Troubleshooting Post Gopher

If you are experiencing problems with your PostGopher, we offer the following "frequently met problems" as a way to do some troubleshooting to save yourself time!

1. Check you have the latest version of the plugin installed: go to PLUGINS and see if there is one for PostGopher outstanding
2. Ensure your host is using the latest version of PHP - they will be able to tell you this.  Click HERE to see how you can upgrade it yourself on Hostgator. 
3. Check you don't have any plugin conflicts: deactivate all but PostGopher, check if it works.  If it does, activate each plugin one at a time, checking PostGopher after doing so.  If there is a conflict this will isolate it.  Alternatively you could use the HealthCheck Plugin.  More details can be found HERE
4. Are you using a "Visual" page builder  -  DIVI, ProfitBuilder, WP Bakery, Elementor are among a few that simply won't work. The reason is that this type of page builder is a plugin instead of a theme. They do a lot of work (on the fly and with code) to bypass the WordPress theme you have installed. Post Gopher is designed to take a largely text based post and create a PDF.   We recommend that page builders not be used to create blog posts - they are designed for squeeze pages, landing pages, sales pages.  Using one in your blog posts may result in a blank PDF being generated or "Code" in the PDF. So, try using your existing WordPress theme for the posts you want to use Post Gopher on - or  switching to a theme based page builder.
5. If, when you test and are generating the PDF, you get an error: Fatal Error undefined function mb_convert_encoding(), you need to ask your hosting company to insure that the mb string PHP module is installed.  Normally is is but if you encounter this error ... that is the reason!
6. If you are getting a lot of "code" or receiving a "broken PDF" file it may be that your hosting company have not enabled fopen wrappers and disabled PHP warning messages.  They will understand if you ask them!
7. If there is no PDF link in the download email it may be that you have not got the macro DOWNLOAD-LINK somewhere in the Leadgen email content and the 'Download Link Text' field filled in.  The DOWNLOAD-LINK macro must be spelled  exactly as shown, not translated since it is an instruction to Post Gopher to insert the link.
8. If the PDF link in the download is redirecting your subscribers back to the HOME page of your site instead of the post, check that your WordPress site URL is the same as the blog URL, ie the usual setting.  This error occurs if you have installed your blog in a subfolder called, say, mydomain.com/blog but in your WordPress settings you have set the WordPress homepage URL to be your top level domain name, eg mydomain.com
9. Are your subscribers receiving their PDF but not getting added to your list?  Please contact your Autoresponder Service giving them the details of the list in question,  and ask them if they are getting any errors their end.  There may be some kind of restriction on the list you have selected.

You can also check out the common error messages and their solutions ... see the Related Articles below