[RESOLVED] Mail Form Not Working

macmonkey

I've used this very simple mail form many times with no problem - but a recent switch to a dedicated server has had me changing the way I do things in php.

Here's what I'm working with:

<? import_request_variables("gP");
if($submit)
{
    mail("myemail@mydomain.com", "$subject", "$email", "$comments");
	echo "<br /><br /><br /><h1>Thanks for your question - we'll get back to you shortly</h1>";
}  else { ?>
	<br /><br /><br />
    <form method="post" action="contact.php">
    <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="email" size=30 value="Email"><br />
    <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="subject" size=30 value="Subject"> <br />
    <TEXTAREA NAME="comments" ROWS=10 COLS=29 >Comments</TEXTAREA> <br />
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit">
    </form>

<? }?>

When I submit I'm getting my "Thanks for your question - we'll get back to your shortly" message but I wait around for a few minutes and the email never comes through.

**Of course I've changed the TO: email in my script.

1) Is there anything there that looks wrong?

2) If not, what should I look for in my php.ini to see if my php is setup properly to do this. As I said I've made a move to a dedicated server and my php config has changed from what I'm used-to on shared hosting.

Any help would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks

Rodney_H_

The mail function is set up to take the following parameters (in this order):

[INDENT]mail($to,$subject,$message,(additional $headers optional));[/INDENT]

Also, I suggest that you convert the submitted values to useable variables that you may use in your mails script: For example instead of $subject, you must use $_POST['subject'] to convert the posted array value to the variable.

You may also consider using some sort of error checking prior to sending the email, and processing of the information, too.

badgoat

Check the FAQ at your new host. Many hosts will require that either your $TO or $FROM must be an address hosted at your new host. Also, they may specify how your headers are formatted and in what order your variables are passed.

halojoy

if ( $_POST["submit"] ) 
{ 
    $subject = $_POST["subject"]; // if empty should go back to form
    $comments = $_POST["comments"]; // if empty should go back to form
    $mailto = $_POST["email"]; // here could also be a check if real email was submitted

if ( mail( $mailto, $subject, $comments) )
   {
    echo "<br /><br /><br />
              <h1>Thanks for your question - we'll get back to you shortly</h1>"; 
    exit;
   }
else 
    { 
    echo "failure sending mail to you"; 
    }

}
else
{  // form to fill in

}

macmonkey

halojoy. thanks for the tip but it didn't seem to make a difference. 🙁

Badgoat - I'm actually running on a godaddy Virtual Dedicated Server and unfortunately their FAQ is pretty much useless. Also I've called them with about 6 or 7 questions and never once gotten an answer over the phone it's always - "submit a trouble ticket" and 1/2 of the time those don't help either and I find myself threading forums for an answer.. lol

In my php.ini there is NO VALUE for the sendmail_from parameter - would this have something to do with it?

Rodney_H_

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<title>Email Test</title>
</head>

<body>
<?php
// establish where email is going
$to = 'you@yourdomain.com';

// establish a default subject line
// can be used if one is not entered
$subject = 'Email message from my site';

// if submit button clicked, process form:
if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {
	// if there is a subject line, use it
	if(isset($_POST['subject'])) {
		$subject = trim($_POST['subject']);
	}
	// from email address as a header
	if(isset($_POST['email']) && !empty($_POST['email'])) {
		$from = trim($_POST['email']);
		$header = 'From: ' . $from . "\r\n";
	}
	else {
		echo 'You did not enter your email address<br />';
		exit;
	}
	if(isset($_POST['comments']) && !empty($_POST['comments'])) {
		$comments = trim($_POST['comments']);
		$comments = $comments . "\n\n" . '(From: ' . $from . ')';
	}
	else {
		echo 'You did not enter any comments<br />';
		exit;
	}	
	// send email
    if(mail($to, $subject, $comments, $header)){
		// confirm
		echo 'Thanks for wrting. We will get back to you shortly';
	} 
	else {
		echo 'There was a problem sending your message. Please try again.';
	}
}
// else the form was not submitted, display form
else {
?>
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>">
<input type="text" name="email" size="30" value="" /> Email
<br />
<input type="text" name="subject" size="30" value="" /> Subject
<br />
<textarea name="comments" rows="10" cols="29" ></textarea> Comments
<br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit" />
</form>
<?php } ?>

</body>
</html>

macmonkey

Hey Rodney,

Yea I made a testemail.php file configured your script to send mail to myself and tried it out but nothing 🙁. Script acted like it worked by giving me the Thanks... message but the email didn't come through.. I'm about to submit a trouble ticket to godaddy to get them to check it out...

but before that.. any other ideas?

macmonkey

I've done some googling and found a few others having the same issue w/ godaddy VDS. Does someone want to look @ my phpinfo() and let me know if there is something I should change.

