Form not transfering variables

[Jabbamonkey]

I created a web form. On the form, I created a hidden field called "submitted" ... to check and see if the form was submitted or not. So, when the user clicks submit, and are redirected back to the same page, I can tell the page to run the "email code" that sends the mail to me ...

The problem is, whenever the form is submitted, none of the variables are transfered....

At the top of the page, I placed the following code... $submitted refers to the hidden field, and $theirname refers to the text field where the user enters their name...

 if(isset($submitted)) { echo "sub 1"; echo $theirname; } else { echo "sub no"; echo $theirname; } 

When I go to the page initially OR when I submit the form, I get this error message at the top of the page...

sub no
Notice: Undefined variable: theirname in C:\OH\faqs.php on line 83

Once the page is submitted, the hidden field called "submitted" should be transfering a value of 1 to the page. But it isn't. NOTE: I know why I am getting the notice. I just need to know why the variables aren't transfering.

In case you need to see the initial values of my form code...

<form action="faqs.php" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input name="submitted" type="hidden" id="submitted" value="1">
<!-- then comes the rest of the form -->

Thanks for your help. Please keep your answers in layman's terms, as I'm fairly new to php. And, if I have to tell my webhost to change a setting, I need to be able to tell them in a way they understand. Thanks!

[halojoy]

you have to assign a value from the $_POST array
to this simple variable $submitted.

It is same for all variables with 'name' in the form, $_POST['name']

// if POST['submitted'] isset, $submitted = $_POST['submitted']
// else make $submitted = false
$submitted = isset($_POST['submitted']) ?  $_POST['submitted'] : false;

if( $submitted ) {
    echo "sub 1"; 
    echo $theirname; 
}
else {
    echo "sub no"; 
    echo $theirname; 
}

[Jabbamonkey]

Cool. Thanks. That seems to have solved THAT probem... but another problem came up ...

When it gets to running the mail() function, I get the following error.

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: SMTP server response: 555 5.5.5 Unable to relay for [e-mail] in C:\site\form.php on line 577

I think I know what is wrong, I just want to check. The domain for my site is different than the "send to" email address domain. Is this error message telling me that I need to use an email account from the same domain?

So if the domain is www.somecoolwebsite.com, then I need to use an email address like [e-mail] ?

[halojoy]

Well, I am not very good with [man]mail/man function.
I almost never use it.
Are you on a hosting?
Are you running your website from your own computer?

You should visit this link for general info howto use function [man]mail/man

Some hosts, especially free, does no allow use of mail() in php scripts ...
Due to spammers sign up for free account.
So mail() is among disabled functions. See phpinfo, for eventual disabled funcs.

You can run a phpinfo() to see what is the mail settings for PHP at your site.
On the resulting page, from this function you can use: Find in this page: 'mail'

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

[Thora_Fan]

http://us.php.net/manual/en/ref.mail.php

Check the Runtime Configuration section. It has some information about using the mail() function under Windows (which I assume you're using).

[bradgrafelman]

You also need to make sure that the "from" address is allowed by your SMTP host (e.g. if you're using your ISP's SMTP server, you probably have to use your [e-mail] address).

Also, if the SMTP server requires authentication (many do), you can't use the mail() function as it does not support SMTP authentication; instead, you'll want to look for a PHP mailer class that can do this (ex. PHPMailer).

[Jabbamonkey]

Running the phpinfo, I get the following related to mail...

mail.force_extra_parameters no value no value

sendmail_from [e-mail] [e-mail]
sendmail_path no value no value

standard
Regex Library Bundled library enabled
Dynamic Library Support enabled
Internal Sendmail Support for Windows enabled

What do I need to change? What do I need to tell the server guy? He doesnt know PHP at all, so I need to tell him what to do exactly...

[halojoy]

sendmail_from	no value       no value
sendmail_path	no value         no value

SMTP	smtp.myprovider.com         smtp.myprovider.com
smtp_port	25           25

I am on Windows.
Those 2 last: SMTP, smtp_port
are what I need to sendmail via myprovider.com
which is my Internet ISP provider

🙂

[Jabbamonkey]

What would I need to do if my smtp info was...

SMTP localhost localhost
smtp_port 25 25

I'm on windows too.

[Jabbamonkey]

The site is hosted on our company's server, not a webhost. The email, on the other hand, it hosted with company (netsolutions).

So, do I need to tell the server guy, that something needs to be done to the server? Or do I need to check something with the email host?

If the server guy does need to change something, how would he go about doing it? Does he need to change the php.ini file? If one doesnt exists, can he just create one, from a text file, and add some information (and if so, what info needs to go in it)?

Let me know, thanks.

[bradgrafelman]

I would start by contacting your webhost and asking if they have an SMTP server that resides on the webserver.

If not, you need to get the SMTP connection details from your email host (and possible relay this information to your webhost).

[Jabbamonkey]

Once I get the SMTP information from our email host ... what does my server guy do with the details? Is this where a php.ini file needs to be setup?

Sorry to ask some questions that are probably pretty basic (my background is design) ... but I know the server guy will be difficult if I don't tell him exactly what to do.

