Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

A legit submission was blocked

Open Spam Shield -> Log, find the row, and check the reason and score columns. Common false-positive causes:

• ratelimit - the sender (or their NAT pool) hit ospam_ratelimit_max. Either raise the limit or run OSpam_RateLimit::reset( $ip )
• disposable_email - flagged as a throwaway domain. Add the domain to the allowlist or score the rule lower
• link_density - the message contained many URLs. Disable ospam_link_score_enabled or raise the score threshold

Use Allowlist to permanently exempt a trusted sender.

Honeypot triggers in normal use

Usually a browser autofill problem. Some password managers fill every input that looks remotely like an email. Inspect the form HTML: the honeypot has autocomplete="off" and is hidden, but a sufficiently aggressive password manager can still fill it. Rename the honeypot in source (constant OSpam_Honeypot::FIELD_NAME) if you have to.

Geo blocking doesn't fire

Either ospam_geo_enabled is off, ospam_geo_blocked_countries is empty, or the IP resolves to a private range (OSpam_Geo::is_private_ip() returns true for those and skips the check). The ip-api.com response is cached for 24h; clear ospam_geo_* transients to retry.

Akismet score not added

Akismet must be installed AND wordpress_api_key must be set in the Akismet plugin's settings. Spam Shield doesn't store the key itself.

Dashboard widget missing

The widget registers via orravo_dashboard_widgets. Orravo Core must be active (it is normally; Spam Shield's bootstrap short-circuits without it). Confirm both plugins are active and reload the Orravo Core dashboard.