Troubleshoot contact forms, lead capture forms, and email opt-in blocks on UniLink — from failed submissions to missing notifications and broken webhooks.
Forms are one of the highest-value blocks on a UniLink page — they capture leads, collect inquiries, build email lists, and trigger automations. When they stop working, you are not just losing convenience; you may be losing real business. The challenge is that form failures are often silent: a visitor fills in the form and clicks Submit, nothing happens on their end, and you never find out until someone messages you to say they submitted a form three days ago and never heard back.
This guide covers the full lifecycle of a UniLink form submission — from the moment a visitor clicks Submit through to the email notification in your inbox, the CRM entry, and the webhook that triggers your automation. At each stage, there is a distinct set of failure modes with a specific diagnosis and fix.
What This Guide Covers
This article addresses all major form failure scenarios: submissions that do not go through at all (validation errors, file size limits, CAPTCHA blocks), submissions that complete but notifications never arrive (spam filters, wrong notification address), CRM entries that are not created (disconnected integration), confirmation emails that are not sent to the submitter, and webhooks that fail silently.
It covers both the visitor-side experience — what they see when a form fails — and the admin-side configuration — what you need to check and change in the Dashboard to restore normal function. By the end you will be able to verify that every part of the submission pipeline is working correctly, end to end.
If you are setting up a form for the first time and cannot get a test submission to complete, start at the "How to Get Started" section. If forms were working before and have recently stopped, jump directly to the "Step-by-Step Guide".
How to Get Started
- Submit a test entry yourself — open your page in an incognito window, fill in every field (including optional ones), and click Submit. Note whether you see a success confirmation message, an error message, or nothing at all. This tells you immediately which part of the pipeline to investigate.
- Check your notification email inbox — go to the email address you set as the form notification recipient and check both the main inbox and the spam/junk folder. Email providers frequently filter automated form notifications as bulk mail.
- Open Dashboard → Forms — UniLink stores every form submission in the Dashboard regardless of whether the email notification was delivered. If submissions appear here but you are not receiving emails, the problem is delivery, not the form itself.
- Verify the notification email address — in the block settings for your form, check that the notification email is spelled correctly and is an address you actively monitor. A single typo means all notifications go nowhere.
- Check the form's required fields — open the block editor and review which fields are marked required (usually indicated by an asterisk). If a required field is not visible or is confusing to visitors, many will submit without completing it and see a generic validation error.
Step-by-Step Guide
- Diagnose the submission error — if visitors see a red error on submit, it is a validation failure (empty required field, invalid email format, or file too large). If they click Submit and nothing happens, it is likely a JavaScript error or a network failure. Open browser DevTools → Console while testing to see any error message.
- Check spam folder and add a whitelist rule — go to your email provider's spam or junk folder and search for the sender address UniLink uses for notifications (typically [email protected] or a similar platform address). If you find form notifications there, mark them as "Not spam" and add the sender to your contacts or safe-senders list to prevent future filtering.
- Verify the notification email in block settings — in the Dashboard, open the form block editor and locate the "Notification email" field. Confirm it shows the correct address. Update it if needed and click Save & Publish. Send another test submission to confirm delivery.
- Check CRM connection — go to Dashboard → Integrations → CRM. If you have connected a CRM (e.g., HubSpot, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign), check that the connection status shows "Active". Password changes or revoked OAuth tokens can silently disconnect the integration. If it shows "Disconnected" or "Error", click Reconnect and go through the authentication flow again.
- Review CAPTCHA settings — if your form has CAPTCHA enabled (Google reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha), legitimate users can occasionally be blocked, especially on VPNs or corporate networks. Check Dashboard → Forms → Submissions to see if there are submission attempts that were flagged. You can lower the CAPTCHA sensitivity or switch challenge types in the form block settings.
- Verify confirmation email settings — if you have enabled a confirmation email that is sent to the person who submits the form, check that the "Confirmation email" toggle is on and that the subject line and body text are filled in. A blank confirmation email template causes the send to fail silently on most email providers.
- Test your webhook endpoint — if you have configured a webhook (Dashboard → Form block → Webhook URL), use a service like Webhook.site or RequestBin to create a temporary test endpoint. Replace your webhook URL with the test URL, submit the form, and confirm the payload arrives. If it does, the problem is with your original endpoint (server down, URL changed, authentication required). If it does not, check that the webhook URL in the block settings has no trailing spaces or http/https mismatch.
