Subscribe2 2.1.7 feed icon

UPDATED Subscribe2 version 2.1.7a is now available!

Localization files are available here.

This version adds a new column to the database table to store the date on which a user subscribed. This date will be displayed on the "Manage Subscribers" page. You can use this to determine which of your unconfirmed subscribers are stale and unlikely to actually confirm. Thanks to Viper007Bond for the idea!

This version also fixes a major flaw with the way I was handling batched subscribers for Dreamhost users. Until now, subscribe2 was inadvertently discarding any subscribers beyond the last full batch. For example, if you had 80 subscribers, subscribe2 would create two batches of 30 users each, and silently discard the last 20 subscribers when sending mail!

I sincerely apologize for this terrible oversight.

Barring any major problems, this is likely to be the last release of subscribe2 until WordPress 2.0 comes out, at which time I will release subscribe2 2.2. If you'd like to beta test the new version -- assuming you still trust me to write plugins! -- please contact me.

Many thanks to Gary Powell for explaining the problem in a way that finally made sense to me, and his extreme patience as I diagnosed the cause!

Update: The original 2.1.7 download did not correctly create the table for new installations. This has been resolved.

  • Subscribe2 2.1.7 at WordPress Station
    December 15th, 2005
  • Jason
    December 19th, 2005 at 2:45am
    Skippy: I have installed Subscribe2 v2.1.7 and I am unable to successfully register an email address. I receive the following error: WordPress database error: [Unknown column 'date' in 'field list'] INSERT INTO vw_subscribe2 (email, active, date) VALUES ('jason@voteswagon.com', '0', NOW()) Although, I do get a confirmation email. When I click on the link I receive an error stating it doesn't know that email address. I also receive the following error in the Admin > Manage > Subscribers page: WordPress database error: [Unknown column 'date' in 'field list'] SELECT email,date FROM vw_subscribe2 WHERE active='0' ORDER BY email ASC Thanks for your help...
  • skippy
    December 19th, 2005 at 3:08am
    Jason: for some reason the database upgrade didn't occur for you. My plugin is supposed to automatically add the date column to the database. If you have phpMyAdmin (or a MySQL command-line tool), you should be able to adjust the table manually with the following: ALTER TABLE `vw_table` ADD `date` DATE DEFAULT NOW() NOT NULL AFTER `active`;
  • Joseph
    December 19th, 2005 at 8:28am
    Under MANAGE Subscribers WordPress database error: [Unknown column 'date' in 'field list'] SELECT email,date FROM wp_subscribe2 WHERE active='0' ORDER BY email ASC: Bear in mind this is a First install and no subscribers were active at the time of this error. Additionally when first activating plug-in at the top of the plug in admin were 2 paragraphs with MySQL database errors> I immediately disabled plug-in and re-enabled with no return of the earlier error. Only the one above right now. I don't understand this so to resolve the confusion am bringing this to your attention. WP 1.5.2 here. I am curious about another aspect however: As is it's required to manually post the link to access the SUBSCRIBE PAGE correct? What is the chance of placing it in the same column routinely as comments. Thanks.
  • skippy
    December 19th, 2005 at 11:40am
    Joseph: it seems clear that I botched something. I'll fix it, and post an update as soon as I can.
  • Chris
    December 20th, 2005 at 12:39am
    Hi, thank you for writing this nice plugin. It works fine. Only one thing: I whould like to decide if a mail is sent to the subscribers every time I update a post. I whant to avoid to sent a mail to all subscribrs even if I only correct a spelling mistake or something like this. So I changed the hook to: add_action ('private_to_published', 'subscribe2', 8); Now it sends only a mail when the status is set from "something" to "published". Perhaps other users like this or perhaps you can add a dialog asking if the author whants to notify the subscribers or not.... I don't know how to bring a dialog box to the author inbetween a php script. Happy Christmas greedings from Berlin (Germany) Chris
  • skippy
    December 20th, 2005 at 12:43am
    Chris: the publish_post hook that triggers subscribe2 should not execute when you edit a post. I edit a lot of my posts after I publish them, and I've not yet received an email notification that I've done so. Editing is distinct from publishing.
