Troubleshooting email subscription issues
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Wondering if anyone here could share how best to have the blog subscriber troubleshoot the email subscription issues they face?
I have had few of the subscribers tell me that they are no longer receiving emails from the blog. Since as a blogger, we have no control on managing their subscriptions, I am wondering if there is anything basic one can do from this end?
For one of the persons having issues receiving emails, I managed to send the automated email by typing the email address in the Follow Box. This person received the email and was able to confirm the intent by clicking on the verify link. However, another person is not having such luck. This person gets the email from wordpress.com but when he clicks on verify link, he claims that wordpress is asking to sign in, create a website and purchase services.
What should be done under the circumstances? I really wish to have least minimum interference in people’s experience with subscribing the blog.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there!
Sorry to hear about the trouble your friend is having. May I know his email address so I l can look into this further? I just did a test follow on your blog using an unregistered email address and I was able to do so without having to sign up. We only ask to sign in and register if a user would like to manage his subscriptions. I can also assure you that purchasing our services is completely optional during the registration process, and we actually mention only little of it on our sign up page.
Can you ask your friend to give it another try? Alternately, he may subscribe to your blog by clicking on the Follow button on the bottom right part of your page. For more info, please read this support doc:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/following/#how-to-follow-blogs
Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Thank you!
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Hi @druesome, this subscriber managed to subscribe my blog yesterday following your instruction; however, today he has emailed back saying that he’s not getting emails. I had him check the spam queue.
How can I share his email address with you for you to follow up? I don’t wish to share in the public forum.
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Hi there! It’s safe to share the email address right here. Email addresses posted in the forums are automatically redacted and only staff can view them. If you feel uncomfortable about it, please send an email to help@wordpress.com and mention my username “druesome” in the Subject field. Let me know if you’ve chosen to go that route.
Thanks!
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Here is the address: (email visible only to moderators and staff)
I checked the blog stats database, I don’t see this email address there. This person has gone back and forth in attempt to subscribe, but to no avail as of yet.
Thanks for your help.
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Hey there! I’m afraid that I’m not seeing that email address amongst your list of subscribers.
After looking further into it, I noticed that your friend had blocked all email updates from WordPress.com blogs he’s following and this might have contributed to the problem. Can you please ask him to visit this page:
And enter his email address under “Manage Your Subscriptions”. Once he’s gained access to his subscriptions page, click on Settings and uncheck the “Block all email updates from blogs you’re following on WordPress.com” option then click Save Changes. Afterwards, kindly ask him to subscribe to your blog again using the method I suggested.
Let me know if that helps. Thanks!
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Hi, he followed the instructions given. I still don’t see his email in the subscriber’s database. What else do you recommend?
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Would it be possible for you to insert his email address to my subscriber’s list database from the backend? He has given his approval.
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Hi there!
As of last check, your friend had successfully subscribed to your blog. Can you please verify this with him? Additionally, can you ask if he received notifications of your last two posts? Thank you!
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Hi,
My subscriber started receiving emails after you fixed it from your end. But he came back today saying that he is no longer receiving emails again. I checked my database, his email is not there in the Email-only subscriber section; however, his username is showing up wordpress.com subscriber list.
This makes me wonder (and I have asked him this as well): could he be forwarding his subscription email to others, and someone may be unsubscribing him, by clicking on unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email? Is WordPress.com a one-click unsubscription?
In any case, I have since then received a complaint from one more previously subscribed person. I now have two people with this issue.
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Hello there!
I can still see the user subscribed to receive emails from your blog. Not sure what might be causing this, except that his email provider might be filtering them out as spam. Can you ask him to try subscribing with another email address? Let’s try to see if that works. Regarding the second complaint, can you give me the user’s email address so I can check? Thanks!
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Here’s the email: (email visible only to moderators and staff) This person has tried following, but not receiving the confirmation email (checked spam).
I am now getting concerned. What if there are others with similar issue who are not even bothering to contact the blog? I am not scanning the forum to see if others are reporting this issue. I have three thousand plus email subscribers, so it is hard for me to check (and care) at granular level. What I do not understand is why WordPress does not provide blog admins the ability and tools to do subscription management?
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Hi there!
I’ve checked out that email address, and I also see it actively subscribed to your blog. Again, my guess is the email notifications for that user might have gotten filtered out as spam.
What I do not understand is why WordPress does not provide blog admins the ability and tools to do subscription management?
While we do allow adminisrators to see who’s subscribed to their blogs, it can get a little tricky once they are able to add and remove subscribers without the permission of users. This raises some privacy concerns and is just something we’d like to keep at bay.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks!
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Hi, i understand the concerns about privacy, abuse etc. However, it would be helpful if you guys were to consider providing us an insight into subscriber’s current state of subscription. For example, on Feedburner, i see that I can see a subscriber’s status as “active” or “inactive”. I can also remove an address (though I can’t add any). I think this is a reasonable policy which WordPress can possibly also implement.
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Hello!
For example, on Feedburner, i see that I can see a subscriber’s status as “active” or “inactive”.
It is possible to see all your active WordPress.com and email subscribers from this page:
http://wordpress.com/my-stats/?blog=473006&blog_subscribers&unit=1
However, other types of subscribers (inactive, unverified/pending) aren’t viewable for privacy reasons.
I can also remove an address (though I can’t add any).
This has been discussed before, and we feel that it’s best that the act of unsubscribing be left in the hands of the user rather than the blog owner. Should you have a very good reason to remove a specific follower, please open up a new support ticket and we’ll do our best to investigate.
Hope that clears things up. Let me know if you need any further clarifications!
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