ActiveLayer Anti-Spam changelog and version history

202613 releases

1. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.7.2Latest

   Oct 9, 2026
   • Added: Submissions — new Message column after Email shows up to 200 characters of each message for quicker review.
   • Fixed: Contact Form 7 — creating a new form no longer causes a critical error when the form has not yet been assigned an ID. New forms default to protection enabled; saved forms retain their protection settings.
   • Improved: Admin — the payment method notice now highlights the 100 extra requests available when adding a payment method.
   • Maintenance: Resolved WordPress Plugin Check warnings in upgrade notices and database query annotations.

2. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.7.1

   Sep 15, 2026
   • Fixed: Settings — saving a new API key with “Save Changes” now verifies it and registers the site with ActiveLayer, exactly like the “Verify Key” button. Previously only “Verify Key” and the one-click Connect flow did this, and “Verify Key” disappears once a key is stored, so sites set up by pastin…

3. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.7.0

   Sep 8, 2026
   • Added: WPForms — spam status now syncs both ways, including forms using tracking mode. Marking a submission as Spam or Clean in ActiveLayer updates the matching WPForms Pro entry, and using WPForms’ own “Spam” / “Not Spam” entry actions (single or bulk) corrects the ActiveLayer submission and sends…
   • Added: Submissions — new “IP Address” column so you can spot recurring IPs and subnets at a glance.
   • Added: Submissions — choose how many submissions to show per page (1–200) from the Screen Options panel. Defaults to 20 as before.
   • Added: Submissions — “Delete” bulk action that removes selected submissions permanently, alongside the existing “Move to Trash”.
   • Added: Submissions — “Mark as Spam” and “Mark as Clean” bulk actions are now both offered on the All view, so you no longer have to switch to the Clean or Spam tab to change a status.
   • Added: Tools — “Delete All Submissions” tool that wipes every stored submission regardless of status or age, including Trash, and immediately refreshes submission lists, counts and cached details.
   • Fixed: WPForms — in synchronous mode, forms with “Store Spam Entries” turned off no longer save a spam entry. Spam is now rejected before the entry is written, so no notification, webhook, marketing or user-registration action fires for blocked submissions. Forms that store spam entries and payment…
   • Fixed: WPForms — the custom block message is now shown to the visitor. Previously WPForms discarded it and displayed only its generic error notice.
   • Fixed: WPForms — entries marked as spam now name ActiveLayer in the “This entry was marked as spam by …” notice on the entry details screen.
   • Fixed: WPForms — in asynchronous mode, notification emails are no longer lost on sites where Action Scheduler is unavailable. Previously the notification was held waiting for a verdict that could never arrive, so the email was never sent.
   • Fixed: Submissions — the bottom “Apply” button for bulk actions did nothing, and the confirmation dialog before permanent deletion never appeared. Both work now.
   • Fixed: Admin — the Help link in the plugin header now opens the WordPress plugin guide instead of the API developer docs.
   • Fixed: Admin — the welcome screen no longer leaves an empty item in the WordPress Dashboard submenu.
   • Fixed: Admin — the WordPress toolbar no longer overlaps the ActiveLayer logo and Help link on mobile screens.
   • Fixed: Ninja Forms — forms without entry storage can be submitted again after a spam rejection without reloading the page. Each retry is checked for spam again.
   • Fixed: Tools — Empty Trash, Delete All Spam and deletion of old submissions now immediately refresh cached counts, charts and submission details on sites using a persistent object cache.
   • Compatibility: Tested up to WordPress 7.1.

4. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.6.2

   Aug 7, 2026
   • Fixed: WPForms — notification emails for forms with Repeater fields now include every row. Previously only the first row appeared in the email, even though the entry itself stored all of them.
   • Fixed: Submissions — dates and relative times are now shown in your site’s timezone. On sites not set to UTC the times were off by the timezone offset (a submission made at 16:11 in Berlin appeared as 18:11), and a brand-new submission could read as “2 hours ago”.

5. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.6.1

   Jul 27, 2026
   • Fixed: Multisite — subsites did not create their submissions table, so on those sites the dashboard stayed stuck loading and form submissions were never checked for spam. Each site now creates its table automatically.
   • Fixed: Dashboard — the analytics chart no longer spins an endless loading indicator on sites that have no submission data yet (e.g. brand-new installs).

6. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.6.0

   Jul 20, 2026
   • Added: WordPress Abilities support (WordPress 6.9+) — registers read-only abilities (list, search, and view submissions; get statistics; get settings) so compatible tools and AI assistants can query your anti-spam data without changing anything.
   • Fixed: WPForms — held email notifications are now released correctly when the background queue runs through the admin-ajax async runner.

7. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.5.0

   Jun 25, 2026
   • Added: Easy Digital Downloads integration — spam protection for product reviews and the standalone customer registration form. The EDD checkout is never gated, so spam protection can’t interrupt a purchase.
   • Added: FunnelKit Funnel Builder integration — synchronous spam blocking for opt-in (lead capture) forms before FunnelKit runs its email, CRM contact, and webhook actions, with per-form control.
   • Improved: Client-side signal diagnostics — submissions now report whether behavioral and environment signals arrived intact, were empty, or were stripped before reaching the server, helping the API tell real visitors from tampered requests more accurately.

8. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.4.1

   Jun 18, 2026
   • Improved: WooCommerce — account registration during checkout now completes smoothly without an inline spam check, keeping the purchase flow uninterrupted. The standalone My Account registration form stays protected.
   • Improved: MemberPress — paid memberships complete signup without an inline spam check for a seamless checkout. Free memberships, free trials, and fully-discounted signups remain protected, with an optional setting to extend checks to paid signups.

9. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.4.0

   Jun 16, 2026
   • Added: AffiliateWP integration — synchronous protection for affiliate registration before the affiliate and WordPress user are created.
   • Added: MemberPress integration — synchronous protection for membership registration before the WordPress user account and membership are created.
   • Added: WS Form integration — synchronous spam blocking before WS Form saves entries or runs actions, with per-form protection controls.
   • Added: New translations — Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, and Simplified Chinese.
   • Fixed: Message body — links and line breaks in submitted messages are now preserved when sent to the spam API, improving detection accuracy.
   • Fixed: WPForms — marking an entry as “Not Spam” in the admin no longer re-runs detection or reverts the entry.
   • Fixed: Dashboard — the plugin recommendation now detects and activates an already-installed Pro variant instead of downloading the Lite version.

10. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.3.1

    Jun 12, 2026
    • Fixed: Internal plugin version constant was left at 1.2.0 in the 1.3.0 release, so browsers and page caches kept serving outdated CSS/JS assets after the update. Asset cache-busting now works correctly again.

11. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam v1.3.0

    Jun 8, 2026

12. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.2.0

    May 25, 2026
    • Added: WooCommerce integration umbrella — full anti-spam coverage for the two highest-risk WooCommerce surfaces (Product Reviews and Customer Registration), managed from a single panel under ActiveLayer → Integrations.
    • Added: WooCommerce Reviews protection — every product review is scored on submission, with optional verified-owner bypass, logged-in-user bypass, and high-confidence auto-delete.
    • Added: WooCommerce Registration protection — blocks bot signups on the My Account form, classic [woocommerce_checkout], and the new Cart/Checkout Blocks (default since WooCommerce 8.3). The “Allow customers to create an account during checkout” setting is honoured in every flow.
    • Added: Silent-discard option for high-confidence spam comments and WooCommerce reviews — items at or above the configurable score threshold (default 95) are hard-deleted instead of moved to the spam folder. (#127)
    • Added: Native moderation feedback for WordPress comments and WooCommerce product reviews — moderator decisions (approve / spam / trash) are sent back to the ActiveLayer API to improve detection accuracy.
    • Fixed: Comments — moderator email notifications are now suppressed until ActiveLayer returns a verdict; deferred notification is dispatched correctly when a held comment is restored.
    • Fixed: WooCommerce Reviews — moderator notifications are likewise suppressed while a review awaits classification.
    • Fixed: Fluent Forms — abort message is now sent as a string to prevent a frontend TypeError when a blocking message is shown.
    • Fixed: Submissions — the View Submission screen now surfaces the API error message for failed submissions instead of hiding the API Response panel entirely, making API outages easier to diagnose.
    • Fixed: WPForms Pro — duplicate notification emails on failed-submission retries. EmailReconstructor::allow_submission() is now idempotent: a persistent marker on the WPForms entry prevents the daily retry sweep from re-releasing already-sent notifications when the API is unavailable. (#154)
    • Fixed: Gravity Forms — admin notifications arrived with an empty body and stripped subject merge tags when ActiveLayer protection was enabled.
    • Compatibility: Tested up to WordPress 7.0.

13. ActiveLayer Anti-Spam 1.1.0

    Apr 17, 2026
    • Added: Gravity Forms integration with per-form control and notification management.
    • Added: Elementor Forms integration for Elementor Pro form widgets.
    • Added: Fluent Forms integration with per-form spam detection and email handling.
    • Added: Forminator integration with per-form toggles and notification replay.
    • Added: SureForms integration with per-form control.
    • Added: Global Sync Mode setting for inline spam blocking on supported integrations.
    • Added: Client-side behavioral analysis (keystrokes, mouse, touch, scroll).
    • Added: Environment detection for headless browsers and automated tools.
    • Added: Tools page with bulk delete of old submissions and retention controls.
    • Added: Sync Save strategy for WPForms (full synchronous save with email replay).
    • Added: Conditional frontend script loading — scripts load only on pages with protected forms.
    • Added: API Status link in dashboard quick access.
    • Added: Client signals output for Fluent Forms.
    • Added: UTM tracking parameters on outbound links.
    • Added: activelayer_show_tracking_mode filter for advanced workflows.
    • Improved: Human-readable provider names throughout Submissions admin.
    • Improved: WordPress timezone handling across analytics and cleanup routines.
    • Improved: Atomic reset_for_retry() to prevent race conditions on recheck.
    • Improved: Consolidated admin notices via NoticeHelper.
    • Improved: Security hardening — output escaping, $wpdb->prepare() coverage, input sanitization.
    • Improved: Deactivation and uninstall cleanup across all integrations and transients.
    • Improved: Build pipeline with QA site deployment and asset rebuilds.
    • Fixed: Comments integration now requires a valid API key before activating.
    • Fixed: Graceful handling of null submissions in async worker.
    • Fixed: Dashboard widget compatibility with WPForms Pro.
    • Fixed: Ninja Forms SpamCheckAction edge cases.
    • Fixed: Elementor Forms edit link uses page_id instead of element hash.
    • Fixed: Activation redirect slug and hook priority for first-time installs.
    • Fixed: WPForms SYNC_SAVE now re-sends emails via EmailReconstructor.
    • Fixed: Submission analytics — trash fallback, wp_date() validation, DST edge cases.