  • MarksBrain
    December 20th, 2005 at 5:55am
    I'm getting the following error in my Options > Subscribe 2 screen: WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'DEFAULT '2005-12-19' NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) )' at line 4] CREATE TABLE wp_subscribe2( id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment, email varchar(64) NOT NULL default '', active tinyint(1) default 0, date DEFAULT '2005-12-19' NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) ) Any help is greatly appreciated.
  • Jason
    December 20th, 2005 at 3:28pm
    Thanks Skippy...that worked! Is there any way I can manually specify the name and address the email will come from?
  • skippy
    December 20th, 2005 at 3:44pm
    If you want to override the sender details, you'll need to edit subscribe2.php (and possibly subscribe.php) to use the values you want. You can also try wpPHPmailer.
  • skippy
    December 20th, 2005 at 5:53pm
    MarksBrain: I goofed the initial release of 2.1.7a. I have fixed it, and replaced the download file with the corrected version. If you prefer, you can edit subscribe2.php, and change line 230 to look like this: date DATE DEFAULT '$now' NOT NULL,
  • BJ
    December 20th, 2005 at 11:17pm
    Hi, Great plugin, exactly what I needed. Is there anyway to get it to work with Postie? I thought the xmlrpc issue was fixed, but I can't seem to get it to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, BJ
  • skippy
    December 21st, 2005 at 9:44pm
    BJ: I thought the XMLRPC issue was fixed, too, but people continue to have problems. I don't know if it works or not, as I don't use any XMLRPC posting tools...
  • Joel
    December 24th, 2005 at 7:18pm
    Skippy, this plug-in is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for all your efforts. I've been using if flawlessly for a few days now but suddenly a problem. I've been activating/deactivating occasionally so that I can post without triggering emails. On last activation, the pages are blank under Manage|subscribers and Options|subscribe2. I don't get it. I tried upgrading to see if that might help but it didn't. Now I'm on your newest version. This has got be something simple, I'm missing. Your thoughts? Thanks again.
  • skippy
    December 24th, 2005 at 8:56pm
    Joel: if you're getting blank pages, then you'll most likely find the reason in your web server's error log. Did you upgrade to WordPress 2.0 RC3, by any chance? If you did, I can guarantee that subscribe2 is not (yet!) compatible.
  • Aaron
    December 26th, 2005 at 4:56pm
    Hi, I really like the plugin works well, even with 2.0rc3. Question: I am also managing a Multiuser WordPress (WPMU), install and I would like to use this there. Do you have any plans to port this for WPMU? So far I have added it to the install, activated it and everything works out of the box just fine except for one thing. When clicking on the subscribe link (which would normally take you to the subscribe.php in the root) takes me to an error page. This is a result of the way the WPMU uses htaccess for subdomains. I dont know enough about any of these to sort the problem out and make it work. But I can work with someone to get it sussed out. Aaron
  • skippy
    December 26th, 2005 at 6:10pm
    Aaron: I've not looked at WPMU at all, so i'm not sure what changes would be necessary. At the least, the subscribers table would need to be modified to record which MU blogs the subscriber has subscribed to. This might be something I can work into a future release.
  • harvey
    January 15th, 2006 at 8:56pm
    Hello, Thanks for subscribe2. Question: I am still using 2.1.7 since I am not on WP2.0 yet. The emails that are sent include links that are not actually links. They are just text. Eudora, Yahoo, Apple Mail -- none are converting the text into clickable links. Current message is: "You may view the latest post at: PERMALINK". I assume that the following would not work: "You may view the latest post at: PERMALINK". Any ideas? Thanks! Harvey
  • harvey
    January 15th, 2006 at 9:00pm
    Argh... I put PERMALINK in the second line above. (Added ~ this time so it wouldn't happen again).
  • skippy
    January 15th, 2006 at 9:10pm
    harvey: if you're sending HTML emails, then you need to use an HTML link for the permalink: <a href="PERMALINK">PERMALINK</a> If you're sending plaintext emails, then the above obviously won't work (though many email programs will automatically make plaintext hyperlinks clickable).
  • Irene Fernández
