Troubleshooting

Each heading below is a symptom, followed by its cause and fix. For the exact wording of a message, see Validation messages and errors.

The page shows the shortcode as text

Cause: WordPress does not recognise the shortcode. Either Promptless Forms is not active, or the name is wrong. Older examples use [fre_form] or [client_form]; neither exists any more.

Fix: Activate the plugin and use [pforms_form id="your-form-id"] or [promptless_form id="your-form-id"].

The form does not appear, with no text either

Cause: No saved form has that ID. Visitors see nothing; logged in as an administrator you see Form not found: followed by the ID.

Fix: Copy the shortcode from the Shortcode column on Form Entries → Forms. IDs are lowercase.

The notification email never arrives

Cause: Open the entry on Form Entries and look at Email Notification:

• Sent — WordPress handed the email over, and it was lost or refused after that, most often because the sender’s domain is not verified with the email service.
• Failed with wp_mail returned false — WordPress could not send mail. The site has no working mail setup.
• Failed with No valid recipients — no address in notification.to is valid.
• Not sent — no email was attempted, because notification.enabled is false. Up to version 1.10.0 this showed as Failed with no reason.

Fix: Install an SMTP or transactional-email plugin, set from_email to a fixed address on a verified domain, and check the service’s log and your spam folder. See Email notifications.

The Email column shows “Off”, or a dash

Cause: The column reports only the form’s own notification. Off means that notification is switched off for the form, so Promptless Forms sent nothing; a grey dash means it is on but nothing was recorded.

Neither means your team was not emailed. If a FlowMint workflow sends your team’s email, the form’s own notification is normally switched off on purpose so nobody gets two copies, and the column has nothing of its own to report.

Fix: Nothing, if that is your setup. With Promptless Forms 1.12.0 and FlowMint 0.12.0 or later, the column shows what the workflow did instead (Sent by workflow, Workflow failed, Workflow running) and links to the run. On earlier versions, check FlowMint Workflows → Run History for the submission. See Entries.

The form says thank you, but there is no entry

Cause: One of these:

• The honeypot was filled in, often by a password manager or autofill that fills every field. The visitor sees the normal success message on purpose, and the entry is kept as spam.
• The form has "store_entries": false.

Fix: Tick Include Spam in Form Entries; if the entry is there, choose Mark as Not Spam from Bulk actions. Test with autofill off. Check store_entries in the form’s settings. See Spam protection.

A customer’s file is refused

Cause: The message says why. On versions before 1.11.0, the message File contains potentially dangerous content. refused most real photos, PDFs and every Adobe Illustrator file, and the form could show that error and a thank-you message together, with nothing saved.

Fix: Update Promptless Forms to 1.11.0 or later. For other messages, see File upload messages; a file refused as “not really” its type usually needs exporting again in the right format.

“Please wait a moment before submitting.”

Cause: The form was sent less than 3 seconds after it appeared, as autofill and test scripts often do.

Fix: Wait a few seconds and send again. If a genuine need calls for it, lower spam_protection.min_submission_time.

Submit does nothing on a multi-step form

Cause: A required field on an earlier step is empty. The browser stops the submission on a field that is not on screen.

Fix: Make sure settings.multistep.validate_on_next is not false, so each step is checked before Next; on version 1.10.0 or earlier, set it to true, because it was off by default. See Layout and steps.

“Please correct the errors below.” but no field shows an error

Cause: The field with the error is hidden on an earlier step, or — up to version 1.10.0 — inside a section hidden by a condition, whose required fields were still required.

Fix: Leave validate_on_next on for multi-step forms. On 1.10.0 or earlier, also repeat the section’s conditions on each required field inside it. See Conditional logic.

“Too many submissions. Please try again later.”

Cause: A rate limit: by default 5 submissions an hour from one IP address to one form, and 20 an hour across all forms. Behind a proxy or CDN, all visitors can share one address.

Fix: Raise spam_protection.rate_limit on the form, and have a developer list the proxy with the pforms_trusted_proxies filter.

A required dropdown always submits the first option

Cause: The select has no placeholder, so the browser preselects the first option and the field is never empty.

Fix: Add a placeholder such as "Choose one…".

A field with conditions never hides

Cause: The rule’s field has a typo, or value is an option label instead of its value. Up to version 1.10.0, radio buttons, checkboxes and messages also never hide, and a field with capital letters never matches.

Fix: See Conditional logic.

The form looks wrong on a dark background

Cause: The form uses light colours outside a dark Promptless WP section.

Fix: Set "theme_variant": "dark" in the form’s settings.

The address field shows no suggestions

Cause: No Google Places key, or the key lacks the required APIs.

Fix: Add the key in Form Entries → Settings, select Test Connection, and enable the Places API and Maps JavaScript API for it in the Google Cloud Console.

The webhook does not arrive

Cause: Check the entry’s Webhook column. Failed means the destination refused it or could not be reached; no status means the form has no webhook or does not store entries.

Fix: Select Test Connection on the form to see the response, and check that the address is the final, public https:// one. See Webhooks.

Save Form, Delete and other buttons do nothing

Cause: Versions 1.8.0 to 1.10.0 do not load the admin script on the Forms screens, so Save Form, Delete, Copy, Test Connection, Preview Payload, Regenerate and the entry actions do nothing. Search and Filter on Form Entries also lead to an error page.

Fix: Update to version 1.10.1 or later. Until then, create and edit forms through the connector.

A form with ajax="false" reloads and the entry is lost

Cause: Up to version 1.10.0, ajax="false" on the shortcode sends the form to the page itself, where nothing receives it.

Fix: Remove the attribute. From version 1.10.1 it is ignored and forms always submit in place.

Saving a form shows an error

Cause: The JSON has a mistake or breaks a rule.

Fix: The message names the problem; see Errors when saving a form.

Related pages

• Validation messages and errors — Every message a visitor can see when a submission is refused, and the errors shown when a form's JSON cannot be saved.
• Email notifications — Who receives the email for each submission, what it contains, the sender and reply-to rules, and how to make sure it is delivered.
• How spam protection works — The honeypot, minimum fill-in time, duplicate check and rate limits, what a visitor sees when each one stops a submission, and what is kept.
• FAQ — Short answers to the questions people ask most about Promptless Forms, with a link to the page that covers each in full.