Codeigniter - email doesn't read config setting

Question

We have a website built with the Codeigniter framework. This site has been working OK (~8 months) until last 2 weeks.

So we have a form, once the user submits the form, we insert the data to our MySQL database and send an email to the user. Now, the database part works fine. But the email function stopped working 2 weeks ago. And I'm sure I didn't change anything in the code.

I created a test for this purpose

public function test_email(){ 

    $this->load->config('email');
    $this->load->library('custom_email');

    $ddd = $this->load->config('email');  
    $data = array(
        //must have
        'recipient'         => 'test@test.com',
        'recipient_name'    => 'Test',
        'title'             => 'Ms',
        'subject'           => 'Email Test',    
        'admin_email'       => $this->config->item('auto_bcc_to'),
        "smtp" =>$this->config->item('smtp_host')
    );
    ch_printr($data);

    $this->custom_email->send('test_email',$data,TRUE);

}

and my libraries/custom_email.php

class custom_email {

    function __construct() {
        $this->ci = & get_instance();
        $this->ci->load->helper('html');
        $this->ci->load->library('email');
    }
    function send($type,$data,$debug_mode = FALSE){

        $data['site_name']  = $this->ci->config->item('site_name');
        $data['message']    = $this->ci->parser->parse('email/email--'.$type,$data,TRUE); 
       return $this->_send($data,$debug_mode);
    }
    private function _send($data,$debug_mode = FALSE){

        $this->ci->config->load("email");

        $email = $data['recipient'];

        $email_message = $data['message'];

        $subject = $data['subject'];

       $headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
       $headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8' . "\r\n";
    // Additional headers
       $headers .= 'From: '.$this->ci->config->item('system_sender_name').'<'.$this->ci->config->item('system_sender_mail').'>' . "\r\n";
        $headers .= 'To: '.$data['recipient_name'].'<'.$data['recipient'].'>' . "\r\n"; 
        $headers .= 'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

       if(mail($email, '=?UTF-8?B?'.base64_encode($subject).'?=', $email_message, $headers)){    //error is pointed here
           return true; 
       }else{
          return false;
       }

    }
}

and config/email.php

$config = Array( 
'protocol' => 'smtp',
'smtp_host' => 'ssl://smtp.gmail.com',
'smtp_port' => 465,
'smtp_user' => 'webmaster@test.com', 
'smtp_pass' => 'myPassword',
'mailtype'  => 'html', 
'charset'   => 'utf-8',
'crlf'      => "\r\n",       
'newline'   => "\r\n",       

'system_sender_mail'    => 'webmaster@test.com',
'system_sender_name'    => 'Webmaster',
'auto_bcc_to'           => 'admin@test.com'
);

Now, the email stopped working and we get this error

Message: mail(): Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set()
Filename: libraries/custom_email.php
Line Number: 110

I tried to print_r the email config item (the smtp setting) and it retrieves the correct data. How should I proceed?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

This is helpful I have found a better way to test email sending in codeigniter.

I am using mailtrap api to send email and have testing , its as simple as using smtp setting , but this helps keep inbox clean and on production you just have change smtp detiils .

If you are writing any test , you can use this api lib i have created.

look into this Mailtrap lib

Answer 2

Thiss function is working for me.

function email_send(){
    $config = Array(
            'protocol'=>'smtp',
            'smtp_host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',
            'smtp_port' => '25',
            'SMTPAuth' => true,
            'smtp_user' => 'email@gmail.com',
            'smtp_pass' => 'password'
        );

    $this->load->library('email', $config);

    $this->email->from('test@gmail.com');

    $this->email->to('test1@gmail.com');
    $this->email->subject('Test mail');
    $this->email->message('This is a test mail from codeigniter');
   if( ! $this->email->send()){
        echo "Your mail was sent successfully!!!";
    }
    else{
        show_error($this->email->print_debugger());
    }
}

Answer 3

your email setting and port should be changed like

$config = Array( 
'protocol' => 'smtp',
'smtp_host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',
'smtp_port' => 25,
'SMTPAuth' => true,
'smtp_user' => 'webmaster@test.com', 
'smtp_pass' => 'myPassword',
'mailtype'  => 'html', 
'charset'   => 'utf-8', 
);