    January 27th, 2006 at 7:08pm
    (Apologize about my english) I have to thank you because you work really well. I tried other plugin, but it never update version (and never thanks translations). Now I use yours with a WP multiblog (http://www.wswang.com/bloh/?p=3) and I very happy, it works fine. I can imagine you are not to update the plugin for 1.5 version. I wish you can add function like suscription by author or dayly suscription. Thank you very much for your work.
  • John
    February 24th, 2006 at 11:31pm
    Hi! I have subscribe 2.1.7a installed on wordpress 1.5.2. Subscribe 2 only sends out emails to the webmaster@pilotjohn.com and no one on the subscribe list. I have like 3 different email accounts to test it added and none of them receive anything. I have users say they have received nothing either. It does send them emails to subscribe to the list just fine. When I try to send a test email out from the subscribe2 options, it only sends it to my webmaster account and not to any one else. I am using wphpmailer Do you have any suggestions what could this be? It really boggles my mind! Thanks for any help!! I really appreciate it!
  • Anonymous
    March 16th, 2006 at 4:45am
    Hello: I installed this promising plugin. I, however, am having three issues. First, when I subscribe, I get a confirmation email, but there is no usable link. This is what the email looks like: "In order to confirm your request for Watchingpolitics, please click on the link below: /subscribe.php?x=axb8702ed3be82795fac3a5201c0590ea4x11 If you did not request this, please feel free to disregard this notice!" The website is watchingpolitics.com (my stepdad's site). I have not altered the options page at all. Also, I am running Word Press 1.5.3 (waiting for my stepdad's web host to support 2.0), and Subscribe2.1.7. I primarily use Safari or Firefox as my browser. Second, after I sign up, the plugin page thanks me for signing up, and provides the option of returning to the site. However, I am taken to: http://watchingpolitics.com/subscribe.php, as opposed to watchingpolitics.com (essentially, I am taken nowhere). Third, I tried using version 2.1.4 first. I somehow managed to get a confirmation email with a live link (I have no idea how), but when I clicked it, it took me to a page that said that does not appear to be a valid email address. That, however, is incorrect. I only bring this last point up because I am not sure if the problem will reoccur if I ever get a working confirmation email with version 2.1.4. Any clues to resolve these matters would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
  • skippy
    March 16th, 2006 at 1:40pm
    Anonymous: I'm not sure what's causing those problems. It might be due to changes in WordPress 1.5.3, though to be honest I rather doubt that. Tell me more about your configuration: what are the values for home and blog URI, as defined at Options->General?
  • Terrin
    March 16th, 2006 at 11:08pm
    Oops, I did not mean to be anonymous! Also thanks for the quick response. First, I made an error. My step dad is running Wordpress 1.5.2, as opposed to 1.5.3. He is running 2.1.7 of your plugin. His blog URL is: www.watchingpolitics.com. He is running a modified version of the Kiwi theme. Other information is: BLOGNAME: replaced with Watchingpolitics BLOGLINK: replaced with http://watchingpolitics.com TITLE: replaced with the post's title EXCERPT: replaced with blank, the excerpt, or the entire post, based on the option set above PERMALINK: replaced with the post's permalink S2LINK: replaced with a link to your subscribe.php file MYNAME: replaced with the post author's name EMAIL: replaced with the post author's email I also have the link set up in the sidebar. the code is: Sign up for email notifications whenever my blog is updated! As a sidequestion, is it possible to modify the plugin's code to grab just the first 20 or so words of a post, as opposed to an excerpt or full post? I ask because my stepdad does not use the excerpt feature of wordpress, but the particular theme coupled with the excerpt reloaded plugin limits a post to the first 25 words (essentailly providing an excerpt). If, however, he provides the full post by email, he cannot accuratetly track his webstats. Again any help is apprecaited (especially since I know very little about setting up a website and Wordpress, and have been just winging it for the most part).
  • Mark Wegner
    March 28th, 2006 at 2:26am
