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Contact Form 7 Not Sending Emails? A Comprehensive Troubleshooting Guide

32 threads Sep 16, 2025 Plugin → Contact form 7

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Why Your Contact Form 7 Suddenly Stopped Sending Emails

One of the most common and frustrating issues WordPress users face is when Contact Form 7, a plugin that has worked reliably for years, suddenly stops sending emails. You get the green 'success' message or a spinning icon, but the email never arrives in your inbox. Based on community reports and common configurations, this guide will walk you through the most likely causes and their solutions.

The Most Common Causes

Email delivery is a complex process involving your WordPress site, your hosting server, and external mail services. A failure at any point can prevent messages from being sent. The threads reveal several recurring themes:

  • SMTP & Mail Configuration: The default PHP mail function is often unreliable. Most modern hosting environments require a dedicated SMTP mailer.
  • Plugin & Theme Conflicts: A new plugin update or a conflict with security plugins like Wordfence can break form functionality.
  • reCAPTCHA Issues: Missing, invalid, or misconfigured reCAPTCHA keys are a frequent culprit, often causing silent failures or timeouts.
  • Specific Version Bugs: Occasionally, a specific update to Contact Form 7 (e.g., versions 5.9.8 or 6.0.4) can introduce temporary bugs that break sending for some users.
  • Server-Level Blocking: Hosting servers or services like Cloudflare can block or timeout the AJAX requests that handle form submissions.

Step-by-Step Troubleshooting

1. Install a Dedicated SMTP Mail Plugin

The single most effective fix for email delivery issues is to bypass the unreliable PHP mail() function. If your test emails from a plugin like Easy WP SMTP or WP Mail SMTP work, but Contact Form 7 submissions do not, the issue is likely elsewhere. If neither works, configuring SMTP properly is your first step.

2. Check for reCAPTCHA Problems

Many users reported that their reCAPTCHA keys had somehow become invalid or needed re-entry. Go to your Google reCAPTCHA admin panel, verify your site's domain is listed, and then re-enter the Site and Secret keys in the Contact Form 7 integration settings. Try temporarily disabling reCAPTCHA to see if it resolves the issue.

3. Conduct a Conflict Test

A conflict with another plugin or your theme is a common cause. This is the most reliable way to test:

  1. Switch your theme to a default WordPress theme like Twenty Twenty-Four.
  2. Deactivate all plugins except Contact Form 7.
  3. Test your form. If it works, reactivate your plugins one by one, testing after each, to identify the culprit. Common conflict sources include security, caching, and optimization plugins.

4. Review Error Logs

Enable WordPress debugging by adding these lines to your wp-config.php file:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

This will create a debug.log file in your /wp-content/ directory. Reproduce the form error and check this log for any relevant PHP errors that point to the problem.

5. Check the Browser Console

When you submit the form, open your browser's developer tools (F12) and go to the "Console" tab. Look for any JavaScript errors (shown in red) that occur during submission, which could indicate a conflict or a problem with the AJAX request.

6. Roll Back Contact Form 7

If the problem started immediately after a plugin update, a temporary fix is to roll back to the previous version you were using. You can do this manually by downloading older versions from the WordPress Plugin Directory or using a plugin like WP Rollback.

7. Investigate Server Timeouts

If the form spins for a long time before failing with a 504 error, the request is timing out. This can be caused by server security rules (e.g., mod_security), misconfigured NGINX/Apache settings, or conflicts with object caching. Contact your hosting provider and ask them to check the server's error logs for timeouts or blocks on POST requests to /wp-json/contact-form-7/v1/.

When to Seek Further Help

If you have worked through these steps and the problem persists, the issue may be highly specific to your server configuration. The next step is to provide detailed information when seeking help in community forums:

  • The URL of the page with the form.
  • A list of all active plugins and your theme.
  • The exact error message shown to the user (if any).
  • Any relevant entries from your PHP error log or browser console.
  • The versions of WordPress, Contact Form 7, and PHP you are using.

Remember, the 'Contact Form 7' plugin team does not control email delivery; they provide the form. Delivery is handled by your WordPress hosting environment and mail configuration.

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