Messages sometimes don't come through

Hi Douglas,

Our client is having some weird problems with her Contact Enhanced email form ( rijschoolbertvandenhoek.nl/contact/proefles ). We've been trying to figure out what's going wrong, but we simply can't put our finger on it. In most cases the messages sent by the form are delivered at our client's mailbox, but a few times per day some messages don't come through. We've been trying to replicate this problem, but without success. We've tried the following:

• See if the form still works after being idle on the contact page for 10+ minutes (result: the contact page resets itself, and you can simply send the message by clicking on the send button again)
• Send a message containing 1000+ characters (result: the message is still being sent)
• Put our email addresses in the BCC, so we can monitor the incoming messages (result: indeed some of the messages don't come through, but 95% does)
• Send a message containing uncommon characters, such as § • º € ¡ (result: the message is still being sent)
• Change the email settings from PHP to SMTP § • º € ¡ (result: some of the messages still don't come through)

We have no idea how to replicate the problem, or how to prevent some messages not coming through. Is there any suggestion that you might have? Is there some kind of error log that we can see? Any help is welcome!

Kind regards,

Willem Vonhof
VONBRINK

Dear Willem,

Using SMTP usually solves all mail-related problems. Make sure to enable authentication, use encryption SSL OR TLS, and the correct ports.

Please read this article for more detailed information.


I'm not sure how you are monitoring via BCC filed, but the best way to monitor is to go to Components -> Contact Enhanced -> Options and under the Contact Form tab set "Record messages (Save form)" to Save. This will save all sent messages in the database and you can access it by going to Components -> Contact Enhanced -> Record messages

Best regards,

Hi Douglas,

Since last August, we've tried all the steps in the troubleshooting article you've sent. But most our clients (10+) that are using Contact Enhanced are sometimes still experiencing the problem of contact forms not being sent. The weird thing is that this only happens sometimes. Every now and then we get complaints that a contact form isn't working or coming through. This is frustrating, because we get the blame for not being able to solve this problem.

We've attached a video of what's going wrong. We didn't get complaints until a few months ago, so it seems to us that the problems with our clients started in July 2021. Maybe there was a big update around that time? But then again, that's just a feeling.

Is there anything we can do to resolve these problems?

Kind regards,

Willem Vonhof
VONBRINK

Dear Willen,

I've watched the video you sent and the problem actually seems that the form is not even submitting. Since you mentioned in your previous post that some messages were not getting through I thought it was a mail-related problem.

Can you please provide access to the form you've recorded the screenshot?

I've submitted the form rijschoolbertvandenhoek.nl/contact/proefles again for testing purposes and I could not reproduce the issue on the link provided.

Best regards

Hi Douglas,

We also can't always reproduce the issue. It's a very random thing! Sometimes the contact form is sent, sometimes the contact form just reloads and doesn't sent and sometimes the contact form is sent, but the e-mail doesn't arrive at the recipient.

Would you like an login for the administrator?

Kind regards,

Willem Vonhof
VONBRINK

Willem,

It seems we are having two different problems. I'll explain them in detail, so it might help other users as well in the future. If you have already performed some of the troubleshooting steps, you can ignore them.

1. Emails not being sent:
a. If the form is being submitted and you see a Thank you Page the form will be saved (recorded) in the database (as long as the option to Save the messages is enabled in the back-end). When the form is submitted and you don't get the email it will be an issue with the mailer or mail server, not with Contact Enhanced directly. Contact Enhanced uses Joomla Mail Framework to send emails in order to avoid issues. However, some mail servers require that all sent emails to be from users @ the same domain. This is a security feature and for this, we have set in Contact Enhanced Global Options a feature that allows you to set "Email Sender" to "Use Global" under the Contact Form tab.

b. Make sure SMTP, SPF, and DMARC are correctly configured, as explained in this article . I believe you already have done this.

c. Contact Enhanced has a mail-related troubleshooting feature. Go to Components > Contact Enhanced > Tools. Run all 4 tests. You should receive all 4 emails within 5 minutes. If you don't receive one of the emails, usually setting "Email Sender" to "Use Global" (as explained in 1.a) solves the issue.

d. There might be other reasons why your mail server is not sending emails. Try to contact your server admin or web hosting company to try to understand why this might be happening.

e. Mail servers are usually very reliable, however whenever the form was successfully submitted (you or your user received a Thank you message) and you don't get an email, check whether there was any instability with your mail server.

f. Also, the email might be going to a spam folder.

2. The form is not submitted:

When the form is not submitted and the page just reloads there might be several different reasons. Usually, a security setting has been triggered or a javascript error on your page.

a. All Security errors should display a System Message to the user, as long as your template has the Joomla System Messages implemented. Some templates, for some reason, do not implement this System Message feature. I usually recommend testing using Joomla's core template by adding ?template=protostar (for Joomla 3.x) at the end of the URL. If you use AdminTools you might need to allow to use System templates.
If your template does implement System Messages you should get an error message, but we can still try to disable all security features (for testing purposes) in the component Options under the Security tab and then enable them one by one until you get the error again. This will help us understand which security feature is causing the issue (if any).

b. Javascript errors can be seen in the Browser's Developer Console. In this case, solving the javascript error usually solves the problem. Even if the javascript error is not related to Contact Enhanced it might prevent Contact Enhanced from successfully submitting the form. To help to troubleshoot we can add ?tmpl=component to the URL, check the errors in the console, and resubmit the form.


These are the possible reasons I can think of right now. If the problem is not solved after all this troubleshooting, please create a full backup and provide administrator access so I can take a closer look and try to find anything else that might be causing this.

Not being able to reproduce the issue is much harder. I've never had this problem before.

Best wishes,