What is the name of the domain?
oldworldnames.com
What is the error number?
none
What is the error message?
none
What is the issue you’re encountering
Wordpress administrator’s email fail to send, fixed by turning off cloudflare
What steps have you taken to resolve the issue?
Admin using IP address 172.58.164.138 goes through Woocommerce orders to process, his actions do not result in emails being sent. Any other Admin can do the same thing and the emails go out. I narrowed it down to cloudflare by disabling the service. I am not 100% sure that cloudflare is the only variable. When Admin at 172.58.164.138 sends email with cloudflare paused, the recipient gets the message, but our email logger does not record the event. Any other Admiin can do the same action and the email logger records the outgoing email.
I am wondering how cloudflare could be blocking an outgoing email. It doesn’t feel logical to me, but I’m a noob to this service.
What are the steps to reproduce the issue?
Admin logs into wordpress from IP 172.58.164.138, changes an order status, email does not log or make it to recipient.
Same Admin logs into wordpress using a different login but still from 172.58.164.138, email does not log or make it to destiination.
Admin logs in from another IP, edits woo order, email is logged and recipient receives it.
I pause Cloudflare, Admin on 172.58.164.138 changes order, email does NOT log but recipient does receive it.
The hackers have used the site to card scan. We were getting 8 orders per minute. They were testing for good credit card numbers.
With “attack” mode on, we got that down to one breach per attempt. The hacker would get one order through and then the behavior would stop. I am guessing that Cloudflare recognized the threat after that first breach and stopped them.
Yesterday I blocked all Phillipines traffic. I believe I can turn off attack mode with that block in place, but I haven’t tested it yet.
The email issues started a few days ago. Many site changes were made just prior so I eliminated all of them before testing cloudflare. That was the only variable that made a difference.
I turned on wp debugging using multiple file settings .user_ini, php.ini, .htaccess all had display_errors directives. wp-config.php debug is on. I never saw a debug message. I am guessing this has to do with cloudflare cache but I never got that far to test.
I am very grateful for any insights on these puzzles. Thank you!