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CleanTalk blocking real form submissions: how to check and fix it

Open the Anti-Spam Log in your CleanTalk dashboard and filter by Denied. Every request CleanTalk blocked is listed there, with the message, for 7 days (45 if you pay for the Extra Package). Your WordPress site keeps no copy, so the log is the only place a blocked enquiry exists. Mark the real one Not spam and CleanTalk adds that sender's email and IP to your site's allow list. If every submission is being blocked, not just some, it's usually the access key or the server's DNS. Both are covered below.

Last checked 27 Sep 2026

First, confirm it's CleanTalk

When CleanTalk blocks a form, the visitor sees an error that ends in Anti-Spam by CleanTalk. In our tests it looked like this:

*** Forbidden. priya@example.in: Mail domain does not exist. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk. ***

If a customer tells you the form "didn't work", ask them what it said. If they saw something like that, CleanTalk stopped it. If they saw a normal thank-you message and you still got nothing, the problem is more likely your email. See the two causes of missing form emails.

You can't find the message in WordPress. We read the CleanTalk 6.88 plugin code: it sends each submission to CleanTalk's cloud for a verdict and stores only stats and cookies on your site. Contact Form 7 on its own doesn't store messages either.

How to get a blocked enquiry back and stop it happening again

  1. Open the Anti-Spam Log

    Log in at cleantalk.org, then go to your Anti-Spam Log. Filter by status Denied and by the website. The log shows each blocked request's content, so you can copy the enquiry and reply to the customer.

  2. Do it within 7 days

    CleanTalk keeps 7 days of log on the standard plan and 45 days with the paid Extra Package, according to its help page. After that the blocked message is gone.

  3. Mark it "Not spam"

    Click Spam/Not spam on the record. CleanTalk's help page says marking a record "Not spam" adds its email and IP to your site's personal white list, and that staff review marked records to improve the filters. This lets that one sender through next time. It doesn't change how CleanTalk judges the next new customer.

  4. Check your Personal Lists for broad rules

    Personal lists can block a whole country or every address at a domain (for example *@mail.com). CleanTalk's own manual says to use them "very carefully". A country block added to stop spam will also stop every real customer from that country.

  5. Check the access key

    In Settings → Anti-Spam by CleanTalk, make sure the key is there and your licence is active. See the next section for why this matters both ways.

  6. Ask CleanTalk why

    If one type of customer keeps getting blocked, open a ticket with CleanTalk support and give them the request from the log. They can see which check fired. The plugin doesn't show you that on the site.

When CleanTalk blocks everything: two set-up problems we reproduced

We ran CleanTalk 6.88 with Contact Form 7 6.1.7 and WPForms Lite 2.0.2.1 on a local WordPress test site on 27 Sep 2026, with no CleanTalk account. Two set-up problems stood out.

1. The server can't do reverse DNS lookups

If every form on the site fails with this message, look at the server's DNS:

*** Unknown response from /api2.0: Only HTTP(S) requests are handled. Anti-Spam service cleantalk.org ***

CleanTalk 6.88 picks which of its servers to use by looking up each server's IP in reverse (a PTR record) and checking that the name points back. If your server's DNS resolver doesn't answer reverse lookups, CleanTalk throws every server away, the request goes nowhere, and the form is blocked. That happened to every submission in our test, including a genuine enquiry, on both Contact Form 7 and WPForms. Pointing the server at a normal public resolver fixed it.

To check, run this on the server (or ask your host to). It should print a cleantalk.org hostname. In our test, 159.69.51.30 resolved to moderate4.cleantalk.org.

dig -x 159.69.51.30 +short

We saw this in two local test set-ups. We haven't seen it on a live host, but any host whose resolver skips reverse lookups should hit the same code path.

2. The access key is missing or wrong

With no key, CleanTalk still sent every submission to its cloud, which answered "Antispam disabled. Check access key" and let everything through. So a site with an empty key has no CleanTalk protection at all.

With a deliberately wrong key, it didn't switch off. The cloud still ran its sender checks: whether the email domain exists, whether a Gmail mailbox exists, whether the browser ran CleanTalk's JavaScript, and whether one IP was submitting too fast. It blocked every Contact Form 7 and WPForms test, including our "genuine" enquiry. One caveat: our test used made-up email addresses and scripted requests with no browser, so some of those blocks were fair. What it does show is that a bad key doesn't mean CleanTalk has stopped checking.

We haven't tested a valid, paid key with real customers' addresses yet. If you have, we'd like to hear what you found.

You're not the only one

These are from the CleanTalk support forum on WordPress.org:

"This is a client page, we have potentially lost average 2500 € per blocked lead."

July 2025 · thread

"8 genuine 'new customer' form submissions have been marked as spam… but I don't understand why."

August 2025 · thread

"I can only see data logs for the previous 7 days."

January 2026 · thread

In a September 2026 thread, CleanTalk's reply about a legitimate entry was that it "was blocked because its IP address is on our block lists" (thread). So a real customer on a shared or previously abused IP address can be blocked for the IP alone, whatever they wrote.

If you'd rather be told automatically

Missed Form Alert is a WordPress plugin we're building. It keeps a copy of every submission that reaches your site, before any spam filter acts on it. If your filter blocked one that looks like a real enquiry, or the notification email failed to send, it emails you the message.

It works next to CleanTalk, Akismet or whatever you already use, and it never blocks anything itself. Contact Form 7 and WPForms for now. It's free during early access. See how it works.

Questions

Does CleanTalk keep a copy of blocked form messages?
Yes, in the Anti-Spam Log in your cleantalk.org dashboard, for 7 days on the standard plan and 45 days with the Extra Package. Your WordPress site itself keeps no copy of the blocked message.
How do I stop CleanTalk blocking a specific customer?
Find their request in the Anti-Spam Log and mark it Not spam. CleanTalk adds their email and IP address to your site's personal white list.
Why is CleanTalk blocking every single form submission?
Check that the access key is valid, and check the error text. If it says "Unknown response from /api2.0: Only HTTP(S) requests are handled", the server's DNS resolver is probably not answering reverse (PTR) lookups, which CleanTalk 6.88 needs to choose a server. Ask your host to fix the resolver.
Does CleanTalk work without an API key?
No. In our test with no key, CleanTalk's cloud replied "Antispam disabled. Check access key" and allowed every submission, spam included.

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