An action that once worked now doesn't. How do I debug?

Actions - Help & Questions
1

Hi, I had a great little action working which would prompt me for a WordPress slug, post my text to my WordPress blog, then email that same text to a specified address. It was a huge time saver until it just stopped working.

When I run the action, Drafts simply says “error”. I’m confident that it is getting stuck somewhere in the WordPress steps because WordPress is first in the action and nothing is ever posted.

I have tried searching the docs but I’m not immediately finding whether there may be more info somewhere that will tell me what the error is so I can try to solve it.

Thanks for any help.

2

Any more detailed error in the action log?

Any recent changes to your WordPress hosting (maybe a WP update, or a host policy change)?

Maybe also a credential expiration issue, you might try forgetting your Wordpress credentials in Drafts’ settings and re-authenticating.

3

Thanks Greg, the log is showing HTTP Error: 418, client error, WordPress posting failed.

WordPress and its plug-ins do get updated all the time, but I am not having any other issues with anything else.
I forgot my credentials and re-entered them but this hasn’t resolved it.

4

HTTP 418 errors are usually a host-level security error. Is this a server you control, or on a shared host? I’m guessing a shared host and the provide made some policy changes to block Wordpress XML-RPC request - which is not uncommon in shared environments.

You will likely have to contact your hosting provider and request they make changes to allow it on your domain.

If you Google Wordpress 418 errors, there’s some related posts, like this one.

5

Thanks for the very helpful advice. My hosting provider has resolved this for me now and my handy action is working its magic again.

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