An explanation
Some of you may have spotted some strangeness on this here site.
There is a problem on it and I have been trying with spectacular lack of success to fix it.
The problem is that I have a yoke that sends out emails notifying subscribers that I have published another brainfart. It has been running very smoothly for ages.
This week it stopped.
For the life of me I cannot find what has gone wrong. It doesn’t throw up an error or anything that might give a clue. It just ceased to function. A few possibilities crossed my mind. –
Had there been a change to the site in the period since the previous success? No. Nothing had been added, updated or removed.
Had I reached a limit in the number of subscribers? No. According to the authors, there is no limit. I also tried deleting log files and reports as there were quite a few entries.
Now the only way to test the system is to actually post something [I can’t do it manually], hence the number of posts I have published and then deleted again.
I have tried disabling the plugin that has the problem and enabling it again. I have tried reloading the plugin. I have tried reverting configuration files to a time before the error. I have tried disabling other plugins in case of a conflict. Naturally I have searched [in vain] for a solution on the Interwebs. I have tried adding tools to examine what exactly is going on in the guts [they don’t show anything amiss].
I tried sending a “broadcast” which is basically just a message to everyone in the subscriber list explaining what was going on. That went off all right. New people are subscribing every now and then and that part of the system is working too.
The only solution I can think of is the drastic one – deleting the plugin and starting again from scratch. The problem there is that deleting something tends to leave traces in the configuration files and database so I would somehow have to delete all those traces which is a massive [and dangerous] job. Also I don’t want to erase the list of subscribers.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother..
UPDATE:
I deleted the yoke and reinstalled it. No fucking difference.
I have no hair left at this stage.
You bother for two reasons.
1. We are your loyal and faithful following.
2. You are a computer guy, and you just cannot help it. You won’t get a good night’s sleep until you get every single 1 and 0 beaten into submission.
1. I am ever grateful and somewhat surprised at that.
2. I probably have Asperger’s or something…. !!
Well, I’m glad you bother. I like brainfatrs 🙂
And Good News ™ – it’s going to be an early spring
Hah! Another groundhog. The lake here is full of frogspawn which is very early. The frogs usually have their shaggingfest around Valentine’s Day.
I had this problem once, it was down to the outgoing email provider (SMTP server) switching to only excepting encrypted communications (SSL).
I checked everything in the server/mailing end and nothing has changed there. The mailing is actually working if I send a test message or a “broadcast” to all subscribers. It’s only the post notification that isn’t queuing but that’s the whole essence of the plugin. It is a mystery and very infuriating. I have been in touch with the authors, who are also a bit puzzled.
It sounds like you need to look at the code and insert some debugging lines to find where it is failing to work.
I am corresponding with the authors directly who are being very helpful. The only problem is that they are on the US West Coast so there tends to be some delays in correspondence. It’s the first time I have ever looked for support from anyone other than my hosting crowd!
Hah! Just realised their support is in India. Of course….