Sending multiple emails with PHPmailer

Question

Edit: I forgot I'd created the SendMail(); function myself, which is why the explanation doesn't mention at first what it does.

I'm having some trouble with PHPMailer (https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer) when attempting to send two emails, one directly after the other.

The script is almost completely 'out of the box', with only a few modifications such as a foreach loop to allow for multiple addresses, and everything still works perfectly.

However, if I attempt to call more than one instance of SendMail(); I get the error message:

Fatal error: Cannot override final method Exception::__clone() in .... online 0

Previously I was using the in-built mail(); function, which allowed me to use it as many times as I liked in quick succession , but it doesn't appear to be that simple with PHPmailer:

$to = me@me.com;
$to2 = me2@me2.com';
$headers = 'php headers etc';
$subject = 'generic subject';
$message = 'generic message';
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
mail($to2, $subject, $message, $headers);

The above would result in two identical emails being sent to different people, however I can't easily replicate this functionality with PHPmailer.

Is there a way of stacking these requests so that I can send successive emails without it failing? Forcing the script to wait until the first email has been sent would also be acceptable, although not preferential.

As I mentioned I know it works when only one instance is called, but I don't seem to be able to re-use the function.

I haven't included the source code, although it is all available on the link provided above.

Thanks in advance

Edit as requested

// First Email
$to = array(
'test@test.com',
 'test2@test.com',);
$subject = "Subject";
$message = $message_start.$message_ONE.$message_end;

sendMail();

// Second Email
$to = array(
'test@test.com',
 'test2@test.com',);
$subject = "Subject";
$message = $message_start.$message_TWO.$message_end;

sendMail();

The above is how I want this to work, as it would work with mail();. The first email will work fine, the second will not.

SendMail() code

This is from the PHPmailer website, and is what is defined as SendMail();. The only difference from the example is the loop for AddAddress, and the inclusion of $to as a global variable.

$mail = new PHPMailer();

$mail->IsSMTP();                                      // set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = "smtp1.example.com;smtp2.example.com";  // specify main and backup server
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = "jswan";  // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "secret"; // SMTP password

$mail->From = "from@example.com";
$mail->FromName = "Mailer";
foreach($to as $to_add){
$mail->AddAddress($to_add);                  // name is optional
}
$mail->AddReplyTo("info@example.com", "Information");

$mail->WordWrap = 50;                                 // set word wrap to 50 characters
$mail->AddAttachment("/var/tmp/file.tar.gz");         // add attachments
$mail->AddAttachment("/tmp/image.jpg", "new.jpg");    // optional name
$mail->IsHTML(true);                                  // set email format to HTML

$mail->Subject = "Here is the subject";
$mail->Body    = "This is the HTML message body <b>in bold!</b>";
$mail->AltBody = "This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients";

if(!$mail->Send())
{
   echo "Message could not be sent. <p>";
   echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
   exit;
}

echo "Message has been sent";

Answer 1

$Mailer->clearAddresses()

This is the solution to avoid multiple msj to be send to the same recipient.

Answer 2

the solution is to reset recipients data like this:

$Mailer->clearAddresses()

use your own variable as an instance of PHPMailer (instead of $Mailer)

Answer 3

In addition to @Amr most excellent code. In order to use this in a cron fasion, two adds are useful.

$mail-> SMTPDebug = true;
$mail-> Debugoutput = function( $str, $level ) {_log($str);};

The function _log is up to you. Writing to a file, to a database or wherever. I personally have reduced this to

$mail-> Debugoutput = function( $str, $level ) {if( $level===3 ) {_log( $str ); } };

to only write the more juicier messages

Answer 4

Added an example below:

<?php
/**
 * This example shows how to send a message to a whole list of recipients efficiently.
 */

//Import the PHPMailer class into the global namespace
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;

error_reporting(E_STRICT | E_ALL);

date_default_timezone_set('Etc/UTC');

require '../vendor/autoload.php';

//Passing `true` enables PHPMailer exceptions
$mail = new PHPMailer(true);

$body = file_get_contents('contents.html');

$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com';
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->SMTPKeepAlive = true; // SMTP connection will not close after each email sent, reduces SMTP overhead
$mail->Port = 25;
$mail->Username = 'yourname@example.com';
$mail->Password = 'yourpassword';
$mail->setFrom('list@example.com', 'List manager');
$mail->addReplyTo('list@example.com', 'List manager');

$mail->Subject = 'PHPMailer Simple database mailing list test';

//Same body for all messages, so set this before the sending loop
//If you generate a different body for each recipient (e.g. you're using a templating system),
//set it inside the loop
$mail->msgHTML($body);
//msgHTML also sets AltBody, but if you want a custom one, set it afterwards
$mail->AltBody = 'To view the message, please use an HTML compatible email viewer!';

//Connect to the database and select the recipients from your mailing list that have not yet been sent to
//You'll need to alter this to match your database
$mysql = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password');
mysqli_select_db($mysql, 'mydb');
$result = mysqli_query($mysql, 'SELECT full_name, email, photo FROM mailinglist WHERE sent = FALSE');

foreach ($result as $row) {
    try {
        $mail->addAddress($row['email'], $row['full_name']);
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        echo 'Invalid address skipped: ' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . '<br>';
        continue;
    }
    if (!empty($row['photo'])) {
        //Assumes the image data is stored in the DB
        $mail->addStringAttachment($row['photo'], 'YourPhoto.jpg');
    }

    try {
        $mail->send();
        echo 'Message sent to :' . htmlspecialchars($row['full_name']) . ' (' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . ')<br>';
        //Mark it as sent in the DB
        mysqli_query(
            $mysql,
            "UPDATE mailinglist SET sent = TRUE WHERE email = '" .
            mysqli_real_escape_string($mysql, $row['email']) . "'"
        );
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        echo 'Mailer Error (' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . ') ' . $mail->ErrorInfo . '<br>';
        //Reset the connection to abort sending this message
        //The loop will continue trying to send to the rest of the list
        $mail->getSMTPInstance()->reset();
    }
    //Clear all addresses and attachments for the next iteration
    $mail->clearAddresses();
    $mail->clearAttachments();
}

Answer 5

You haven't posted this code that lets me make this a complete conclusion, but from the Exception and the way you've defined an overriding class inside a function, you probably have class.phpmailer.php loading every time like this:

require('class.phpmailer.php');

or

include('class.phpmailer.php');

You should change that line to

require_once('class.phpmailer.php');

The reason you need to change it to require_once is so that PHP will not load the class file the second time when you try to create the new/second PHPMailer class. Otherwise, the line class PHPMailer throws the __clone() exception.