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SimonDowdles
SimonDowdles

Reputation: 2046

PHP mail() function returning false, but with no error

I am using php's mail() function for the simple process of E-Mailing the input of a contact form to the respective person. The strange thing is that the form always used to process the E-Mails, but one day this all stopped, now the function returns false, but gives no error at all.

The site is on a shared host. When asked about this, they recommended I use the smtp relay xx.xxx.x.xxx

Correct me if I am wrong, but the mail() function does not provide provisions for this does it? Surely it is up to the HOST machine to have it's relays configured correctly?

My question is this: Does this seem like an error with the host config, or is it my code? Here is a sample of the mail code I have used:

$to = "[email protected]"; //to who?
$subject = "Website Contact: $mysubject";
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "From: $fname<$email1>\r\n";
$headers .= "Reply-To: $email1\r\n";
$headers .= "Return-Path:$email1\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable\r\n";
$msg2 = nl2br($msg);

$send = mail($to, $subject, $msg2, $headers); //process mail

if(!$send):
  //error stuff here
endif;

Many thanks, Simon

@eisberg - I use a custom error handler like this:

//error handler function
function customError($errno, $errstr){
$err = "\n".date('Y-m-d H:m:s')." Error: [$errno] $errstr";
$fh = fopen("errlog.txt", 'a+');
fwrite($fh, $err);
fclose($fh);
}
set_error_handler("customError", E_ALL);

Would that mean I need to change set_error_handler("customError", E_ALL); to set_error_handler("customError", -1); ?

Upvotes: 8

Views: 22147

Answers (7)

Kyle
Kyle

Reputation: 1

I recently figured this out after months of head scratching.

Php mail() has a limit of 70 characters per line. use wordwrap() around your message and this will prevent it from over running the line and it will work every time (or atleast not fail because of this issue).

Upvotes: 0

Iman Sedighi
Iman Sedighi

Reputation: 8152

I had a similar problem and my site is hosted by shared hosting service. I could figure out the issue by fixing the header. The problem was:

$headers .= "From: $fname\r\n";

You used user email in the from field. My hosting only accepts emails with my domain name for this field. So I replaced it with this:

$headers = "From: [email protected]" ."\r\n" ;

And it fixed the problem! PHP mail() works fine after that.

Upvotes: 1

Pradeesh Kumar
Pradeesh Kumar

Reputation: 223

Check if web is allowed to send mail by giving getsebool httpd_can_sendmail from terminal. If the output is 

httpd_can_sendmail --> off

give https the permission for sending mail by issuing setsebool httpd_can_sendmail 1 command. You must have root permission for issuing these commands.

Upvotes: 1

vbence
vbence

Reputation: 20333

You shoud take a look at the mail logs. They hold the answer. You probably have to wrestle with your hosting company for the logs though.

Upvotes: 2

Serty Oan
Serty Oan

Reputation: 1726

More likely a host config. I think (but may be wrong) that mail() use the server mail command. So if you have no sendmail/postfix/ssmtp or other MTA installed on the server it cannot work.
If they told you to address a SMTP server directly you should use another library that implements the SMTP protocol and a Mail class to build mail and send it via SMTP directly (in PEAR or Zend Framework PHP classes you'll find that)

Upvotes: 1

Charles
Charles

Reputation: 51411

mail() function returning false, but with no error

Welcome to PHP!

Does this seem like an error with the host config, or is it my code?

Who knows? mail() is a black box from which you will find no useful information when something goes wrong.

When asked about this, they recommended I use the smtp relay...

Indeed, you probably should. Take a good look at SwiftMailer, an excellent, comprehensive, modern PHP mailing library that can speak directly to that SMTP server. It excels at building MIME messages, like the one you seem to have painstakingly put together above.

Other popular options include PEAR's Mail, Zend Framework's Zend_Mail, and the classic of classics, PHPMailer.

Upvotes: 21

code_burgar
code_burgar

Reputation: 12323

Sounds like your host disabled mail(), you should look into using SMTP to send mail, a good PHP mail class such as SwiftMailer will allow you to send mail via SMTP easily.

Upvotes: 7

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