My Machform install stopped sending new submissions to me over email last week (not sure exactly when).
The fix was simple: Upgrade to the latest version 19 (I was still running version 14!).
I’m putting this here in case others are also running way behind on the updates. If you are, check your entries, as you may have some there for which you didn’t get an email notification.
Good to know, thanks, Steve! I’m off to check all of my sites…I stumbled across one a few months back that was still on version 14 (and upgraded to v19 w/o any issues).
Ya, upgrading 14 to 19 was easy. I first checked with the dev that it was OK to make such a big jump, they confirmed it was. I went ahead but stupidly forgot to run the updater script, so things didn’t work.
I immediately sent the dev an email with log in details so they could have a look at my install. Five mins later they replied telling me what I’d forgotten to do, and that they had done it for me, checked everything, and all was OK.
That’s some seriously impressive service!
I realise that you have to install the Machform script and setup a database, but I genuinely don’t understand why people use other solutions for anything bigger than a regular contact form.
I went over to using the cloud service. It does £150 a year cost but I can use the forms on any of my own websites. Less hassle than self hosting. Which is very easy - I am always impressed with the customer support and usability of machform.
Many here use Machform and for the first few months, it was perfect - always reliable and with the option of the spreadsheet backup, clients were delighted.
Was…
The support team (who appear to have changed) upgraded databases for me on 12th August and since that date, no forms have sent from multiple sites.
There has been some back and forwards with the new support guy Andar and he initially blamed lack of DMARC records (they did not exist previously). Now with them in place and confirmed to be functional, email forms submissions are still broken. I can setup SMTP mailing, but before I do so, I would like to get the original functionality restored.
This is both a heads-up and a question - are others having similar issues?
I use MachForms on a smaller scale than @dave, but I’ve experienced zero problems. I use it for a variety of kinds of forms within class settings … so I know how many submissions I should be getting and how often. Definitely working reliably across a number of forms in the last few weeks.
… all that said, it seems how you have set up MachForm is different from me. I always do the self-installation approach. It seems like you are using their own cloud service installation: MacForm Cloud. I have no idea whether Dave and others do self-install or their cloud approach … but that seems to be a critical difference.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Hopefully there are others using MachForm cloud who can confirm (or not) that they are having similar problems.
Thanks for coming back Matthew, it is much appreciated. This was working so well until they updated. Previously I did the self install, but I had concerns about losing the client’s database - is there a simple way of backing up the form entries? Because the forms are complex, the CSV / excel export is not that helpful.
Hmm … I’m not an expert in this regards. What I’ve counted on is how my hosting company do backups. They have backups of everything for the previous 30 days. So if you notice a problem … but late (i.e. going on more than 30 days) then you could be in trouble. But realistically 30 days is very generous. I’ve only had to use their backup feature twice in about 15 years … both times the need for their backup serice was due to my own stupidity.
… however not all hosting companies are the same. Worth an inquiry to whatever service you use. Or your clients use.
I’ve never had to do it, but there should also be a more direct way of backing up client forms but I’ve never had to learn how to do this. But your hosting company “should” be able to help you reliably backup the mySQL databases, etc. But I don’t have any direct experience doing this.
Yes, I can confirm; although I did not follow up with Yuniar or MachForm (yet!) in my case. I thought mine was a one-off case…
Different issue/ but it is major and appeared with version 22. Mine is self-hosted.
I long ago moved my MediaPressions website to just a simple F6 form. I do, however, still install MachForm forms into almost all of my client sites; mainly because they a) love the ability to modify forms on their own, and; b) have a db to go back and refer to.
When designing new client sites, I put them at client.mediapressions.com, since this allows me to use my mediapressions TCMS license until the site goes live; then, I update to a new client license.
A couple of weeks ago, upon designing a new form for a new client site, I noticed that MachForm said a new version was available. I think I was running version 20.
I upgraded- but as always, read the txt file just to be sure the directions hadn’t changed (they had not). Installation was smooth, as always. Logging in to the dashboard was flawless; then- no forms. I could get to my settings, and everything looked perfect.
