WordPress e-mail password recovery
I had quite a scare this morning. I went to add a new blog post, and discovered that I had forgotten my password. GoDaddy insists on stronger password protection than I normally use for sites like this, so I couldn’t remember it. No big deal, there is a nice “Lost password?” link on the page. But when I clicked it, I saw the following:
The e-mail could not be sent.
Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function.
Well. This was not good at all.
Fortunately GoDaddy had a record of the original admin password, and I had never changed it, so I was able to get in. I then added the username/password combo to our secure corporate knowledgebase.
This is not a fool-proof solution, though — it would not necessarily track password updates. I want e-mail password recovery to work! After some searching I found the following post, How to Send Email with WordPress from GoDaddy. After setting up a GoDaddy e-mail account, then downloading and configuring the recommended WP Mail SMTP plug-in, I was able to send a test e-mail.
On our old hosting plan, any e-mail sent to thekanes.org was automatically forwarded to me. In solving this problem I discovered that wasn’t the case. With a little work I configured that option.
Moral of the story: if you install a new app, check that the e-mail password function actually works. You never know when you will need it.