PHP Mail trouble

drbarry

Hi,
I have an html form page that a user fills out in which I want the results mailed to me.

I have a php page it refers to. Everything seems fine, but I do not receive the e-mail.

The code is below. Any suggestions?

Thanx

<?php
/* Set e-mail recipient */
$myemail  = "example@example.com";
$subject  =  "ROH Consultation Results";

/* Check all form inputs using check_input function */
$question1 = check_input($_POST['question1'], "Please answer Question 1");
$question2  = check_input($_POST['question2'], "Please answer Question 2");
$question3A  = check_input($_POST['question3A'], "Please answer Question 3");
$question3D  = check_input($_POST['question3T'], "Please answer Question 3");
$question3T  = check_input($_POST['question3D'], "Please answer Question 3");
$question3A  = check_input($_POST['question3A'], "Please answer Question 3");
$question4D  = check_input($_POST['question4D'], "Please answer Question 4");
$question4T  = check_input($_POST['question4T'], "Please answer Question 4");
$question4A  = check_input($_POST['question4A'], "Please answer Question 4");
$question5D  = check_input($_POST['question5D'], "Please answer Question 5");
$question5T  = check_input($_POST['question5T'], "Please answer Question 5");
$question5A  = check_input($_POST['question5A'], "Please answer Question 5");
$question6D  = check_input($_POST['question6D'], "Please answer Question 6");
$question6T  = check_input($_POST['question6T'], "Please answer Question 6");
$question6A  = check_input($_POST['question6A'], "Please answer Question 6");
$name  = check_input($_POST['name'], "Please enter First and Last Name");
$email    = check_input($_POST['email']);
$city  = check_input($_POST['city'], "Please enter your City");
$state  = check_input($_POST['state'], "Please enter your State");
$comment = check_input($_POST['comment'], "Write your comments");
$likeit   = check_input($_POST['likeit']);
$how_find = check_input($_POST['how']);

/* If e-mail is not valid show error message */
if (!preg_match("/([\w\-]+\@[\w\-]+\.[\w\-]+)/", $email))
{
    show_error("E-mail address not valid");
}


/* Let's prepare the message for the e-mail */
$message = "Hello!

Your contact form has been submitted by:

Name: $yourname
City:   $city
State:   $state
E-mail: $email

Question 1: $question1
Question 2: $question2
Question 3D: $question3D
Question 3T: $question3T
Question 3A: $question3A
Question 4D: $question4D
Question 4T: $question4T
Question 4A: $question4A
Question 5D: $question5D
Question 5T: $question5T
Question 5A: $question5A
Question 6D: $question6D
Question 6T: $question6T
Question 6A: $question6A

Like the website? $likeit
How did he/she find it? $how_find

Comments:
$comments

End of message
";

/* Send the message using mail() function */
mail($myemail, $subject, $message);

/* Redirect visitor to the thank you page */
header('Location: Thanks.htm');
exit();

/* Functions we used */
function check_input($data, $problem='')
{
    $data = trim($data);
    $data = stripslashes($data);
    $data = htmlspecialchars($data);
    if ($problem && strlen($data) == 0)
    {
        show_error($problem);
    }
    return $data;
}

function show_error($myError)
{
?>
    <html>
    <body>

<b>Please correct the following error:</b><br>
<?php echo $myError; ?>
<b></b>
<p>Please press the back arrow to make correction.</p>

</body>
</html>
<?php
exit();
}
?>

bradgrafelman

When posting PHP code, please use the board's [noparse]

..

[/noparse] bbcode tags as they make your code much easier to read and analyze. Now, as for your problem...

First and foremost, do you have error_reporting set to E_ALL and have PHP setup to log all PHP errors (e.g. log_errors is set to On and error_log has a valid value)?
Are you positive the e-mails aren't being sent yet filtered out of your inbox due to spam?
You'll probably want to add additional headers to the e-mail, such as: From, Reply-To, MIME-Version, Content-Type, etc. etc. to make the e-mail seem more legitimate and less likely to trigger spam filters. Search this board (or the web) for examples of such e-mail headers.

EDIT: Also, welcome to PHPBuilder! :p

Krik

$name = check_input($_POST['name'], "Please enter First and Last Name");

Name: $yourname

Could be part of it.

Next the "check_input()" function needs to be before any code that uses it.

And I am guessing you don't have error reporting enabled. Because both of those should have given you an error.

Also it is best to include php variables in a string like so

$message = "Hello!

Your contact form has been submitted by: 
Name: ".$yourname."
// ect
";

EDIT: some one beat me to it.

bradgrafelman

Krik;10958518 wrote:
Next the "check_input()" function needs to be before any code that uses it.

No it doesn't; example:

<?php
echo foobar();

function foobar() {
	return "Hello World!";
}
?>

Result of that script is: Hello World! (with no errors).

Krik;10958518 wrote:
Also it is best to include php variables in a string like so
$message = "Hello!