[bradgrafelman]

Well, if you find out that your SMTP server requires authentication, then you'll need to use an external PHP mail class to connect, authenticate, and send the message. One example of such a pre-made class is PHPMailer.

(It looks like you have some similar issues to the ones presented in this thread.)

[Jabbamonkey]

I dont believe the mail requires authentication. I was told by our server guy....

Use mail.thewebsitedomain.com for both pop3 and smtp

So what do I do? Having this info doesn't solve the problem (since I have no idea what to do with it). 🙂

[Jabbamonkey]

Anyone have any idea what I need to do?

[halojoy]

Jabbamonkey wrote:

Anyone have any idea what I need to do?

Here is script you can testrun. I know it is working.
The sender email can be anything that looks like an email address. I used some faked.

$email_to is some email account you have access to.
Remember that sometimes can take a while before mail arrives.
For me takes several hours! sometimes.

<?php

$subject = "TestEmail";
$message =
"Hello!
Just testing";

$email_from = "[e-mail]";
$email_to   = "[e-mail]";
$type = "text";  // alternative "html"

////////////////////////
if    ($type=='text')
    $email_type = "text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1";
elseif($type=='html')
    $email_type =  "text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1";
else
    exit('Error: email type missing');

$header  = "MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
$header .= "Content-type: $email_type\n";
$header .= "X-Mailer: PHP/MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
$header .= "From: $email_from\n";
$header .= "To: $email_to\n";
$header .= "Reply-To: $email_from\n";
$header .= "Return-Path: $email_from\n";

echo "<pre>";
echo $email_to;
echo "\n\n";
echo $subject;
echo "\n\n";
echo $message;
echo "\n\n";
echo $header;
echo "</pre><br>\n";

mail($email_to, $subject, $message, $header)
    OR exit('Error: mail() did not work');
echo 'Your mail was sent';
exit();

?>

[Jabbamonkey]

I have something similar in my code already. The problem is that I keep getting an error when it hits the mail() function.

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: SMTP server response: 555 5.5.5 Unable to relay for [e-mail] in C:\site\form.php on line 577

Everyone is saying its a problem with my config and the smtp server. So I need to know what changes to make to the server...

[halojoy]

hey.

you should do this search with www.google.com

"Unable to relay for" "SMTP server response" php problem OR solution

Include the quotation marks.

Sometimes when we get an error message, it is great to use google to search for same message,
with the significant part exactly quoted
within quotes: "part of error message"

One of the first hits tells this

If your site is on a Windows machine then you might get errors like these:

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: SMTP server response: 554 ... Recipient address rejected: Relay access denied in ...
Warning: mail(): SMTP server response: 550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for ...
Invalid From: header

These errors are usually caused by not having the PHP configuration file (php.ini) configured correctly on your system (your host can advise further). You can try the solution below to correct this. You need to add some code to the script, save it and upload it to your webspace.

Regards 🙂

[Jabbamonkey]

Those instructions say the following.

Locate this line in the script (near the bottom):

mail($my_email,$subject,$message,$headers);

Above it add this line:

ini_set("sendmail_from","[e-mail]");

So it now looks like this:

ini_set("sendmail_from","[e-mail]");
mail($my_email,$subject,$message,$headers);

Replace "[e-mail]" with your username and domain. Save the script and upload it.

Some hosts require a fifth (-f) parameter to be used with the mail() function. If in doubt, ask your host about it. This is to allow the email to be filtered by the SMTP server. This paramater would normally contain your username and domain name, like so:

mail($my_email,$subject,$message,$headers,"[e-mail]");

If you are using Yahoo for your email and are not receiving emails (but are receiving them to other email addresses) try changing the following line in the script:

From this:

$headers = "From: " . $_REQUEST['email'];

To this:

$headers = "";

This might allow you to receive the email but it's not an ideal solution as you will not be able to hit "Reply" to respond to the email as the visitor's email address will not be in the From: field. Better to use a system where the From: header can be stated. Most standard setups appear to allow this, so the problem described above should be an exception to the norm.

If you are using an older version of FormToEmail (before version 2.1) or FormToEmail-Pro (before version 1.4) you would be advised to download the latest script as this overcomes a potential error with email headers.

So, I tried to add the ini_set line that it suggests ... replacing the email address with the email on my server. The instructions didn't say I needed to replace "sendmail_from" ... so I left that as it is.

When I ran the script, I still got the same error. I also tried the remaining suggestions on that page, but none of those helped.

Do I need to tell the server guy that he needs to upload some server mail script? The last bit of instructions say something about FormToEmail ... Let me know, as this is extremely confusing.

[Jabbamonkey]

Also, my problem with searching google is...

a) I need to weed through tons of pages, most of which dont solve the problem
b) For the pages that are relevant, there's always something I dont understand on the page and I need clarification about ... or the page doesnt explain it clearly. Forums allow you to ask questions and get clarification.
c) I post on a forum to get help, and hopefully get a resolution. So, if someone DOES search google and brings up THIS post, they wont see a "Go check google" response ... but they will see the problem and a clear explanation of what to do in order to fix it, helping EVERYONE who needs it.