textarea content not showing in email message

[maxwell_]

I have a webpage with a form that when submitted inserts the contents of a dropdown menu and a textarea into a database.
I would also like the same info to be sent in an email.

Most of this works ok, the data from the form fields is added to the database.
However when the email is received the contents of the textarea does not show.

When the form is submitted it redirects back to itself via another page.
The code for handeling the email is also on this page.

This is the code on my form page

$query = mysql_query("INSERT INTO reportspub (name, report, date, resolved) VALUES ('$name', '$report', null, 0)") or die(mysql_error());
mysqli_query($dbc, $query);
mysqli_close($dbc);
}

$_action = 'report_confirm_pub.php';
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);
header('Location:' . $_action);
  }

 <form method="post" action=""><br /><div class="forms">
  <table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
    <tr>
      <td align="center"><img src="../../images/Public.png" alt="" border="0" /></td>
      <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr><td align="center" valign="top"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

  <tr>
    <td align="center" valign="bottom"><label for="pub_access"></label><select name="pub_access" id="pub_access">
      <?php
do {  

?>
      <option value="<?php echo $row_pub_access['name']?>"><?php echo $row_pub_access['name']?></option>
      <?php
} while ($row_pub_access = mysql_fetch_assoc($pub_access));
  $rows = mysql_num_rows($pub_access);
  if($rows > 0) {
      mysql_data_seek($pub_access, 0);
	  $row_pub_access = mysql_fetch_assoc($pub_access);
  }
?>
    </select>&nbsp;</td>
  </tr>
  </table>
  </td>
        <td><label for="report_pubaccess"></label>
          <span id="sprytextarea1">
          <textarea name="report_pubaccess" id="report_pubaccess" cols="50" rows="8"></textarea>
          <span class="textareaRequiredMsg">A value is required.</span></span><br />
        <input name="resolved" type="hidden" value="<?php echo $resolved_result ?>" />
       </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td></td>
        <td colspan="2" align="left"><input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Submit" /></td>
        </tr></table></div>
</form><br />

This is the code on my redirect (email) page

$from = '[e-mail]';
  $subject = 'Public Access computer problem reported';
  print "the value is".$_POST['report_pubaccess'];

  //$text = $_POST['report_pubaccess'];

  $dbc = mysqli_connect('127.0.0.1', 'root', 'root', 'abe') or die('Error connecting to MySQL server.');

  $query = "SELECT name, user_email FROM users";
  $result = mysqli_query($dbc, $query)
    or die('Error querying database.');

  while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
    $to = $row['user_email'];
    $first_name = $row['name'];
    $msg = "Dear $name,\n$text";
    mail($to, $subject, $msg, 'From:' . $from);
    //echo 'Email sent to: ' . $to . '<br />' . $msg;
  } 

  mysqli_close($dbc); 

$url = 'computers_publicaccess.php?' . http_build_query($_GET) ;
header('Location: ' . $url);  

I tried commenting out the redirect

/ $url = 'computers_publicaccess.php?' . http_build_query($_GET) ;
header('Location: ' . $url); /

and added vardump

echo "<pre>get";
var_dump($_GET);
echo "</pre>";

echo "<pre>post";
var_dump($_POST);
echo "</pre>";

Output from vardump

getarray(0) {
}

postarray(0) {
}

[johanafm]

Every time something shows up in the user's browser, it is due to a request. It can be either post or get (and there are others as well).

So, when you post the form data, a post request is sent, due to the form method attribute's value being "post". If I understand you correctly, the requested page then sends a redirect header to the browser, which means the browser sends a get request to your "redirect (email) page". You are now dealing with a completely new request, yet you seem to be accessing variables that were defined during another request. There is nothing at all linking one request with another (disregarding sessions). One request is one request.

You should turn on error reporting in php.ini. In production environments, log errors. In development environments, log and/or display them. You should get stuff like
E_NOTICE: Use of undefined variable 'name'
E_NOTICE: Use of undefined variable 'text'
$name is not the same as $first_name. $name is not the same as $row['name'].