Contact Form 7 Guide – FAQ, Errors & Redirects

In this Contact Form 7 guide, we will review the contact form 7 error codes , how-to, and many other frequently asked questions.

You have just created a beautiful website for your business. Surely, you would have searched for the best website theme and components to make your website beautiful.

After creating all the necessary components of the website now you are wondering for a way to get in contact with your clients. A contact form should be available on a business website. A contact form is an important feature for growing your business online. Some of the reasons for creating a contact form on your website are as follows:

• Displaying contact form on the website increases the security of the website. 
• By using a contact form, you can get valuable client information and as a result, you will get more leads.
• By using Contact form, a client can reach business owners and ask questions.
• A contact form gives convenience to the website visitors.
• It provides a way of knowing the audience which in turn increases the chances of improving the business. 

What is Contact Form 7? 

Contact form 7 is a utility that can manage multiple contact forms at the same time. It provides a lot of customization options for the contact form. It consists of a simple markup. In WordPress, it comes in the form of a plugin whereas in HTML the developers can include the shortcode for contact form 7 on their website.  let’s explore the contact form 7 in more detail. Down below is the detail of some common errors regarding the use of contact form 7. I will write some quick and easy ways to fix these errors on your website. 

How to do contact form 7 redirect to thank you page?

For redirecting your users to a “Thank you” page, you should first create a “Thank-you” page on your website. The second step is to use the re-directing code. The contact form 7 documentation recommends using an event listener for redirecting the page after form submission. The script for redirecting Contact Form 7 to “Thankyou” page is as follows:

In this way, you can redirect to your desired “URL” in Contact Form 7.

Using Contact Form 7 Hidden Field

Hidden fields are one of the most usable features of contact from 7. Hidden field is a special kind of input field. Contact form 7 have a “form-tag type” to represent the hidden fields. Three options are available for hidden fields. These three options include:

• ID.
• Class.
• Default.

One common example of hiding your email in Contact form 7 is as follows:

How To add “reCAPTCHA” To Contact Form 7

ReCAPCHA is a free of cost service from Google. Its primary function is to protect websites from different types of spams. Different hackers use bots to extract valuable information from websites. To stop the bots from infiltrating the websites, using a reCAPCHA is the best choice for protection.

ReCAPCHA is a test.  This test differentiates between humans and bots. The test can be solved by humans very easily. The bots and malicious pieces of software cannot solve the reCAPCHA tests easily. ReCAPCHA also blocks the different software that are automated and can potentially harm the website. By using the following steps, you can easily add the reCAPTCHA utility to your Contact Form 7:

• The first step is the registration of the website where you want to use the reCAPCHA.
• As ReCAPCHA is a Google utility, therefore you will also need a Google account to use it.
• Go to “ReCAPCHA ADMIN” by google and sign into your account.
• Fill out the form that will be provided to you.
• Enter your information such as “Domain Name” and the version of reCAPCHA that you want to use.
• After registering the website, you will get a “site key” and “secret key” for the site.
• In the next step, “Go to your WordPress Website”. 
• Go to “Contact Section”.
• Go to “Integration” Menu.
• You will see the reCAPCHA option there.
• Click on the “Setup Integration”.

• Here you will need to enter your “site key” and “secret key”.
• Now after setting up the reCAPCHA utility properly, you can use it on all the Contact Forms 7 on your website.

Contact Form 7 Errors

Sometimes, if a beginner is trying to use contact form 7 on his website then certain errors can come. One thing about the errors is that they come with a notification telling about the problem. 

In this way, after reading about the notification a person can go to the source of the problem and resolve the issue. let’s explore the details of some common contact form 7 errors along with steps about how to solve these errors on the website.  

Contact Form 7: There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later:

This is one of the most common errors regarding the use of contact form 7. Whenever there is an error in sending the message, an orange line appears over the form.  Several reasons can be present for this error. Here is the list of reasons which can result in the above error: 

• The theme of the website might be outdated. Update it.
• The plugins of the website are outdated. Update it.
• Double check the email where you are sending the emails. If it is the domain email, then make sure you have outlook installed on your computer so that you can access it. 
• Very rarely, this error comes due to the hosting service providers. In this case, you must contact the hosting service providers to fix this error for you.
• Sometimes, the version of reCAPCHA can also result in this error. For example, if you move from using version two of the reCAPCHA to version 3, the contact form 7 might stop working. One easy solution to fix this issue is to go back to the previous version of reCAPCHA. here is how you can do it in simple steps:
  • Search the plugins page.
  • Search “Contact Form7- reCapcha v2”.
  • Search Integration option.
  • Remove the keys.
  • Sign-in to reCapcha page and generate new “site key” and “secret key” for your website.
  • Make sure that you select reCapcha v2.
  • Add the keys in the integration section.
  • Check the Contact form 7 again. It will start working properly.

