mail() issues

harkly

I using this simple code to send a test message if I put in my url it won't send, more like it sends but never gets received no matter what email account I use. If I put in another url it works fine.

Does anyone know what causes that and how I can go about fixing it??

in this code I added a '2' to the url and it works, take the 2 out - nothing

<?php
	mail('me@yahoo.com', 'Account Info', 'is this working? www.wlsingle2s.com');
?>

I am trying this code out on 2 different servers and it definity stops when I enter the one particular url - how do I check why?

_uk_stuff

Have you tried capturing the return value from the mail function call to see if is returning a true or false?
Also might be worth checking your mail logs to see if the message is actually being sent and getting a 200.

Failing that you could try adding additional headers to the mail function to see if this makes any differences as per the php.net mail function page.

annaharris

I have the same problem. I’m using the mail function on one of my web sites, but the mail does not get delivered.

dalecosp

You should always test [man]mail/man:

$success = mail($to,$subject,$msg,$headers);
if ($success) {
   $feedback_html = "<p>Your message was accepted for delivery.</p>";
} else {
   $feedback_html = "<p>There was a problem with your message.  Please try again or contact our support staff.</p>";
}

That being said, there are plenty of other things that could go wrong with sending mail. See if you can send a simple plain-text test message with your code before trying the heavyweight HTML version of a sales pitch --- there's so much spam filtering out there (and it's badly needed).

Try sending to a variety of different addresses. That means you need friends or a lot of email accounts with different providers.

Check your webserver logs. There could be something there to help diagnose the issue.

Finally, someone runs the real server. If it's you, check the mail server logs. If not, that's what "support" is for. Open a ticket and push them (gently at first) to get to the bottom of it.

HTH,

sneakyimp

annaharris;11027817 wrote:
I have the same problem. I’m using the mail function on one of my web sites, but the mail does not get delivered.

I put together a fairly detailed post some time ago about common mail issues. Give it a read and you may understand why mail does not get through.

The really important things to understand are
1) When the php [man]mail[/man] command returns TRUE, this doesn't mean that your mail will get delivered. All it means is that some process on your server agreed to "accept the mail for delivery." In reality, what it really means is that some process on your server that PHP thinks is the mail transfer agent has returned a value that PHP interprets as acceptance of the email. Once PHP hands the mail message to that other process, PHP can no longer do anything at all to make sure the mail gets through.
2) Mail is complicated and, like real life snail mail, might involve a lot of players from point A to point B. At any point along the way, the mail could get dropped, or spam-filtered, etc.
3) In practice, getting mail delivered involves playing by a lot of fuzzy rules (which are nevertheless negotiable with practice) and often requires looking at mail headers and troubleshooting, etc.

I would recommand using something like PEAR::Mail or PHPMailer to have your PHP script connect to an actual email account (e.g., a gmail mail account) and deliver the mail that way.

Bonesnap

Have you read the PHP manual page for [man]mail/man? There are a number of notes regarding how to properly prepare a message, some of which are absent from the code you showed us.