Unable to send using PHPMailer and Gmail

[jrahma]

Hi,

I am trying to send email from my gmail business and PHPMailer but getting below error. I am 100000% sure about the password because I am able to login using the same passoword.

Here is my code:

//Create a new PHPMailer instance
$mail = new PHPMailer();
//Tell PHPMailer to use SMTP
$mail->IsSMTP();
//Enable SMTP debugging
// 0 = off (for production use)
// 1 = client messages
// 2 = client and server messages
$mail->SMTPDebug  = 2;
//Ask for HTML-friendly debug output
$mail->Debugoutput = 'html';
//Set the hostname of the mail server
$mail->Host       = "smtp.gmail.com";
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
//Set the SMTP port number - likely to be 25, 465 or 587
$mail->Port       = 587;
//Whether to use SMTP authentication
$mail->SMTPAuth   = true;
//Username to use for SMTP authentication
$mail->Username   = "[e-mail]";
//Password to use for SMTP authentication
$mail->Password   = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
//Set who the message is to be sent from
$mail->SetFrom("[e-mail]", "Smashurger");
// display the from name and email;
// $mail->FromName = $_POST['txtName'] ." <" . $_POST['txtEmail'] . ">";
//Set an alternative reply-to address
// $mail->AddReplyTo($_POST['txtEmail'], $_POST['txtName']);
//Set who the message is to be sent to
$mail->AddAddress($email_address, $email_address);

//Replace the plain text body with one created manually
$mail->AltBody = 'To view the message, please use an HTML compatible email viewer!'; // optional - MsgHTML will create an alternate automatically
//Attach an image file
// $mail->AddAttachment('images/phpmailer_mini.gif');
// $mail->AddCustomHeader($mail_header); 

//Set the subject line
$mail->Subject = "Welcome to Smashburger";

//Read an HTML message body from an external file, convert referenced images to embedded, convert HTML into a basic plain-text alternative body
// $mail->MsgHTML($body);
$mail->Body = $body;
$mail->CharSet = 'UTF-8';
$mail->IsHTML(true);

//Send the message, check for errors
if(!$mail->Send()) {
  echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
  echo "Message sent!";
}

This is the ERROR:

SMTP -> FROM SERVER:220 smtp.gmail.com ESMTP h108sm5648856qge.21 - gsmtp
CLIENT -> SMTP: EHLO smashburgerbahrain.com
SMTP -> FROM SERVER: 250-smtp.gmail.com at your service, [173.236.137.128]250-SIZE 35882577250-8BITMIME250-STARTTLS250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES250-PIPELINING250-CHUNKING250 SMTPUTF8
CLIENT -> SMTP: STARTTLS
SMTP -> FROM SERVER:220 2.0.0 Ready to start TLS
CLIENT -> SMTP: EHLO smashburgerbahrain.com
SMTP -> FROM SERVER: 250-smtp.gmail.com at your service, [173.236.137.128]250-SIZE 35882577250-8BITMIME250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN XOAUTH2 PLAIN-CLIENTTOKEN OAUTHBEARER XOAUTH250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES250-PIPELINING250-CHUNKING250 SMTPUTF8
CLIENT -> SMTP: AUTH LOGIN
CLIENT -> SMTP: bm9yZXBseUBzbWFzaGJ1cmdlcmJhaHJhaW4uY29t
CLIENT -> SMTP: TXVqdGFiYUAyMDE1
SMTP -> ERROR: Password not accepted from server: 534-5.7.14 <https://accounts.google.com/ContinueSignIn?sarp=1&scc=1&plt=AKgnsbvDK534-5.7.14 AwRHY7MTTkREbKmKJBCJQOfC2xDhFNsnIrFD1l6HD52B9G6PfrlkjRgKPthtSHjMP6SqBB534-5.7.14 --MIzJIGCQR3wBZDisXU6pGtZHEiFvF3q_bUU1S0LRahwyHTxeI1abwnNSlv58jcN63T6b534-5.7.14 KhHnCPneegmwsY-9YPTav-BsQXSc8H-7RqVvBYN25oFPhJk1MUGdYdUCHZcWozp8mP_L9_534-5.7.14 ETMlGC-uTXoAncJ9XLJZSyRZL3PE> Please log in via your web browser and534-5.7.14 then try again.534-5.7.14 Learn more at534 5.7.14 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754 h108sm5648856qge.21 - gsmtp
CLIENT -> SMTP: quit
SMTP -> FROM SERVER:221 2.0.0 closing connection h108sm5648856qge.21 - gsmtp
SMTP Connect() failed.
Mailer Error: SMTP Connect() failed.

Thanks,
Jassim

[Bonesnap]

Your settings look okay. Hard to say what the issue is. When I implemented PHPMailer with Gmail it worked without much hassle. Your settings are pretty much the same as mine.

One thing that could be causing problems... I notice you are using double quotes for the password. Does your password contain a dollar sign ($)? If it does, then PHP will interpret that as a variable and your code will not work as you expect, or at all. Do you have any errors in an error log?

EDIT: Should mention that to fix the password issue (if that is indeed the issue) you can either use single quotes or change your password so it does not contain a dollar sign.

[jrahma]

My password has @ sign

[sneakyimp]

@sign shouldn't make a difference. $ and \ might, though.

I remember having a problem with PHPMailer trying to send mail via gmail. I think the problem was due to the use of SSL/TLS for authentication. I solved the problem by using PEAR::Mail instead.

[Derokorian]

You have a lot of comments in there, and I don't feel like digging through to figure out what's different between what you have and what I have. But here is my mailer code, it uses gmail and seems to work reliably.

    private function initMailer()
    {
        $this->oMailer = new PHPMailer;
        $this->oMailer->isSMTP();
        $this->oMailer->SMTPDebug = 0;
        $this->oMailer->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
        $this->oMailer->Port = 587;
        $this->oMailer->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
        $this->oMailer->SMTPAuth = true;
        $this->oMailer->Username = Config::GetValue('email', 'user');
        $this->oMailer->Password = Config::GetValue('email', 'password');
        $this->oMailer->setFrom(Config::GetValue('email', 'from'), Config::GetValue('email','from_name'));
        $rt = Config::GetValue('email', 'reply_to');
        if( isset($rt) )
        {
            $this->oMailer->addReplyTo($rt);
        }
    }

// Somewhere else in the class I use it:
                $this->initMailer();
                $this->oMailer->addAddress($oUser->email);
                $this->oMailer->Subject =  'Welcome new user!';
                $this->oMailer->msgHTML(
                    TemplateEngine::LoadView(
                        'user/email_welcome_user',
                        [
                            'username' => $oUser->username,
                            'site_url' => Config::GetValue('website', 'site_url')
                        ]
                    )
                );
                $this->oMailer->AltBody = 'Thanks for signing up to derokorian.com';
                if( !$this->oMailer->send() )
                {
                    error_log('Failed sending welcome mail: ' . $this->oMailer->ErrorInfo);
                }

Don't worry about the templateEngine or Config stuff, that's just my application's way of keeping everything from being inline. I'm not sure what you can drop from this, but this is what I set up to get it working every time. Try to compare it to your code, and maybe you'll see something different or missing? If you can't figure it out, I will try to look at it in detail this weekend while I'm traveling (aka while I sit at the gate at the airport).