From time to time, we hear complaints that vendors are not receiving emails. No, the plugin is not bugged, it’s your settings somewhere, and always is. Here’s a quick guide on what to check if your vendors are not receiving emails.
1.) Is the email enabled?
Please navigate to WordPress Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > Emails — Make sure that each of the email types you want to send are actually enabled. All WC Vendors’ emails are enabled by default.
2.) What is the email address you are sending from?
If your website is www.website.com — are you sending from [email protected]? Does bob@ actually exist as a valid user account? If the email address you are sending from does not actually exist, oftentimes vendors can’t get emails because it’s not authenticated.
3.) If your website is www.website.com — are you sending from an email that is not @website.com? aka — [email protected] or [email protected]?
If yes, this will never work. This is an authenticated email and most servers will reject them as unauthorized relays.
4.) Are you using a real payment gateway?
Real payment gateways handle order status changes properly. Gateways like WooThemes including “cheque” and “bacs” will not fire any emails because they do not handle order status changes correctly. To counter this, we include with Free & Pro the “WC Vendors Test Gateway”. Use that for testing instead of cheque/bacs.
5.) Do emails send if you send the email manually?
Edit the order, and under Order Actions, choose “Notify Vendor” and then click the circle icon (not save order). This will manually re-send the emails to the vendors. If the vendor receives the email this way, then it’s a problem with a plugin conflict, or a gateway not handling order status changes correctly, and you should debug accordingly and ask the respective plugin authors to fix their bugs.
6.) What does your mail server log say?
Do the emails show up in the mail server? Are there rejection messages? Debug accordingly.
7.) An option that works for some admins, is to install a SMTP plugin for email. https://wordpress.org/plugins/postman-smtp/ is one of the best, and includes logging!
In closing, mail problems are *always* a problem with your website configuration, email configuration, options, or web server settings.
Additionally, WooThemes has a guide about email, too. Remember, we only hook into WooCommerce. WC Vendors doesn’t send mail. Check out their mail debugging guide, too: