[RESOLVED] PHP Form Submission: Doesn't work every time.

[dagon]

it will be the yahoo spam filters at fault most likely.

[rezet]

I contacted the host provider to see if that could be some kind of server side settings. But they said it shouldn't be that. So I'm thinking it's either Yahoo or something wrong with the code. Anyone see anything that could cause that?

[dagon]

as well as sending email write it to a log file or db, then you can check if its an email issue, and or send to one or more other non yahoo address accounts. Yahoo is know to have the most aggressive spam filters

[rezet]

just tried gmail. Same result. Some message come though. Some don't. And I can't seem to nail what i do different when it goes though...

[coldwerturkey]

(if you still feel it's your code; you can rule it out by seeing if mail() returns false

$mail = mail(...);
if (!$mail) die('its mail()');

)

[rezet]

coldwerturkey;10909606 wrote:

(if you still feel it's your code; you can rule it out by seeing if mail() returns false

$mail = mail(...);
if (!$mail) die('its mail()');

)

Aha, I think I nailed down what the problem is. As I suspected it had something to do with $extra_headers. Ok, so here is thing: before it was:

if(empty($error_list)) {

	$email_contents = "The following message was sent to you from your website:\n\n ";
	$email_contents .= "First Name: $fname\n ";
	$email_contents .= "Last name: $lname\n ";
	$email_contents .= "Email: $email\n\n ";
	$email_contents .= "$subject \n\n ";
	$email_contents .= $message;


        $extra_headers = "From: $fname <$email>\n\n";
	$extra_headers .= "Reply-To: $email";


	mail('[e-mail]' ,'Contact Form Submission', $email_contents, $extra_headers);

	$status = "<ul><li>Message Sent. Thanks, $fname! </li></ul>";
	$display_form = false;
}

I got rid of:

$extra_headers = "From: $fname <$email>\n\n";

So now email arrives from "Nobody" but it seems to at least arrive consistently.
I have tried using just $fname or $email but it still has same problem. It seems that problem goes away if if just comment out the entire line.

Does anyone know the correct syntax to get the header "from" to display correctly?
Also, I still wonder why it worked sometime and not the other with the line there.
Weird.

[coldwerturkey]

see http://ca2.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php example #4 for detailed html headers

afaik it might has something to do with how your strings + variables are quoted and how you set the newline breaks

[rezet]

Yeah, you are probably right. That might very well be the breaks now that I think about it, mail processors probably don't like to have line breaks in subjects. I guess the question is why it worked sometimes, but not all the time. But oh well, I'll mess around with it, shouldn't be too hard to nail down what the problem might be - that being 1 line.

Thankee.

[bradgrafelman]

1. You have too many line breaks on the first header; each header should be separated by only one line break.

2. Never ever set the 'From' email-address to anything but a valid e-mail on your own domain. Doing otherwise (like you have now) will likely get you flagged as an open relay and blacklisted by many RBL's (if you haven't been already - might want to check). This is what the Reply-To e-mail header is for - you can leave that as the user's e-mail as you have it now.

[rezet]

bradgrafelman;10909652 wrote:

1. You have too many line breaks on the first header; each header should be separated by only one line break.

2. Never ever set the 'From' email-address to anything but a valid e-mail on your own domain. Doing otherwise (like you have now) will likely get you flagged as an open relay and blacklisted by many RBL's (if you haven't been already - might want to check). This is what the Reply-To e-mail header is for - you can leave that as the user's e-mail as you have it now.

So would correct lines look like this then?

	$extra_headers = "From: <[e-mail]>\n";
		$extra_headers .= "Reply-To: $email\n";

[rezet]

Got it. Thanks everyone!