworn that this failed once when I was testing, but I might've added a custom field as a force of habit (I use an amazon plugin to do my "listening to" stuff, and have to add the key 'amm' with a value of 'enabled' to show the image and link in the post).

  68. 2057 skippy 2005-12-03 02:06:36

    There was a problem with older versions of WordPress not triggering the proper plugin hooks when moving a post from draft to published, but I thought it was resolved in 1.5.2 (which I see is the version you're using). It might be worthwhile trying to upgrade again, taking care to delete the core WordPress files before replacing them. Weird things have been known to happen when new files are copied over the old, which is why the upgrade documentation specifically encourages you to delete the files first.

  69. 2066 Vysnu » subscribe2 2005-12-04 22:33:55

    [...] faliure to provide traditional notification mechanisms. RSS, pingbacks, trackbacks, related terms & posts, technorati trickery etc. is fine, but an opt-in mailing list feature (where the user isof new posts) like say, the subscribe2 plugin for Wordpress, should never be neglected. I’m planning to correct this oversight (along with many others) in a future Vysnu/UR revision. #Development | Web | HCI [...]

  70. 2102 rob m 2005-12-09 06:17:32

    I really really like this plugin and I've been able to fix a lot of the issues i've had thanks to the misfortunes of other users here, but now i have one of my own -- it's probably a stupid one but it's worth a shot --

    after reading most of the code for both php files and not locating my answer - i'd like to know if there's a way to include a post's META information on the HTML email that's submitted to the members registered to my site. If you visit my site, you might be able to see i use Wordpress META fields to place key info about my posts. I wasn't sure if I needed to add additional info to your subscribe PHP files and/or exactly where to fiddle at within the files.

    Any help on this when you get a chance is appreciated. Txs!

  71. 2105 skippy 2005-12-09 18:06:49

    rob: subscribe2 does not deliver any of the postmeta values you might assign to your posts. To do so, you'd need to edit subscribe2.php, and modify some portion of the subscribe2() function which prepares and delivers the email notification.

  72. 2128 Rusty 2005-12-12 03:13:36

    Skippy:
    The subscription page generates the following error when users try to subscribe an email address:

    Warning: mail(): Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in W:\WWW\cadc.auburn.edu\soa\blog\subscribe.php on line 243

    The user shows up in the unconfirmed subscribers list, but no email is sent to the subscriber.

    When I manually move the subscribers over to the confirmed list, still no email is sent. Also, when I manually subscribe users emails are not sent.

    emails of posts ARE sent to the admin account.

    I have tried disabling plugins, no change.

    Configuration particulars:
    Windows IIS, using wpPHPmailer
    The wordpress files are NOT located in the root directory.

    root:
    http://www.cadc.auburn.edu/soa

    subscribe page:
    http://cadc.auburn.edu/soa/blog/subscribe.php

    Thanks a million for any insight you may be able to offer, and for the great plugin: I also just installed it on a more traditional (linux) site and it works like a charm.

  73. 2131 skippy 2005-12-12 13:13:11

    Rusty: it looks like I forgot to update subscribe.php to use wp_mail()! Simply change line 243 from mail (... to wp_mail (... and subscription confirmations should work.

  74. 2141 Rusty 2005-12-13 15:01:45

    duh - it was right there in front of my faced and I couldn't even see it! Thanks Skippy, subscribing works without errors now, but I have encountered another problem; I will attempt to describe it as clearly as possible:

    1) a user subscribes.
    2) they receive an email.
    3) they click a link in the email to confirm.
    4) they are subscribed correctly.
    5) admin is notified of the new subscriber via email.

    This all works so far, here is where it breaks down:

    1) a new post is added.
    2) admin is notified of new post.
    3) subscribed users are not.

    I don't think that it is a spam blocker problem; I tried 5 emails from different services as the admin email; they work every time like a champ. When I try those same emails as subscribers, they are a no-go. Any ideas?

    Again, my set-up where the problem occurs:
    wp v. 1.5.2
    Windows IIS using wpPHPmailer
    WordPress files are NOT located in the root directory (which causes a few funny link problems in subscribe.php interface, but I imagine there are just a few 'siteurl' moments in there that I need to change to 'home'.

    Thanks again for any advice you have to offer.

  75. 2142 skippy 2005-12-13 15:10:58

    If emails are successfully delivered to your admin account, and if subscription confirmation emails are successfully delivered to subscribers, then there's little I can do to troubleshoot. Check again with your hosting provider to ensure that mails are being delivered.

