How to work around "that email address has already been used" error?

Question

The following error may occur if a previous registration remains pending with a conflicting email address.

That email address has already been used. Please check your inbox for an activation email. It will become available in a couple of days if you do nothing.

The related username error looks like the following.

That username is currently reserved but may be available in a couple of days.

Answer 1

When I add a new user with a different email address, I get the error message: That username is currently reserved but may be available in a couple of days.

For me, I removed the row from the database in the table wp_signups where user_login equaled the username. Essentially:

delete from wp_signups where user_login = 'abc';

Then I was able to re-add the user.

Edit suggestion by @aubreypwd: Additionally, admins (network admins only in an MU or network install) have the option to add users without sending an email. If you check that option, it avoids this process.

Answer 2

1. Login as WordPress administrator
2. Navigate to add a new user
3. Check box to bypass email confirmation
4. Add the user with a different email address
5. Edit the user's email address to the desired result

For the similar username error, see How can I un-reserve a pending username registration?

The timeout period is 2 days following a conflict, and trac tickets to clarify this process currently exist here and here.

Answer 3

To work around the "that email address has already been used" error, we can create a plugin that effectively bypasses the check. The plugin will work in three parts, utilizing three different hooks.

pre_user_login filters a username after it has been sanitized. We'll use this hook to grab the user, of particular interest is the email.

pre_user_email filters a user’s email before the user is created or updated. We'll use this hook to modify the email to some random characters.

user_register fires immediately after a new user is registered. We'll use this hook to manually update the user email after the user is registered.

add_filter( 'pre_user_email', [ new wpse_212671(), 'pre_user_login' ] );
class wpse_212671 {
  protected $user;
  public function pre_user_login( $user ) {
    $this->user = $user;
    if( isset( $user[ 'ID' ] ) || ! get_user_by( 'email', $user[ 'user_email' ] ) {
      return $user;
    }
    add_filter( 'pre_user_email', [ $this, 'pre_user_email' ] );
    add_action( 'user_register',  [ $this, 'user_register' ] );
  }
  public function pre_user_email( $email ) {
    return $this->generate_random_string();
  }
  public function user_register( $user_id ) {
    global $wpdb;
    $table = $wpdb->prefix . 'users';
    $wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare(
      "UPDATE %s 
      SET user_email = %s
      WHERE user_login = %s", 
      $table,
      $this->user[ 'user_email' ], 
      $this->user[ 'user_login' ]
    ) );
  }
  //* Code slightly modified from http://stackoverflow.com/a/13212994/6077935
  protected function generate_random_string( $length = 40 ) {
    return substr( str_shuffle( str_repeat( 
      $x='0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ',
      ceil( $length / strlen( $x ) )
    ) ), 1, $length );
  }
}

Answer 4

If you're comfortable working directly in MySQL and would rather not write code or install a plugin just for this task, you can fix this issue pretty simply.

Inside your site's MySQL database, there will be a table named { $wpdb->prefix }_signups, where $wpdb->prefix is whatever prefix you have configured WP to use for its database datables. (By default, that is wp_.)

Query that table by the email address that's locked up to find the signup record for it:

SELECT * FROM {$wpdb->prefix}_signups WHERE user_email = '{ email address }';

That should bring back the record of the signup attempt for that email address. Then just DELETE that record from the table, and you're done.

Answer 5

There is a useful plugin called "User Activation Keys" which adds a menu item to the Network Users interface:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/user-activation-keys/

This allows for editing/deleting/approving user activation requests and subsequently reserved email addresses/usernames.