mail() is taking to long

Anon

Anyone have an ideas why when I submit a form with a mail() function it takes a long time to refresh the screen.

It very well could be a sendmail config problem as I had the same code working just fine on two different boxes.

[deleted]

don't use the mail() function, use a custom mail routine instead.

lucianoes

I've seen other people badmouth the mail() function. Why is that? What would be another way?

    Luciano ES
    Santos, SP - Brasil

Anon

I do not think that it is anything with actual mail() function since I can hit stop in my browser right after I submit it and the e-mail is still sent.

It just does not go over to well for the end user they do not want have hit the stop button. It has me baffled, since the mail still goes through and if I take the mail() function out the form refreshes immediately,

What's it hanging up on?

[deleted]

For some reason mail() seems to take ages to complete.

The alternative is to talk directly to the mailserver, which is quite easy to do.
There are a few examples of this in the snippets-section.

[deleted]

"since I can hit stop in my browser right after I submit it and the e-mail is still sent."

That's because you probably hit 'stop' right in the middle of the mail() function, and PHP cannot abort inside internal functions, only between lines of code, so PHP will abort right after mail() has finished sending the message.

The mail() function does a few mysterious things that make it slow down to a crawl.
Get your hands on an SMTP protocol routine and talk directly to the mailserver. Much faster.

sapphire

I'm sure this doesn't help answer the question, however I use the mail() function and it is not taking anytime to process.

lucianoes

Well, I've been using the mail() function for a couple of months now and it's always been fast. I hit the submit button, the page refreshes instantly, I immediately query my mail box, the message is already there.

But what do I know?

Luciano ES
Santos, SP - Brasil

[deleted]

"But what do I know?"

What indeed. :-)

that fact that something works for you does not automatically mean it works for the rest of the world.

If you do a google on PHP's mail() function you'll find hundreds of items about how slow it can be.

If it works for you: great, by all means use it. But for those who have problems with slow email sending, a slow working mail() is usually the problem.