Your contact form has been submitted by: 
Name: ".$yourname."
// ect
";

Not sure what you mean by including them "in a string" since both your code and the OP's code do the same thing. There are a variety of ways you can get the data from a variable into a string, but they all work... which one is "preferred" is largely up to the developer, IMHO.

drbarry

Error reporting is set to all.
Server says they dont block spams and the emails not in my spam.
I fixed the 'name' variable, but didnt help.
Any other suggestions?

bradgrafelman

drbarry wrote:
Error reporting is set to all.

Okay, what about the logging part?

drbarry wrote:
Any other suggestions?

Check if mail() is returning true or false and output some debug text accordingly, and then test the application yourself. Is mail() returning true? If so, we at least know your MTA accepted the message and will attempt to deliver it.

EDIT: Also, see list item #3 in my post above.

sneakyimp

You didn't bother to check of the mail function succeeded or not. Maybe try this:

mail($myemail, $subject, $message)
  or die('MAIL FAILED');

I feel I should point this out from the docs on [man]mail[/man]:

It is important to note that just because the mail was accepted for delivery, it does NOT mean the mail will actually reach the intended destination.

I always try to use a mail library like Pear::Mail or PHPMailer nowadays -- this lets you actually connect to a mail server as you would with Outlook or Thunderbird or any other mail client and doesn't really depend on your PHP server's sendmail function being configured properly

You may find this thread useful.

drbarry

I tried the 'die' code, but the page ca1me up as a syntax error.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_LOGICAL_OR in E:\USERS\Healing2009\www\Consultation.php on line 73

sneakyimp

I'm thinking you typed it incorrectly. Note that there's no semicolon after the mail() command in my code. I can't really tell because I have no idea what line 73 in your code looks like. Fixing syntax errors is an extremely basic skill. If you can't fix them, you are in big trouble. Read the sticky on it.

drbarry

I got a mail failed immediately!

Why would that be?

bradgrafelman

drbarry wrote:
Why would that be?

Don't ask us, ask PHP. If mail() is returning false, then PHP should generate an error message (probably E_WARNING level) explaining what went wrong.

sneakyimp

You should ask the person who configured your mail server. S/he would be able to look at the mail log and see what the problem was. It may be that the mail setup for php is not even set up or configured properly.

For your part, you can check to make sure that all the arguments you provide to the mail function are in fact valid.

Another possibility is that you can use Pear::Mail or PHPMailer. Read the best practices thread I linked. It answers most of these questions.

drbarry

Im new to this ...as you've probably guessed.
I finally realized the error_reporting was a command in the php code.

This is the error I received

Warning: mail(): Failed to connect to mailserver at "" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in E:\USERS\Healing2009\www\Consultation.php on line 73 MAIL FAILED

Any suggestions?

bradgrafelman

drbarry wrote:
I finally realized the error_reporting was a command in the php code.

There is a function to change the error_reporting PHP directive, yes, but I was actually referring to the directive itself (which can be set a number of ways, e.g. in php.ini or a .htaccess file if using Apache).

drbarry wrote:
Any suggestions?

Yup - do what the error message says:

verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set()

Are you the one who installed PHP? If so, you'll have to configure PHP's SMTP settings so that it knows which server to connect to when sending e-mail out. By default, Windows doesn't have an SMTP server installed.

sneakyimp

I would forget about using the mail function and use Pear::Mail to connect to a gmail account or something.

drbarry

I put together the php page, but it is on my server. Wouldn't the smtp settings and php_ini be on the host server? This page is a website form a person fills in and then mails me the results.

sneakyimp

anybody who wants to send mail (including your server) needs to know where it goes. Just like outlook, or thunderbird, PHP needs to know where the mail goes.

drbarry

Is that a code I put into my php page. I wouldn't think changing php.ini on my local computer would do anything for the page thats on my host server. Is there a way I can configure the smtp on my page itself thats on the server?

drbarry

I added this code:

ini_set ( SMTP, "smtp.placeforhealing.com" );
ini_set ( smtp_port, 587);

$success = mail($myemail, $subject, $message)

Now I receive the e-mail, but I do get this error message:

Notice: Use of undefined constant SMTP - assumed 'SMTP' in E:\USERS\Healing2009\www\Consultation.php on line 74 Notice: Use of undefined constant smtp_port - assumed 'smtp_port' in E:\USERS\Healing2009\www\Consultation.php on line 75 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at E:\USERS\Healing2009\www\Consultation.php:74) in E:\USERS\Healing2009\www\Consultation.php on line 83

Almost There!

sneakyimp

[man]ini_set[/man] is a function that you can use in your php to alter configuration parameters for the duration of the script. Note that this alters your runtime environment wherever your PHP is running. AT the moment, I don't know if you are trying to run your PHP code on your desktop using a local install of PHP or whether you are running it on your server.

In either case, wherever the heck PHP is running, it needs to know where mail goes when it tries to sent it.

The error you are getting is probably because you failed to put smtp and smtp_port in quotes.