  76. 2143 Rusty 2005-12-13 19:15:42

    Thanks Skippy, will do. Just an fyi though, I switched the smtp server between three different ones, all to the same effect. I have made a request of the the current provider to check their logs and will report back here. I just thought that there may be some difference in the way the initial "subscription request" notification is made vs. how the actual change notifications are made that acts up with wpPHPmailer.

    I will let you know how it goes... Hopefully we can figure it out; it is my humble opinion that Subscribe2 is just about the single most important plugin out there for WordPress.

  77. 2144 skippy 2005-12-13 20:02:37

    Rusty: thanks for the kind words! To be honest, though, I wish everyone would stop using susbcribe2 and just use RSS and Atom feeds! ;)

    The only difference between the confirmation emails and the new post notifications is that the confirmation emails are delivered only to the subscriber. The new post notifications are sent to the blog admin (or post author) with all the subscribers BCCed. On the systems under my control, I've not yet had any trouble with this.

  78. 2147 Rusty 2005-12-14 14:35:37

    I hear you - but many of our users just like that refreshing "you've got mail." It is Pavlovian...

    So, for this site I will remove subscribe2 and replace the notifications page with a "how-to" for installing and using an aggregator. Do you have any favorites that you would suggest?

    Finally, for what it is worth: I spoke with our server folks this morning and there does not seem to be any attempt to send emails out to our subscribers, except to whatever the admin email might be (I have the admin set to receive notifications instead of post author). All others do not show up in the log at all. If I set the subscribe2 to send email from the post author, it notifies the post author, but not the admin, even if the admin email is subscribed. A funny (unrelated?) thing about this setup is that the post author gets notified of a comment and gets to moderate it, not the admin, even though "notify me of comments awaiting moderation" is checked.

    Thanks again for the great plugin - it works super on my play site. I wish it worked on this particular site as it is my first "professional" one. Keep an eye on your mailbox for something off your amazon wish list just for trying!

  79. 2148 skippy 2005-12-14 15:17:34

    Rusty, I published a small piece about RSS feeds late last year, though it's more high-level introduction than nitty-gritty howto. I think bloglines is a servicable first aggregator with which people can start learning about the joy of syndication.

    I wish I could provide better support for all the mail related problems that folks have experienced with subscribe2; but the number of variables involved combined with the lack of control over most servers makes it extremely difficult.

  80. 2161 Kevin Douglass 2005-12-15 16:17:48

    Skippy,
    Great Plugin, I seem to be struggling with the Sidebar lining up on the subscribe page, I have tried moving the get_sidebar(); function call but it just places it below the form not along side. I am using the Gespaa2 theme. www.kevindouglass.com/site/subscribe.php

  81. 2162 Michael 2005-12-15 18:18:43

    Hi Skippy

    Is there a possibility in subscribe2 to collect not only the email address, but also the Name of the subscriber.
    I would like to make the emails more personal and include the mail also in the templates...

    Thanks for your comments.
    Michael

  82. 2163 skippy 2005-12-15 18:31:03

    Kevin: if moving get_sidebar() does not solve the problem, then you most likely have an unclosed <div> somewhere. Sorry, but I don't provide theme support.

    Michael: sure, I could collect the subscriber's name, but I won't. subscribe2 sends one email per new post, with all the subscribers listed as BCC recipients. In order to send personalized email messages, you'd need to change subscribe2 to send one email per recipient per new post. If you have more than a couple subscribers, posting a new item would cause PHP to time out as it tries to send emails to all of your subscribers.

  83. 2284 Emeric 2005-12-28 03:40:01

    Hello skippy,

    thx for the plug !!
    only one little thing, people on hotmail account never receive the confirmation nor anything. Even if i confirmed them via admin.

    could it be msn hotmail anti-spam that block them all ?

  84. 2285 skippy 2005-12-28 04:00:27

    Emeric: that's very likely. I've never used hotmail, so I've no idea what they do with the mail they receive.

  85. 2293 Emeric 2005-12-28 11:46:31

    :)) ok then, only to let know the community that Subscribe2 2.1.6 works fine with all major mailler BUT hotmail.

    seems to be not a restriction by the plug but MSN anti-spam working to hard...

    thx again to all.

  86. 2653 Mark Wegner 2006-01-23 01:49:43

    Hey, thanks for the nice plugin.

    A feature I want is to be able to set the "Send Email From" option in Subscribe2 to a custom email address. That way I could have a dedicated email for the newsletter service.

  87. 2609 skippy 2006-01-23 13:25:28

    Mark: try using wpPHPmailer, which allows you to define Mail From addresses at the SMTP level, rather than the message headers.

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