Frequent Troubleshooting Issues
We do our best to make GiveWP as intuitive as possible. But there may still be times when something is not crystal clear. This is a list of questions that we hear from users often that should help clarify any sticking points.
Articles in this section:
Spam Donations and What to do About ThemCommon issues some GiveWP users have and how to resolve them
This happens when your “Success Page” is not configured correctly. When GiveWP was installed, it automatically created a Success page for you and set it in the settings. Occasionally, a user might unknowingly delete that page. If that happens the setting has nowhere to go.
To fix this, create a new page, then go to “Donations > Settings” and on the “General” tab select that new page from the dropdown on the “Success Page” setting.
The reports are a powerful feature. But for sites that get a lot of traffic, it can take a really long time to load the report. To optimize the performance of the reports, the data is saved in what’s called a “Transient”. So if you wait about an hour, that transient will be automatically cleared.Then, go to Donations > Tools > Data > Recount Stats and run all the recalculation options from the dropdown menu and your reports will be all set.
GiveWP does not support donations that cannot be attributed to a real person. This is primarily because our audience is nonprofit organizations first and foremost. Nonprofit organizations are required to be able to disclose their donors.
The website Nonprofit issues explains this well:
When you say 501(c)(3) organization, I assume you mean a public charity and not a private foundation. With a private foundation, there is no such thing as an anonymous donor because all donors have to be disclosed on the annual Form 990-PF tax return, which is a public document.
With a public charity, a large donor has to be disclosed to the IRS on Schedule B to the annual Form 990 tax information return. But that is not a completely public document so that the name on the form might be known only by the preparer and the officer who signs the return. Directors, of course, have a legal right to inspect the books and records of the corporation so they have a legal right to know the identity. They may decide to rely on the president, the board chair, or an executive committee to determine whether to accept such a gift without personally knowing its source, but they have a right to know. (If there are voting members of the corporation, they may also have a legal right to inspect the books to find out.)
Source: Nonprofit Issues
If you believe you have a donor base that requires anonymity, we would suggest you research these truly anonymous options.
Our database update routine requires the use of a core WordPress file called admin-ajax.php. Some security plugins wrongly block admin-ajax.php, and this can create problems for plugins which rely on it. We have a full article on this issue and how to resolve it here.
These types of errors are often due to the wrong version of jQuery being loaded on the site, or your site stripping query strings from the assets.
To check for this happening in your browser:
- Open up the page on your site where your donation form resides.
- Right-click anywhere on the screen.
- Select “Inspect” in Google Chrome or “Inspect Element” in Safari
- With the Elements tab open, cmmd+F and search for the word “jquery”
The main jQuery file must come from wp-includes, rather than another source. It must also have the ?ver=1.12.4 as well.
If you do not see wp-includes but instead see wp-content or any other text in that place, your site is running on the wrong version of jQuery. WordPress comes with a core version of jQuery that should not be changed. Speak to your host or developer about making sure your site is using the correct version of jQuery.
If you do not see the mention of ?ver=1.12.4 that appears after “jquery.js”, something is stripping the query strings from the assets.
This is usually caused by caching or optimization plugins or themes. Look for any caching plugins, or performance plugins that perform caching, services on your website.
“Remove query strings” is a setting of many of these tools, which you should turn off or disable. Then clear your website cache to put that change into effect.
The most efficient and clear way to fundraise for more than one campaign is to make a form for each campaign. GiveWP is designed for each fund or cause to have it’s own designated form, so that each fund can benefit from all the features GiveWP has to offer. Having a form for each fund makes it possible to set goals, enable specific content, and gather specific data for each one. Reporting is much simpler this way because a CSV can be more easily parsed. The form name is also sent to the payment gateway, so data in that gateway will be more clear and easy to understand.
If there are multiple causes to display on one page, use the Form Grid. (Read more about the Form Grid here: https://givewp.com/how-to-use-donation-form-grid/ and please note that if you are using the new editor in WordPress 5.0 there is a Form Grid block.) There’s not currently a way to split one donation across multiple forms, but the possibility is being considered.
Caching is handled differently on various sites and web hosts, and most of them allow for excluding specific URLs or parts of URLs from caching. At the very least, you should exclude the following slugs from caching:
/donations/
/donation-confirmation/
/donor-dashboard/
Also, the following query strings:
give-embed=donor-dashboard
giveDonationFormInIframe=1
Your hosting support can help with that. Some of them may require what’s called a “wildcard” like /donations/* to capture all subdirectories under the /donations/ folder.
You can also temporarily disable caching on the site to confirm that the uncached site isn’t showing the problem.
Click the eye icon next to any recent error message to see the detailed message about why the problem occurred. If the error is too vague, contact our Support team for some extra assistance.
The Subscription Status dropdown is an internal GiveWP status that does not communicate with the gateway. Similarly, the Delete or Update Subscription does not communicate with the gateway.
Even when using the Cancel Subscription button, we recommend site admins triple-check at the gateway to make sure the subscription is canceled.
Not all gateways are built equally, and you might not see a Cancel Subscription button. In that case, you’ll need to cancel the subscription at the gateway.
