I've used this plugin a lot. It's great. But I really think something needs to be done about the problem of not being able to send email to the same domain name as is used for the site.
The form appears to submit. We get a nice green Success box... But the illusion of seamless functionalism is eventually.shattered, no email will ever be delivered. Is has simply vanished. The "success message" is a lie. How much due diligence should a WP developer do on plugins? In my case I've used with no problems many times. But it only takes one nasty bite to make me rather shy.
Unfortunately, the bite has derivative problems. To resolve the issue I was advised to install WP SMTP. I did. I configured it but I get the incredibly helpful "Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method." error. Pardon my extreme sarcasm.
I have looked on loads of threads, but this error could be many things. It's an absolutely useless error message. Users who see this message hopefully don't have access to drugs and firearms.
Now in my particular case, I have a site hosted on Rackspace, I don't have direct access to this as it is managed by another supplier on this job. My domain name is hosted with fasthosts, as is the email. We are in the realm of Server-Side stuff.
Using WP SMTP I need to make sure I have a suitable email account set up (StarterPlus in Fasthosts case) to handle SMTP. I have just checked that, all good. But I still get the error.
This means the only remaining possibility is my web host has not enabled my webspace to communicate with external locations. So I am now contacting the supplier to ask him to ask Rackspace to allow this.
This may all be in vain, and I don't feel optimistic.
My point is, this doesn't affect the majority of the sites I work on. But that's me. This is a common issue with CF7 as evidenced in all the (often unanswered) threads littering the web. Is this the case with other email form plugins? Surely there's something that can be done about this, if not at least some DETAILED guide on how to resolve it? The FAQ doesn't cut it.
Does anyone know if there is an error log anywhere that will explain the error message in more detail?
I still highly value this otherwise super simplistic plugin that I pretty much always use without a hitch.