Wix form not working: find the failing step

A website builder keeps two copies of your page. The editor holds the draft you are changing, and the public address serves the version you last published. If you moved, resized or rebuilt the form without publishing, a visitor meets the old layout, or a form that you have since removed. Forms also sit inside sections that hide them on a phone, behind a pop-up that closes too early, or beside a field the visitor cannot reach. Your send from the editor can succeed while the same form on the public page never reaches its notification.

• Open the public address in a private window, signed out, and check that the form is on the page.
• Compare the public page with the editor. If the form differs, publish the site and test again.
• Fill in every field, including the ones at the bottom, then press send and read what appears.
• Check the form's notification settings and send one test to an address you can read.
• On a phone, scroll to the form and check that no banner or pop-up covers the send button.

The editor and the public site are two views of one project. When you change a form in the editor, the change stays in the draft until you publish, and a visitor keeps seeing the last published version. A form moved to a new section, a field added, or a pop-up set up since the last publish can all be missing from the public page. An owner who tests in the editor is testing the draft, which is the one version a stranger never sees.

The gap is easy to miss, because the editor preview often looks right. Check the public address after every publish, in a private window, and open the page the way a visitor would arrive, from the home page or a link rather than from the editor's preview button. That gap is the first thing to rule out before you look anywhere else.

A send stops at the first thing that blocks it. A pop-up can open over the form and close before a visitor finds the fields. A banner or a chat bubble can sit on top of the send button on a phone. A required field placed below the fold can stop the send with a message the visitor cannot see. A field the visitor cannot reach, such as one inside a collapsed section, can do the same. The visitor sees a button that does nothing, and the owner sees no enquiry.

A send from your own browser, signed in, shows that the form works for you. It does not show that a stranger's send reaches the notification you read, and it does not show that the visitor's own confirmation, if one is set up, arrives. A simulated visitor can check the second part, because its inbox is real and a confirmation sent to the address it typed will reach it. It cannot open your notification inbox, so the owner still checks that part.

Forms get moved, resized and rebuilt during design work, and each change can leave the live page behind the editor. After each edit and publish, run the same simulated visitors through the enquiry form on a phone and a laptop, and compare the step where each one stopped. Protected previews need a site password in the run, which is part of paid credits. A saved run shows whether the live form still sends.