Mail function not sending email

Question

I'm pretty new to PHP and getting to grips with a (very simple) contact form. When I uploaded this to my hosting company, the PHP script does run as when I fill out and submit the form it brings back my confirmation but the email does not send. My hosting company is 123-reg. Do I have to do anything with them to allow the email to be sent?

My code is as follows:

Form Code:

    <form action="action_handler.php" method="POST">
    <dl>
    <dt> Name:
    <dd><input type="text" name="name">
    <dt> Email Address:
    <dd><input type="text" name="mail">
    <dt> Comments:
    <dd><textarea rows="5" cols "20" name="comment">
    </textarea>
    </dl>
    <p><input type="submit"></p>
    </form>

PHP Code:

    <?php
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $mail = $_POST['mail'];
    $comment = $_POST['comment'];

    $to = "someone@hotmail.co.uk";
    $subject = "Contact Form Request";
    $body = "You have a new message from: /n Name: $name /n Email: $mail /n/nThe request is as follows: /n/n $comment";

    mail ($to,$subject,$body);

    echo"<p>Thanks for your comment $name ...</p>";
    echo"<p><i>$comment</i></p>";
    echo"<p>We will reply to $mail</p>";
    ?>

Any help is much appreciated.

`/n` by the way, is `\n`. Plus, it's probably sending it, it's likely rejected or sent to spam. Add error reporting to the top of your file(s) right after your opening ` — Funk Forty Niner, Dec 23 '14 at 17:46
To send mail using the mail function, PHP needs to be configured to send mail, as is the answer to many duplicates of this question. Have you contacted your host to check if this is configured properly? Also, often enough a mail *is* sent, but is moved to a junk mail folder. — GolezTrol, Dec 23 '14 at 17:48
9.9 times out of 10, mail is sent to spam because of a missing `From:`. Use proper headers and visit http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php — Funk Forty Niner, Dec 23 '14 at 17:52
A potential problem is a missing `From` header. That is required and if that is not set in your `php.ini` file, you need to add it as a fourth parameter: http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php. @Fred-ii- beat me to it :-) — jeroen, Dec 23 '14 at 17:52
@jeroen I think we were writing that same comment at the same time :-) — Funk Forty Niner, Dec 23 '14 at 17:54
I have just changed the /n to \n (newbie mistake) and this seems to have worked although the email was sent to my junk mail. Thanks for your help guys. — Chris, Dec 23 '14 at 17:55
I'll put a 'From' field in just now and see if this helps re the junk mail issue. — Chris, Dec 23 '14 at 17:55
It will definitely help Chris. Consult the link provided by @jeroen and myself for you above. And you're welcome. — Funk Forty Niner, Dec 23 '14 at 17:57
@Chris Would you mind if I post my comments as an answer. The ones below are just not getting the question and are completely incorrect. Nor, have they paid attention to any of the comments here. — Funk Forty Niner, Dec 23 '14 at 18:01
@Fred-ii- yes, your answer was very helpful and sorted out my issue. Feel free to post as answer. Thanks again. — Chris, Dec 23 '14 at 18:18
Ok Chris. Give me a few minutes to I can formulate a proper answer. — Funk Forty Niner, Dec 23 '14 at 18:19

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 23 '14 at 18:28

There are a few things wrong with your present code.

Firstly, /n which should read as \n very important. It's a syntax error.

Then, there's the missing From: which not having that in mail headers, will most likely be rejected or sent to spam.

The "from" in mail will end up being an email address from "@yourserver.xxx"

To include a From: use the following:

$header = "From: ". $name . " <" . $mail . ">\r\n";

which will show up as the person's name in the "from", yet identified as a proper email address.

More often than none, mail is sent to spam whenever From: is omitted from headers.

Therefore

mail ($to,$subject,$body);

should be modified to

mail ($to,$subject,$body,$header);

including the line above, to be inserted underneath the $body variable.

For more information on mail/headers, visit:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php

Add error reporting to the top of your file(s) which will help find errors.

<?php 
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);

// rest of your code

Sidenote: Error reporting should only be done in staging, and never production.

You can also use a conditional statement to check if mail was indeed sent:

if(mail ($to,$subject,$body,$header)) { 
    echo "Sent."; 
    } else{ 
    echo "Sorry, check your mail logs."; 
}

Once mail goes out, it's out of your server's hands and into the receiver's end. There's nothing you can do "after the fact."

Mail function not sending email

1 Answers1