PHP mail() returns true but doesn't work

Posted on 16th Feb 2014 07:03 pm by admin

First off I apologize if this is a newbie question, and I generally don't like asking questions that have already been asked 1,000,000 times, but I've searched far and wide and cannot find a solution to my problem.

Basically I run an experimental server on my home network. I use LAMP (Ubuntu Server, Apache2.2, MySQL5, PHP5).

I simply want to take the data from an HTML form and submit it as an e-mail. I tried using the mail() function like this:
Code: $email = $_POST['email'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
$subject = $_POST['subject'];

$sentmail = mail("example@gmail.com",$subject,$message,"FROM: ".$email."rn");
if($sentmail) {
echo 'Your message has been sent!';
} else {
echo 'Cannot send message.';
}

After some googling, I found one solution that said to add this line:
Code: ini_set("sendmail_from", "example@gmail.com");but it made no difference.

I finally decided to try a different approach using SMTP:
Code: require_once "Mail.php";

$from = "Form Data <".$_POST['email'].">";
$to = "My Name <example@gmail.com>";
$subject = $_POST['subject'];
$body = $_POST['message'];

$host = "ssl://smtp.gmail.com";
$port = "465";
$username = "foo@gmail.com";
$password = "bar";

$headers = array ('From' => $from,
'To' => $to,
'Subject' => $subject);
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array ('host' => $host,
'port' => $port,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));

$mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);

if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
echo("<p>" . $mail->getMessage() . "</p>");
} else {
echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
}

Still not working!

This is quite frustrating. It always returns a value of "true" but never actually sends the messages!

Maybe it would help if I had a better understanding of what the mail() function actually does. Where does the message go when handled by mail()? Mustn't it go through a mail server at some point? Port 25 is iffy on my setup, so that could be the issue with mail().

When using the PEAR method though, I specifically indicate port 465, so that can't be the issue.

What am I missing here?

Your Answer:

Login to answer

Other forums

Inserting Data into a MS Access DB using PHP.
As part of my uni course I am doing a placement at a company whom want me to create a client zone fo

if else problem, help please
i have this script that i made only i try to also put in a if else for for some reason the script is

Perplexing problem showing a .jpg
Please disregard..........I figured it out

Data storage spaces in varchar2
Trying to understand what's happening.
I am selecting a value from a table that is defined as c

Supress some serveroutput but not all
Hi,

I have a script I'm working on that uses plsql to create and RMAN script, this uses d

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output sta
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/praylif

How to Create a Dynamic table
col1 col2 date1 date2 date3 date4..........
a b v1 v2 v3 v4

imap: how to save a copy of sent emails to sent elements
Hello my friends,

I am writing an online emailing application with inbox outbox/sent elements

Call Screen statement Error
Dear Experts,

is there any setting that needs to be done before creating any dialog progr

why isn't this PHP code working ???
it's suppose to find a name on the database.

<?php

$s = $_POST["lname&