Testing for a Theme/Plugin Conflict

Introduction

Gravity SMTP uses WordPress’ best practices to make it as compatible as possible; however, some theme and plugin authors do not adhere to these best practices which can often result in a theme or plugin conflict with Gravity SMTP. Additionally, WordPress offers several filters that can be used by a theme or plugin to alter different parts of the email sending process. This can impact Gravity SMTP functionality.

The following sections provide instructions for determining if an issue you are experiencing with Gravity SMTP is caused by a third-party. If you determine that your issue is not caused by a third-party following these instructions, please open a support ticket. If you were directed to this topic after opening a ticket, please reply to the ticket confirming that you have followed these steps and could still recreate this issue.

Before you start

Use a staging clone for testing

Using a staging clone for testing is a recommended best practice, allowing you to focus on the testing without worrying about your visitors. Most web hosts offer you an easy way to create this clone of your site for testing purposes. If you are unsure about this, please reach your web host support.

It’s important to use a staging clone created specifically to test the issue you are currently experiencing. Using an existing staging clone created previously for other purposes (an old copy of your live site) may result in an inefficient testing environment. You need a 100% exact clone of your current live site for the staging clone to be suitable for troubleshooting.

A backup is advised

It is advised to create a backup of your WordPress as good practice.

Testing for Theme Conflicts

To test for a theme conflict:

  1. Activate a default Automattic theme such as Twenty Twenty One, Twenty Two, Twenty Twenty Three, etc.
  2. Check to see if the issue still occurs.

If the issue does not occur after activating a default “Twenty *” theme, your theme is causing a conflict with Gravity SMTP. You will want to:

  1. If you are using a child theme, try activating the parent theme instead to discard issues with custom stuff added to the child theme.
  2. Check for updates to your theme or child theme.
  3. If you are up to date, or updating does not resolve the conflict, please contact the support for your theme for assistance.

You should test for plugin conflicts if the issue occurs when using an Automattic “Twenty *” theme.

Testing for Plugin Conflicts

To test for a plugin conflict:

  1. Deactivate ALL plugins except Gravity SMTP.
  2. Check to see if the issue occurs.

For multisite installations, you must ensure ALL plugins are disabled on both the sub-site Plugins menu (if available) and the Network Admin Plugins page.

Also, note that Must-Use and Drop-ins plugins don’t have a deactivate option. If you have any of these installed, you will want to download their files to a safe place and remove them for testing.

With only the Gravity SMTP plugin active, you are ready to start looking for conflicts.

Now try to replicate the issue you were experiencing in this reduced environment.

No issue on the first test

If you experience no re-occurrence of the issue, then continue to expand your testing scope by:

  1. Enable one additional plugin.
  2. Test again.
  3. Issue found? Then you have your culprit.
  4. Working without any issue? Then repeat 1 and 2.

Once you have found the conflicting plugin, please first be sure that the plugin is updated to the latest available version. If you are already up to date or updating does not resolve your conflict, please contact the support for the conflicting plugin.