    Hi, great plugin. Is there any way to prevent an email from being sent to those on my newsletter when I post something new? Is there a way I can wait a week and then send out an email to notify people that the page is up? I want this delay in the posting of a page and when I send an email out to so I can have a preview page up for random visitors, but I don't want to notify my newsletter until the page is completed after a week or two. Thanks! Mark
  • David
    April 1st, 2006 at 3:16pm
    Skippy, before I ask for technical help with a db problem, I do want to say that having looked through all of the email noticiation plug-ins I could find, your's is the one that appears to be the most elegant. As well, I am entirely new to Wordpress and to PHP, so Skippy.net was a treasute to find. Have installed Subcribe 2.2.1.7 through 2.2.2.2 and get the same error. When I go to the "manage" page, I see the following in the Subscribers box: ----------------------------------------------------- WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from storage engine] SELECT COUNT(id) FROM wp_subscribe2 WHERE active='1' WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from storage engine] SELECT COUNT(id) FROM wp_subscribe2 WHERE active='0' ---------------------------------------------------- In addition, if I manually add an email adress in the Subscribe addresses box, I get: --------------------------------------------------- WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from storage engine] SELECT active FROM wp_subscribe2 WHERE email='dmasuda@xxxxxx.xxx' WordPress database error: [Unknown column 'date' in 'field list'] INSERT INTO wp_subscribe2 (email, active, date) VALUES ('dmasuda@xxxxxxx.xxx', '1', NOW()) Address(es) subscribed! WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from storage engine] SELECT email FROM wp_subscribe2 WHERE active='1' ------------------------------------------------------ Anticipatory thanks... David
  • skippy
    April 1st, 2006 at 6:34pm
    David: the error you're getting is from MySQL, and not from subscribe2. Google can shed more light on your problem.
  • David
    April 3rd, 2006 at 3:16am
    Will follow that trail - My thANKS!
  • Jill Fehrenbacher
    May 6th, 2006 at 9:46pm
    Hi Skippy- I am having the exact same problem as David above. My whole website has suddently gone "WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from storage engine" www.inhabitat.com I know absolutely NOTHING about PHP or mySQL. I looked in my wordpress plugins and I do seem to be running the Wordpress Database backup - which it looks like you wrote? Any advice would be most appreciated. I'm desperate to get my website back up and running... -Jill
  • skippy
    May 7th, 2006 at 10:22am
    Jill: a quick Google search on that error message should make it clear that your problem is not with WordPress, but with the MySQL database. Ask your hosting provider for help.
  • Carbonara
    July 7th, 2006 at 8:49am
    Hi Skippy, Would it be possible for Subscribe2 to also email the blog's 'subscriber' users? So if they sign up with the blog they are automatically added to the Subscribe2 list?
  • dave
    July 15th, 2006 at 4:45pm
    hey skippy, love the plugin, but all of the sudden it is not working. It was working. I have it on a page, and in the sidebar. I haven't switched anything, but now when users try to add their emails it doesn't go into the database. The emails are sent out fine, but no one can subscribe, themselves from the site. I am able to manually add them in the admin area, though this is pointless if you dont know your user. Please help!!! The Ambassador needs you.
  • keller
    July 25th, 2006 at 4:21pm
    Hey Skip... 2 quote another help seeker, this plugin (S2 2.1.7a) looks very promising for what i'm tryin' to pull off... All seems to work well, except for the display of the HTML in the blog. On the /subscribe.php page, the form is WAY DOWN at the bottom of the page for some reason, with tons of white space above. So is the resulting "success" page after registering. I just can't seem to figure out where to fix this problem in the code. Other than a random header plugin i'm running, the blog is pretty much a stock kubrick themed install of WP 1.5.2 so I'm hoping u can point me in the right direction? u can see the problem here
  • bob
    August 4th, 2006 at 2:40am
    hello i'm running the latest version of wp 2.04 and this subscribe2 plugin when i try to email the list, i only get email to my admin account. no other email accounts get the email. any suggestions? thanks

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