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Reading your Event Log

What each column means, how to find one customer's submission, and what to change if a real person was stopped.

Updated 24 October 2026

The short answer

Every submission Spambuster checks is a row: when, which form, its score, your threshold, and whether it was let through (Pass) or stopped (Fail). A score at or below your threshold is stopped.

The columns

Illustration of the Spambuster Event Log A table with the columns Timestamp, Form Type, Score, Threshold, Result and Browser. One row failed with a score of 10.0 percent against a threshold of 50.0 percent. Event Log (128 events) Spotlight fails Show Filters TimestampForm TypeScore ThresholdResultBrowser 24 Oct 2026, 9:14 amContact90.0%50.0% PassSafari 24 Oct 2026, 8:52 amContact10.0%50.0% FailChrome 24 Oct 2026, 8:30 amNewsletter60.0%50.0% PassFirefox 24 Oct 2026, 8:02 amContact30.0%50.0% FailChrome 1 2 3 4
Illustration of the Event Log in Spambuster, with made-up rows. Open Spambuster in your Shopify admin to see yours.
  1. Score. How much this visit looked like a person, shown as a percentage: 90.0% is very likely a person, 10.0% very likely a bot. It's the score Google's reCAPTCHA gave the visit.
  2. Threshold. Your setting when it was checked. 50.0% means 0.5 in Settings.
  3. Result. Pass: let through, and the message reached you. Fail: stopped, and the message was not sent.
  4. Spotlight fails. Shows only the stopped ones. Show Filters narrows by form, result, browser or score.

Why was a row stopped? Compare its score with its threshold: the highlighted row scored 10.0% against a threshold of 50.0%, so it was stopped. The table also has an IP Address column, which helps you spot the same bot coming back.

A customer says they were stopped

  1. Ask roughly when they triedAnd which form: contact, newsletter, login.
  2. Find their rowIn Event Log, click Spotlight fails, then look for that form near that time.
  3. Look at the scoreA real person stopped just under your threshold, say 40.0% against 50.0%, is a sign your setting is a little strict for your customers. Often they were on a VPN or a privacy browser.
  4. Lower the threshold one stepIn Spambuster, Settings, move it down one step and click Save. 0.5 is a sensible middle.

No Fail row at that time? Then Spambuster didn't stop them. What your customers see covers the other things that can happen, and Form not working? helps you find the cause.

No rows at all?

Spambuster isn't checking anything yet, usually because it's switched off in your theme. Turn it on, then send yourself a message from your contact form and watch a row appear within a minute.