Avada form not sending email: trace the message

A contact form on a WordPress site usually hands the message to the site, which passes it to a mail function. The thank you line appears when the site accepts the message, and the mail function can still fail afterward. A host that blocks outgoing mail from the web server returns a result the form never shows. A receiving provider can drop mail from a domain that is not set up to send for it, and it may file the message as spam without a bounce. None of these fails loudly. An owner who sends one test from a personal address tends to conclude the form works.

• Send a test message, then check the recipient address in the form's settings against the inbox you read.
• Look in the spam and promotions folders of that inbox, not only the main one, for the last test message.
• If the form sends the visitor a copy, check whether that copy arrives. It shows whether the site can send mail.
• Send a second test to an address on a different mail provider, and see whether it arrives when the first does not.
• Confirm the address you read is not an alias that forwards only some of its mail.

The first place is the recipient. The form sends to one address, set in its own settings, and an old address, a typo or a forwarding alias can send every message somewhere you do not read. The second is the sending path. The site hands the message to a mail function on the web server, and mail that leaves without the right sender records can be refused or quietly filed away by the receiver. The third is a hidden check. A spam check on the site can drop a message silently while the thank you still appears, because the visitor's browser has no reason to know.

Each place leaves a different trace. A wrong address leaves your inbox empty while a copy to the visitor still arrives. A sending failure usually stops that copy too. A check that drops the message on the site stops the copy as well, since neither one was ever sent. Work out which trace you have before you change anything, because the fix for each one is different.

A copy to the visitor is the cheapest test you have. Visitors in a run have a working inbox, so a confirmation the form sends them can be checked there. If the copy arrives and your inbox stays empty, the site sends mail, and the recipient address or your own filters are the likely cause. If neither one arrives, the sending path is the cause, and changing the recipient will not help. Turn a copy on for the test only if you own the form and can switch it back afterwards.

A simulated visitor fills in the form, presses Send, and records the screen that follows. The report gives the thank you or error the page showed, a screenshot, and whether a copy reached the visitor's inbox when the form sends one. The run cannot open your inbox, read your spam folder or inspect the mail server, so it cannot say why your copy is missing. It separates a form that fails on the page from one that accepts the message and then goes quiet, and that is the first cut.

Mail depends on the sending domain's records and on the receiver's trust in them. A change of host, a new domain or a switch of mail provider can break delivery without any change to the form, and the thank you line will still show. After any of those changes, send one test to an inbox you read and one to a second provider, then check both spam folders.