PHP can't send mail anymore???

Tyree

I recently upgraded PHP to version 5 and just realized my script for sending mail has ceased working.

This script has worked great for years with little modification (oasted below).

I was working on a new script that used this function and upon testing, realized I never got an email. Then I started investigating further and realized I hadn't gotten any email since right before the php upgrade. Probably not a coincidence.
I don't get any errors either, just no mail ever comes.

Since I didn't use the mail() function and instead directly utilized the sendmail program, I thought I would avoid php.ini issues....but perhaps I thought wrong.

Do any of you guys know what may have gone wrong? Is there something in my code that doesn't work in php5 bu also doesn't throw an error?

<?php
function mailMessage($emailRecipient, $emailSender, $emailName, $emailSubject, $emailText, $mailer)
  {

	$message = '
		<style>
		body {
			font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
			font-size: 12px;
			background-image: url(/images/bg_fill_bottom.png);
		}

		.message {
			padding:5px;
			border-style:solid;
			border-width:thin;
			border-color:#999999;
		}

		.browserInfo {
			padding:5px;
			background-color:#EEEEEE;
			border-style:solid;
			border-width:thin;
			border-color:#999999;
			color: #666666;
			font-size:10px;
		}
		</style>
	';
	$message .= '<span style="color=#3A4861; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold;">'.$emailSubject."</span><br/>\n";
	$message .= "The following message was received from ".((strlen($mailer))?$mailer:"your website email form").":<br />\n";
	$message .= "<br />\n".'<div class="message">';
	$message .= "Name: $emailName<br />\nEmail Address: $emailSender<br />\n";

	$message .= "<br />\n".nl2br($emailText);
	$message .= '</div>';

    $message .= "<br /><br />\n\n".'<div class="browserInfo">';
	$message .= "Additional Information for $emailName:<br />\n" .
                "IP Address: " . getUserIP() . "<br />\n" .
                "Browser: " . getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT");
	$message .= '</div>';


 //$emailHeaders = "MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
 $emailHeaders = "From: $emailName <$emailSender>\n";
 $emailHeaders .= "Return-Path: <$emailSender>\n";
 $emailHeaders .= "X-Sender: <$emailSender>\n";
 $emailHeaders .= "X-Mailer: PHP\n";
 $emailHeaders .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
 $emailHeaders .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\n";


 $mail = popen("/var/qmail/bin/sendmail -f $emailSender $emailRecipient", "w");


 if (strlen(getenv("HTTP_USER_AGENT")))
 {
	if ($mail)
 	{
    	fputs($mail, "To: $emailRecipient\n");
    	fputs($mail, "Subject: $emailSubject\n");
    	fputs($mail, $emailHeaders . "\n");
    	fputs($mail, $message);
    	fputs($mail, "\n");
    	pclose($mail);
	} else {
		$GLOBALS['___m'] = "There was an error processing the request. We're sorry for the inconvenience.";
		break;
	}
 } else {
 	$GLOBALS['___m'] = "The form cannot be processed using your current browser. We're sorry for the inconvenience.";
	break;
 }
  }
?>

halojoy

Do you get any errormessages?

You could put in some more errorchecking/messages into your code
to find out where things go wrong.

Maybe qmail script has some new path now?
So, the first thing I should check is that folder still is the place where sendmail script is:

$mail = popen("/var/qmail/bin/sendmail -f $emailSender $emailRecipient", "w");

Of course another solution is to start use the normal php mail() function.

Tyree

Thanks for the reply...

I get no error messages.

The path to sendmail was the first thing I checked. First it was pointing to an alias of sendmail. So, just in case, I changed it to point directly at the sendmail program. That path is correct.

If it wasn't I would think that my first check to see if php was able to open it would trip and give me the error message.

I have all php errors turned on, so I should see the least little thing go wrong.

I am totally baffled by this. I don't understand how just upgrading php could cause this. Seems more like another problem on the server than just php...but php and mysql were the only components upgraded that I know of.

johanafm

Are you certain ALL errors are reported?

error_reporting(-1);	// reports all errors

Default is to report everything but E_NOTICE. I've never used PHP4, but as I understand it, register globals was active by default in PHP4, and is turned off by default in PHP5 and its use is discouraged. So if you get data through get or post, you would now need to

$var = $_POST['var'];

Instead of just using $var directly, which incidentally would be an E_NOTICE error when it's not set.
And this problem would be outside the scope of your function, somewhere before it gets called.

Tyree

Yeah...all errors are on. I get some notices and warnings when I have them all on. But I turned them al on just for this. None of the messages pertain to this issue though.

I replaced the sendmail method I was using with the basic mail() method and everything works.

Beats me why it all of a sudden stopped working. Maybe a permission issue or something. Still seems like if php couldn't perfom the popen, then my error would have fired....maybe not.

At any rate, my script is working again...just not by calling the sendmail program directly.

dagon

sounds like the mail settings in php.ini where not set properly when you upgraded to php 5

Tyree

That's what I thought at first too....but the mail() function works fine. I checked the ini file and it points to the correct location.

My script originally utilized the sendmail program directly, skipping the mail() function. That doesn't work anymore, but the mail() function does.

Just makes it all the more confusing.😕

But, at least I can get the script to work. That's what counts, I suppose.

dagon

my preference is a socket to the mail server directly, im not sure what qmail's sendmail is, at a guess its a wrapper for legacy reasons.

dagon

some thing like phpmailer, would take out a lot of the 'grunt' work for you

Tyree

I'm far from a php masta...I do well enough to get by. Heck, I still have yet to do my first OOP project! :-D

So, I don't know much about the inner workings of qmail/sendmail and all that. I just know that my script used to work and now it doesn't! :-D

I've seen phpmailer mentioned lots of times. I'll have to check that out!

Thanks!!!