Contact Form 7 not sending Emails

If your contact form 7 is not sending the emails from your website, then you are not alone. It is one of the most common errors which is countered by the WordPress users. One of the most common solutions to this problem is the use of SMTP protocol.

This protocol is the abbreviation of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. If the Contact Form 7 is not sending the emails from your website, then it can affect the lead generation process of the website. Two common reasons for this error are as follows:

• Your hosting server is not properly set up to use PHP mail server.
• The email server that you are using is blocking the server as spam.  

SMTP is a proper standard for sending the email securely over the web. This simple protocol uses a variety of different authentication methods that guarantee the safe delivery of the email. The steps of using the SMTP protocol over your website are as follows:

• In the first step, go to the plugins page of your website.
• Search for the “WP Mail SMTP plugin”.
• Install this plugin.
• Activate this plugin. 
• Check the box “Force from email” in the setup. In this way, this “From Email” setting will be used for all the email that will be sent by using the SMTP protocol.
• Properly setup your “From Name”.
• Go to the “Mailer option” and select the “Other SMTP” as your mailer.
• Add the additional details regarding the SMTP protocol.
• After finishing the setup, send a test email to your email account.  There is an option of “Email testing” in WP Mail SMTP. Use this option for testing the email settings. You will receive the test email in your email account. You will also get a notification that your email was sent successfully.   

Contact Form 7 placeholder Error

A placeholder is a description of text. This descriptive text is displayed until the input field is not filled by the user. This descriptive text will disappear as soon as you type something in the input field. Nowadays, using a placeholder is a common practice in the modern user interfaces. To avoid the placeholder error, you should use the placeholder properly in your Contact Form 7. Here are some considerations for setting up placeholder in Contact Form 7:

• You can set it in any field on your form.
• Add a placeholder option in the field.
• Add a text value in the “form-tag” that is the representation of your field.
• One example of adding a placeholder is as follows:

By using the above-mentioned example, you can easily add a placeholder in your Contact Form 7.

Contact Form 7 Not Working Error

This error is a general kind of error regarding the working of Contact Form 7. It is a very common error. Multiple reasons can be present if this error comes. Some of the reasons are as follows:

• There might be a failure to send the message.
• If a red border comes at the end of “submitting the form” then this situation denotes that the form is not properly configured at the back end of the website. For removing this error, the developers must configure the Contact Form 7 properly.

To fix the Contact Form 7 Not Working Error, you need to follow the following steps:

• Go to your WordPress dashboard.
• Go to Contact option.
• Select the “Contact Forms” section.
• Select your required contact form and select “Edit”.
• After selecting the Mail tab, make sure to fill out all the different fields. At the end click the save button.

• Sometimes, the contact forms 7 messages can go directly to the spam folder.  Therefore, make sure that you check the spam folder as well. 
• Ensure that the Mail function of your server is enabled. If this setting is disabled, then your contact form 7 will not work. You can contact your hosting service provider to enable this setting.

Conclusion

Contact form is an important element of any business website. Contact form is essential for the growth of the business. It provides a way for your customers to reach out to you and provide their opinions about your business. Using the contact form on your website will make your website more secure.

Contact form 7 is a famous plugin of WordPress. With the help of this plugin, you can easily manage multiple contact forms on your business website. This plugin comes with a lot of customization options. The user can customize the options of this contact form according to requirements.  Different errors can come while using the contact form 7. Here is a quick checklist for using the contact form 7 properly:

• “Contact form 7 redirect to thank you page” requires creation of a “Thankyou page”. Use the event listener for redirecting the page to the URL of the “Thankyou” page.
• Use the ID, class or default option on your website for using the hidden field on Contact Form 7.
• For adding “reCAPTCHA” to Contact Form 7, you must register your website at the Google reCAPCHA Admin. It will give you necessary keys for setting up your reCAPCHA authentication.
• This error “There is an error trying to send your message” can be solved by updating plugins and themes. You can also change the reCAPCHA versions for solving this error.
• If the Contact Form 7 is not sending Emails, use the SMTP protocol in your website for fixing this issue.
• If you encounter this “Contact Form 7 Not Working Error”, finish up the setup of Contact Form 7 properly. Make sure that all the fields are filled accordingly.