I then checked the settings with a recent NEW install of version 22 that was working perfectly, and noticed a difference: the path to my folders of my legacy version (upgraded to v22) was …/forms while the path in the new install was the full path (including the root, username, etc.). I updated the path (in two locations, as I recall), but this did not help.
Since I haven’t used MF in forever on MediaPressions, I just wiped it out, created a new db and installed a new version- sure enough, the paths are full…and it’s working great.
Now that someone else has mentioned this- and I literally just paid my renewal fee this week; I will fire off an email to Yuniar. Stay tuned!
Very good to hear that I’m not unique on this Dave, thanks for the detail - Yuniar seems to have disappeared or Andwar has taken over support. I’m not sure which.
To be more specific, I was utilising the built-in email sending. Absolutely flawless until everything was updated to v22. Everything failed from the date of update.
They blamed the lack of DMARC and other settings, but nothing had changed bar the update. It has taken over a week and now things are finally working again, but instead of sending from the regular MS365 email, they have configure with this: csh2702xxx@smtp-out-hp3.livemail.co.uk - is this an SMTP workaround without setting up the SMTP (which I was prepared to setup, once the original issues were resolved)? I’m wondering if the ‘critical’ update has caused the server to block the sending as it appears from message traces that MS is not blocking those mails. It would also explain why even a password reset email for one user has not worked.
Now I have a backup of all the forms data as a CSV (seems to be the best option for complex forms), I may well follow you and do a re-install.
I should add that hosting is Fasthosts, so generally pretty reasonable in my experience, unless anyone has a different PoV?
Ah, this explains the non-problem on my part. I’m still on version 20. I think I’ll wait a bit more before upgrading.
Stick with 20 Matt, definitely the safe place at this moment!
Here’s what I’ve discovered so far: Version 22 of MachForm requires MySQL version 5.7. Currently, my sites are hosted on my own DreamHost VPS, which, to my knowledge, supports only MySQL version 5.1. I inferred this when I added a new client and set up a new MySQL database and MachForm two weeks ago. The database is using v.5.1, yet, interestingly, MachForm v.22 is running smoothly on this setup.
Additionally, I have another site running MachForm v.20, which I’m not actively using. I decided to upgrade this to v.22 as a test. Although the upgrade allowed me to log in, I encountered functionality issues afterward. Despite resetting the paths as previously suggested, the problems persisted.
I’ve reached out to DreamHost to inquire about the possibility of upgrading my databases to MySQL 5.7. I’ll update this thread as soon as I receive further information from them.
@dave Thanks for keeping us up to date. I have no idea what version of MySQL I’m using, but I get heavy use out of MachForm until Dec … not worth it for me to try to change things now. Looks like I’ll upgrade in Dec or Jan.
@mitchellm @nick Everything seems to work perfectly if you’re using PHP 7.4 or newer and MySQL 5.7 or higher. All my sites are on PHP 8.2 or 8.3. I’ve just confirmed that my ThinkofDave.com site is running MySQL 8, and I successfully upgraded from PHP version 20 to 22. The upgrade process went flawlessly this time. Check out my simple contact form here.
Sorry, London day yesterday. Thanks both for all the updates and @dave for the detailed explanations. I know that my sites are running php 8.xx, not sure exactly which. I’ll do some more digging.
Is there any way of backing up the form structure? Everything is working now, in a jury-rigged kind of way, but based on your experiences, I’m thinking of reinstalling everything when I have time. One form in particular was quite complex to create.
In version 20 and earlier, it was very easy. According to ChatGPT, this is available in version 22, but I don’t see it three different instances; I just reached out to Yuniar and will reply here once I hear back.
Normally, you would go to settings > Advanced Options > Scroll to the bottom and then export the form you want to save. This tool allows you to export forms into a .json file, which can then be imported into another instance of MachForm. When importing, all the form fields, settings, logic, and other configurations (such as payment and email settings) are copied, but the entries and theme data are not included.
Importing and exporting forms is still available, where it occurs simply moved. See my screenshot below - this actually makes a lot more sense. Keep in mind, though, that your theme will not be applied to forms that are imported.