I don't want to publicly paste a link but if you're willing to take a peek please let me know.

Rodney_H_

Hi, macmonkey:

I did test my script locally and on a remote server, so I think it may be some setting on your server as you suspect. What did your queries on Google actually say?

If you would like me to look at your phpinfo, email me via this form:

http://www.uncle-chair.com/contact/email.php

I will be glad to take a look and help if I may.

macmonkey

Hey Rodney I submitted via the form you directed me to.. thanks for taking a look. Since my last post I made a few changes to php.ini including sendmail_from and I turned report errors on for now to see if anything funny was going on but that didn't help much.

Rodney_H_

OK, great. I am checking now and sending a reply for you to try a test. OK?

Rodney_H_

macmonkey,

If this is all set, would you please use thread tools and mark this thread as resolved?

Thanks.

macmonkey

Ok... So I did some extensive testing w/ Rodney and he noted that he HAD received an email from a php mail function off of my server but I have not yet had this much luck.

I contacted godaddy and they simply said that I had to set a "from" variable in my script as mail wouldn't send without a "from" string.

I even jumped into my php.ini and added a value to the sendmail_from line and still nothing.

On a good note I HAVE learned many different ways to write and execute php mail functions 😃 but I still have not successfully sent mail via a form on this server yet.

Any more ideas?

Rodney_H_

Show the current state of your mail script/form please...

macmonkey

I've tried mail forms as simple as this


<?php 
mail('jonwalk@domain.com', 'subject', 'message'); 
?>

And one a little more advanced like this:

<?php
$to = "jonwalk@domain.com";
$toname = "Jon Walker";
$subject = "e-mail from this stupid site";
$confirm = "Your e-mail has been sent!";

if (isset($_POST['sendnow']))
{
$from = $_POST['from'];
$fromname = $_POST['fromname'];
$message = $_POST['message'];

$address = gethostbyaddr($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
$ip = gethostbyname($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
$timestamp = time ();
$filename =  $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
$location = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].$filename;


mail($to, $subject, "From: $fromname < $from >rn" . "Reply-To: $from rn" . "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion());
echo("$confirm");
}
else
{
?>
<form name="emailform" method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>">
  <table width="400" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5">
    <tr valign="top">
      <td width="40%">Your name:</td>
      <td width="60%">
        <input name="fromname" type="text" id="fromname" size="40"></td>
    </tr>
    <tr valign="top">
      <td>Your e-mail:</td>
      <td>
        <input name="from" type="text" id="from" size="40"></td>
    </tr>
    <tr valign="top">
      <td>Your message:</td>
      <td>
        <textarea name="message" cols="35" rows="10" id="message"></textarea></td>
    </tr>
    <tr valign="top">
      <td>&nbsp;</td>
      <td>
        <input type="submit" name="sendnow" value="Send email">
      </td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</form>
<?php
};
?>

I've read that godaddy blocks port 25 so I changed my smtp_out = 2525 just for kicks and that didn't help any. I'm pissed off at godaddy as they said "this level of support is somewhat out of their service agreement" ...b/s

Rodney_H_

macmonkey,

The First one doesn't have the REQUIRED 'from' address as a header. So try this:

<?php
mail('jonwalk@domain.com', 'subject', 'message', 'From: jonwalk@domain.com');
?>

And the second one doesn't have an outgoing message (body of the email) specified. You have this:

mail($to, $subject, "From: $fromname < $from >rn" . "Reply-To: $from rn" . "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion());

But the mail function should be: mail(TO, SUBJECT, MESSAGE, HEADERS);

macmonkey

OK... After multiple calls in to these guys I finally determined that the problem was actually at a DNS level. When my smtp was trying to run it was doing something crazy and ended up freaking out dropping the email every time.

I made a few adjustments to my DNS by setting up a new Domain Host and configuring it and vwahla! it werked! Turns out this problem had NOTHING to do with the from address that they insisted was the problem. As all my old scripts that don't have "FROM" lines in them are working like a charm.

Thanks for all of the thoughts and concern here - that's why this is my favorite forum for matters like this.