The error appears when Contact Form 7 marks a submission as spam. It shows an orange border and the message “Spam protection error. Please try again later.”
The spam check runs on the server after the AJAX request. It evaluates the reCAPTCHA response, the Akismet result, hidden honeypot fields, the nonce and any custom filters.
If any check fails, CF7 returns a spam status. Common failures include mismatched reCAPTCHA keys, missing Akismet key, a filled hidden field, JavaScript conflict that strips the nonce, or a firewall that blocks the request.
Server side rules such as ModSecurity or Cloudflare bot management can also trigger the same response. The request never reaches the mail function.
An outdated CF7 version may use an old reCAPTCHA API. That might cause false positives. Keeping the plugin up to date avoids the issue.