Location, location

thephilster

I know this is REALLY a newbie question :rolleyes:. I have tried to place a php email/redirecting script in 2 places and when the html calls it, I get a blank page. When I view the source, I get:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"></HEAD>
<BODY></BODY></HTML>

I created a cgi-bin directory under the very root of my site, and one in the home (where the home page is) of my site and tried to reference them both in the call. I'm guessing it's not finding it, but don't we usually get an error for that?

This is the latest call format I used for the one under the home directory:

Thanks bunches in advance!

thephilster

Also, suppose I should confirm what the mail_handler.php file properties should be... I have it set to 600?

Thanks again!

NogDog

In most installations, PHP files do not go in cgi-bin, but within the normal web-root hierarchy, and Apache is configured to "know" that .php files are to be processed as PHP. In either case, though, it's likely you'll need to open up the permission to read for all (e.g. 644), it will actually be read by the web server user, not your personal login or FTP user account. Of course, this all presupposes that PHP is, in fact, installed on your web server?

thephilster

Yep, that's where it's installed. Site is on godaddy. Ok, will move it to the home directory and change permissions (and change the call).

Will let you know! Thanks much!

thephilster

Ok, put the script in my home directory, changed the file attributes to 644 and changed the call:

but get the same results. :bemused:

dalecosp

What is the content of "mail_handler.php"?

Try putting this at the top of the file:

<?php // <--- this should already be there ;-)

die("Hello, thephilster!");

//leave the rest of your code down here

Then, go to the URL represented by "mail_handler.php" (www.yoursite.com/somefolder/mail-handler.php) and if it doesn't say "Hello, the philster!", you have a PHP configuration issue that GoDaddy should help you with.

thephilster

Same thing, blank page and this source:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"></HEAD>
<BODY></BODY></HTML>

Here is what the script looks like (with all the personal info changed, of course) with your line added:

======================================

<?php // <--- this should already be there ;-) (It was there 🙂 )

die("Hello, thephilster!");

//leave the rest of your code down here

if(isset($POST['submit']))
{
$to = "myemail@mywebsite.com"; // this is my Email address
$from = $POST['email']; // this is the sender's Email address
$foundus = $POST['foundus'];
$subject = "Request!";
$subject2 = "You got the ball rolling! Get ready!";
$message = "Found us by: " . $foundus . "\n\n" . $POST['message'];
$message2 = "You're on the way!". "\n\n" . $_POST['message'];
$headers = "From:" . $from;
$headers2 = "From:" . $to;
mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);
mail($from,$subject2,$message2,$headers2); // sends a copy of the message to the sender
header('Location: [url]https://forwardingsite.com');[/url]
}
?>

I was thinking it wasn't even seeing it. GoDaddy says it's because there's an error in the script.

Thanks!

thephilster

Oh, and I left the action: <form action="mail_handler.php" method="post"> since it was under the same directory as the html.

dalecosp

Your code parses just fine here. (There's no error).

In many configurations (I can't speak for GoDaddy; I've used them for name registration & certificate validation, but wouldn't touch their hosting with a 10-foot CAT6 cable ...), PHP would show NOTHING AT ALL in the event of an error, not a blank HTML page.

I can tell you that I'm right in the case of RootBSD, LunarPages, and several other providers and all the devel boxes I've ever used (generally BSD with Apache and mod_php).

Now, that's not to say that their config isn't frikkin' weird and they don't have mail() installed and they have a custom error handler or something like that, but that looks suspiciously like a blank Apache error which would be served in the event of some server error... could be a 400, 500 level error ...

I know someone who works there, actually, but I'm afraid he's more about number$ than code.....

thephilster

Heh, yeah, that's what I got from them, they don't have anyone that knows code. Which is kind of odd, but maybe that's what I get for buying the lowest price hosting package. :p

Will keep investigating the cPanel and see if there's something in there that helps.

Thanks again!

dalecosp

Well, move "mail_handler.php" to "mail_handler_orig.php" and make a new "mail_handler.php" which only includes a word:

test

No opening/closing PHP tags, no PHP statements, no HTML markup, nothing.

Then go there. Anyone (even GoDaddy) ought to be able to debug text ;-)

And as for "not knowing code", I wonder who they hired to build their website? Danica Patrick? :rolleyes:

thephilster

Yep, that worked, thanks, as well as

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

It's looking more like dalecosp said... "their config isn't frikkin' weird and they don't have mail() installed and they have a custom error handler or something like that, but that looks suspiciously like a blank Apache error which would be served in the event of some server error... could be a 400, 500 level error ..."

It's not the mail() option, at least they tested that from my site and that worked. Who knows what else is going wrong. I agree that it could an error served up incorrectly at this point. And without a valid error, I can't troubleshoot what's happening. :glare:

dalecosp is online now

thephilster

oop,, don't know how you got into the bottom there dalecosp! :o

dalecosp

OK, some more things to try:

One echo statement in a PHP file (should work):

<?php

echo "foo";

<?php
if (function_exists('mail')) {
   echo "Yup";
} else {
   echo "Nope";
}

<?php

ini_set("error_reporting",E_ALL);
ini_set("display_errors",TRUE);

$test = mail ("me@mydomain.com","test_subject","This is a test message");

if ($test) echo "Mail sent";
else echo "Mail could not be sent";

thephilster

Well, you proved that it is actually will send a message. When I used the last code, it sent the message and said mail sent. But ALL I used was that code, not the whole script. :queasy:

Guess I'm back to looking at my script.... Thanks!

sneakyimp

Try taking starting with one line, then adding each line until it barfs.

Also, note that you are checking for POST data before trying to mail anything. If there is no POST operation then your script doesn't do anything. Make sure that you are testing your script by actually posting to it.

thephilster

Erp... ok, that was a "canned" script. Should I just change those to assigning a value, then do a post? And one line at a time sounds good. Thanks!

sneakyimp

No you don't want to assign values if there is no POST. And it's not the script's fault if you get no output when you don't POST anything. maybe

if ($_POST["submit"]) {
  // do mail stuff
} else {
  // NO POST...NO DATA TO WORK WITH
  echo "you did not post anything you lunkhead. I have no data to work with ";
}

Also, your script appears to be vulnerable to mail header injection. You might want to read about it. Otherwise, it's only a matter of time before spammers are sending their own mail from your site.

thephilster

Thanks again!