PHP mail form problems

Question

I'm creating a simple mail form with checkboxes, a couple of input tabs, and a text input section. It uses PHP to retrieve the information then email it to a specific email. Right now I have it emailing to my own yahoo email just for testing. When I test the site on my hosting account jacobbuller.com/testsites/peacock/contact.php the form works perfectly and forwards the email from my generic "theski" server email. But when I upload the site to the actually live hosting account for peacockautoservice.com the contact form works - it executes and sends a ?msg=1 variable in the url - but I never receive the email in my Yahoo account...

Here's the PHP I am using to send the email.

<?php ob_start();
<?php 
$required_field = array('name', 'email', 'message');
foreach($required_field as $fieldname) {
if (!isset($_POST[$fieldname])) {
  $errors[] = $fieldname;
}}
if (empty($errors)) {
$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
$contact = $_POST['contact'];
$phone = $_POST['phone'];
$services = IsChecked('checkboxes', 'factory');
$services .= IsChecked('checkboxes', 'timing belt');
$services .= IsChecked('checkboxes', 'brakes');
$services .= IsChecked('checkboxes', 'computerized');
$services .= IsChecked('checkboxes', 'steering and suspension');
$services .= IsChecked('checkboxes', 'heating and air');
$services .= IsChecked('checkboxes', 'electrical');
$services .= IsChecked('checkboxes', 'other');
$body = "Customer:" . $name;
$body.= "Phone Number:" . $phone;
$body.= "Contact:" . $contact;
$body.= "Services:" . $services;
$body.= "Message:" . $message;
$to = "jcbbuller@yahoo.com";
$subject = "Peacock Auto Services Inquirey";
$from = $email;
$mailed = mail($to, $subject, $body, $from) or die("Error!");
 }
if($mailed) {
    redirect_to("../contact.php?msg=1");
}

 ?>
 <?php
 // IsChecked FUNCTION - Detemines what checkbox are/aren't checked on form.
 function IsChecked($postname, $value){ 
    if(!empty($_POST[$postname])) {
        foreach($_POST[$postname] as $job) {
        if ($job == $value) {
            $project = "  ". $value . "  ";
            return $project;

            }
        }
    }
  } //END IsChecked FUNCTION

 function redirect_to( $location = NULL ) {
    if ($location != NULL) {
        header("Location: {$location}");
        exit;
        }
     }   
 ?>
 <?php ob_end_flush(); ?>

Please let me know if you see something wrong with the PHP above or if you know why their GoDaddy hosting account is not executing the email. I tried using their customer service network but they said that they can't help me with my code...

Answer 1

Your issue is mainly at server end. Mail function is working because of your check on it, if it had failed, it would have given you notification. So, mails are going definitely. If mail server is working properly at your production server, then check for SPAM folder at yahoo mail server. I would suggest you to ask your hosting provider to enable SPF and DKIM records because most of email providers requires sender authentication (if it is not a spam) and these records are helpful in it.

I can also see that your not using any headers, so I would suggest you to use extended headers to avoid providers identifying you as a spammer. I use below mentioned headers and my emails never go in spam on anyprovider, but again it depends on IP reputation of the server as well.

    $headers .= "Reply-To: Awaraleo <email@domain.org>\r\n";
    $headers .= "Return-Path: Awaraleo <email@domain.org>\r\n";
    $headers .= "From: Awaraleo <email@domain.org>\r\n"; 
    $headers .= "Organization: Awaraleo\r\n";
    $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
    $headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
    $headers .= "X-Priority: 3\r\n";
    $headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP". phpversion() ."\r\n";

and then use it like

mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);

Here email@domain.org should be a valid email address created on the domain where this form is implemented.

Another authentic way is to use SMTP Authentication in coding.