Why a broken form is easy to miss
Most owners never test their own form, so it can fail silently for weeks while enquiries vanish. The first step is simple: send yourself a real test message and confirm it actually arrives. If it doesn't, you have a confirmed problem — and a page worth fixing, because every broken form is a customer who tried to reach you and couldn't.
The most common causes
In practice, a handful of causes account for most broken forms. Email delivery: the form sends, but messages land in spam or go to a wrong or unchecked address. A JavaScript error that stops the submit button working at all. A recent change — a plugin or theme update, a new security or CAPTCHA tool, or a hosting change. Server email (PHP mail) being blocked or unauthenticated, so messages are silently dropped. Or over-strict validation that rejects valid input, such as a phone number format the form doesn't recognise.
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Safe checks you can do yourself
Before paying anyone: submit a real test and check your spam or junk folder as well as the inbox. Try a different browser or device to rule out a local issue. Watch what happens on submit — an error message, or a spinning button that never completes, are useful clues. And note whether the problem started right after an update or change, because that's often the culprit. A safety note: don't edit code, plugins or email settings on a live site unless you're confident — a wrong change can take the form, or the whole site, offline. Write down anything you change so it can be undone.
When it's a job for a professional
If messages still don't arrive after those checks, the cause is usually server-side email configuration or a code fault — quick for someone who does it daily, and risky to guess at. Our website repair service diagnoses the real cause and quotes a fixed price before any work begins, and a website maintenance plan tests your forms routinely so a failure never goes unnoticed again. Not sure what's wrong? Get a free website review and we'll find the cause first.
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