PHP mail() function does not work on web-host

Question

Hi everyone,

I'm having issues sending emails using the php mail() function. I know the php script I have works because I have an identical copy of it on another web-hosting company and it works there.

I think it has to do with the web-hosting company itself. Do any of you know what I need to do in order to make it work? Is there something I need to tell them to install? I think they're running on Apache.

Thanks, Amit

For clarification purposes, here is the mail-script.

<?php

$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'Contact from your website';

$message = 
'Below are details from the Contact Us Form ' . "\n\n" . 
'Name: ' . $_REQUEST['name'] . "\n\n" . 
'Telephone Number: ' . $_REQUEST['phone'] . "\n\n" . 
'E-mail address: ' . $_REQUEST['email'] . "\n\n" . 
'Comments: ' . $_REQUEST['comments'];

$email = $_REQUEST['email'];
$headers = 'From: ' . $email . "\r\n" .
            'Reply-To: ' . $email . "\r\n" .
          'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1";       

//SPAM CHECK
$str = $_REQUEST['spam'];
$strE = $_REQUEST['email'];

if( $str != "10" || $strE == "")
{
    echo "<div align='center' style='color:red'>One or more of the form fields were incorrect, you will be redirected to the contact page within 3 seconds.</div>";
?><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;URL=http://engineercreativity.com/samples/biz/contact"&gt;&lt;!-- EDIT THIS -->

<?php   
} else {
    mail ($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://engineercreativity.com/thankyou.html"&gt; <!-- EDIT THIS AS WELL -->
<!--
<div class="text" align="center" style="text-align: center; color: green;">
<br/>
Thank you for contacting us!
<br/>
The message was succesfully sent!
</div>
-->
<?php
} 
?> 

Answer 1

Are you performing any kind of checks on the mail function? It should return true if it's executing successfully - knowing that would help us cut down on other possible reasons you may not be receiving the mail, such as filters, server or smtp configuration etc. Doing something like:

if (mail($to, $subject, $body, $header)) {
echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
} else {
echo("<p>Message delivery failed...</p>");
}

Should give you a better idea, and should die outright if the function does not exist for some reason. Php's mail function is incredibly finicky on free web hosts, since it's commonly abused for spam purposes.

Posting full headers also can help legitimate messages pass spam tests.

   $headers = "Return-path: <[email protected]>\n";
                $headers .= "Reply-to: <[email protected]>"."\n";
                $headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=windows-1252\n";
                $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\n";
                $headers .= "From: <[email protected]>\n";
                $headers .= "X-Priority: 3\n";
                $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
                $headers .= "Organization: My Organization\r\n"; 
                $headers .= "\n\n";

Answer 2

Write a really simple script, like

<?php
mail('[email protected]', 'test subject', 'test msg') or die('no mail()');
echo 'mail sent.';

Execute it, and make sure the mail is not caught by your spam filter (if you can afford it, set up your own domain/DNS server, netcat -l -p 25 is sufficient).

If that doesn't work, contact the support of your web hoster. Do they have an FAQ or any other documentation?

Answer 3

Whatever the solution, check your mail()'s output.

Most common solution

Ask your hosting company if your current web host has SMTP set up to relay mail from your scripts. If they say "no", then they might have another SMTP host for you to use like smtp.example.com, or you'll have to use another SMTP relay (check with your current e-mail provider).

Alternative

The SMTP server you're talking to might not understand what your script is saying. I've seen situations before where my mail script will work with Postfix but not qmail. This is easily solved by using a third party e-mail library: there are tons out there, but my favorite is Flourish's (http://flourishlib.com/docs/fEmail).

Answer 4

If it is a dedicated server, make sure you have postFix Mail installed (http://www.postfix.org/)

I faced this error today itself as the SMTP server was not available (i assumed it as there by default, but not)