Key Settings Explained
| Setting | What it controls | Best practice |
|---|---|---|
| Notification email | The address that receives an email for each new submission | Use an email you check daily; add [email protected] to your safe-senders list to prevent spam filtering |
| Required fields | Which form fields must be filled before Submit is enabled | Require only what you truly need — every extra required field reduces form completion rate |
| CAPTCHA | Bot prevention challenge shown before or after submission | Enable for public pages to prevent spam; use "invisible" reCAPTCHA to minimise friction for real users |
| CRM integration | Automatically adds each submission as a contact in your CRM | After any CRM password change, reconnect the integration in Dashboard → Integrations immediately |
| Webhook URL | Sends a POST request with submission data to an external service | Test the webhook with a dummy endpoint (webhook.site) before connecting your production automation |
How to Get the Most Out of It
Set up a weekly reminder to open Dashboard → Forms and scroll through recent submissions, even if email notifications are working perfectly. This habit catches any submissions that arrived during periods when your email was down or filtered aggressively, and it gives you a quick view of form volume trends — useful for knowing when your page is seeing a traffic spike.
If you use a CRM integration, always test it end-to-end after first connecting it: submit a test form entry, then immediately open your CRM and verify the contact was created with the right field mapping. CRM field names rarely map perfectly on the first attempt — email may map to "Email Address" in one system and "Primary Email" in another — and catching this early saves you from a backlog of unlinked contacts.
For webhook-powered automations (Zapier, Make, n8n), build a fallback: configure the form to also send an email notification to yourself. If the webhook fails for any reason — server restart, URL change, rate limit — you still have every submission in your email and in the Dashboard, and you can replay the webhook manually once the issue is resolved.
Consider adding a confirmation message to the form (not just an email, but an on-page success banner). This small UX addition dramatically reduces "did my form submit?" support questions from visitors and gives you indirect confirmation that submissions are going through even when you are not actively monitoring the Dashboard.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Form shows error on submit but fields look correct | Hidden required field or file attachment over the size limit | Check all required fields including hidden ones; reduce file attachment size to under 5 MB |
| Submissions appear in Dashboard but no email arrives | Notification email in spam or wrong address entered | Check spam folder; update notification email in block settings; add sender to safe-senders list |
| CRM contacts not being created | Integration disconnected (OAuth expired or password changed) | Go to Dashboard → Integrations → reconnect CRM; re-test with a new form submission |
| Webhook not firing | Webhook URL changed, server down, or authentication required | Test URL in Webhook.site; check for trailing spaces or wrong protocol (http vs https) in the URL field |
Pros
- Dashboard → Forms stores all submissions permanently — no data is lost even if email notifications fail
- Multiple notification channels (email + CRM + webhook) provide redundancy
- CAPTCHA prevents spam submissions and keeps your CRM data clean
- Confirmation emails to submitters improve trust and reduce "did it go through?" inquiries
Cons
- CRM OAuth tokens can expire silently — reconnection requires a manual step in the Dashboard
- Email notifications can be flagged as spam without any warning or bounce notification
- Webhook failures are not retried automatically — missed payloads must be replayed manually
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I see submissions that arrived before I set up the notification email?
Yes. Dashboard → Forms shows all submissions ever received for your forms, with timestamps. The notification email is only for real-time alerts — the Dashboard log is always the complete record. You can export submissions to CSV from the Dashboard for use in spreadsheets or for importing into a CRM retroactively.
A visitor says they submitted the form but I cannot find their entry — what happened?
Check Dashboard → Forms first and search by date and time. If the entry truly is not there, the submission likely did not complete on the visitor's end — the most common reasons are a required field error they dismissed without noticing, a CAPTCHA they did not complete, or a network interruption before the submission request was sent. Ask the visitor to try again in a different browser or on a different network.
My CAPTCHA is blocking visitors who are not bots — what should I do?
Switch from a visible checkbox CAPTCHA to an invisible reCAPTCHA v3 in the form block settings. reCAPTCHA v3 scores traffic in the background and only challenges users who look suspicious, instead of challenging everyone. If the problem persists for visitors on VPNs or corporate networks, consider disabling CAPTCHA and using a honeypot field instead — a hidden field that real users never fill in but bots always do.
Why is the confirmation email going to the submitter's spam folder?
Confirmation emails sent from platform no-reply addresses are sometimes filtered by aggressive spam rules. You can improve deliverability by customising the email subject line (avoid all-caps, excessive punctuation, and words like "FREE" or "WINNER"), keeping the body text concise, and ensuring the email includes your brand name. If you have a custom domain email you want to send from, check if UniLink supports custom SMTP in your plan settings.
How many form submissions can I receive per month?
Submission limits depend on your UniLink plan. Check Dashboard → Account → Plan to see your current limits and usage. If you are on a free plan and approaching the limit, you will receive a warning and submissions over the limit may be stored but not trigger notifications. Upgrading your plan raises or removes the submission limit.
Key Takeaways
- Dashboard → Forms is the definitive record of all submissions — check it first before assuming submissions are lost.
- Notification emails frequently land in spam; add the UniLink sender address to your safe-senders list immediately after setup.
- CRM integrations can disconnect silently after password changes — reconnect and re-test whenever you update CRM credentials.
- Always test webhooks with a dummy endpoint (webhook.site) before connecting to a production automation.
- Add an on-page success confirmation message to reduce visitor confusion and give yourself passive confirmation that submissions are completing.
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