PHP Contact Form Failing

Question

I'm wondering what is going wrong in this contact form. I'm not sure why, but it constantly defaults to the else and says Something went wrong, please try again later. I can't figure out why, and the error_log isn't showing anything. Is there anything glaringly obvious I'm missing? I'm pretty new to PHP.

PHP

<?php
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $phone = $_POST['phone'];
    $message = $_POST['message'];
    $captcha = $_POST['captcha'];
    $from = 'From: HankSmith.com Contact Form'; 
    $to = 'thatbraxjohnsonguy@gmail.com'; 
    $subject = 'HANK SMITH CONTACT FORM';

    $body = "
            From: $name\n 
            E-Mail: $email\n 
            Phone: $phone\n
            Message: $message\n";

    if ($_POST['submit'] and $captcha == 4) {                
        if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $from)) { 
        echo '<p style="margin-top: 150; text-align:center; font-size: 18px;">Your message has been sent! Click <a href="../index.php">here</a> to return to the website.</p>';
    } else { 
        echo '<p>Something went wrong, try again later!</p>'; 
    }
}
?>

HTML Form

            <form class="contactform" method="post" action="php/contact.php">
                <h3>Name</h3>
                <input class="form inputboxes" type="text" name="name">
                <h3>Email</h3>
                <input class="form inputboxes" type="text" name="email">
                <h3>Phone</h3>
                <input class="form inputboxes" type="text" name="phone">
                <h3>Message</h3>
                <textarea class="form inputboxes" name="message"></textarea>
                <h3 class="captchastyle">Are you real? What is 2 + 2?</h3><input class="captcha captchastyle" type="text" name="captcha" maxlength="1">
                <input class="form submit" name="submit" type="submit" value="Submit">
            </form>

I'll update the post with the form. – B Johnson Feb 07 '17 at 23:44 — B Johnson, Feb 07 '17 at 23:44
Post the html form. – Rodrigo Jarouche Feb 07 '17 at 23:44 — Rodrigo Jarouche, Feb 07 '17 at 23:44
@RodrigoSartoriJarouche Done. – B Johnson Feb 07 '17 at 23:46 — B Johnson, Feb 07 '17 at 23:46

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

1

Use isset on your condition:

if (isset($_POST['submit']) && $captcha == 4)

It checks if the field is non empty and the form has been submitted.

And && is better here than and see the reason here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11861068

edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Community

1
1

answered Feb 07 '17 at 23:47

Still throws the same at me, I'm wondering if it's just the servers not propagating as fast as I'm updating. – B Johnson Feb 07 '17 at 23:50
Ok use `&&` and close the `}` as mentioned in next answer. It should work. – Feb 08 '17 at 00:00
Well, instead of the error message I just got a blank page, so I consider that progress. – B Johnson Feb 08 '17 at 00:06
Now it kills the page haha. I'll keep trouble shooting! – B Johnson Feb 08 '17 at 21:49
No, I meant after answer from @daniel – Feb 09 '17 at 01:50

djs · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-08T00:07:15.337

1

When I copied this into my text editor, it threw a parse error because the echo statement in the if (mail)... section didn't have a closing brace. I never use 'and', I usually use '&&', but it actually doesn't seem to matter in this case.

if ($_POST['submit'] && $captcha == 4) {                
        if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $from)) { 
        echo '<p style="margin-top: 150; text-align:center; font-size: 18px;">Your message has been sent! Click <a href="../index.php">here</a> to return to the website.</p>';
        } // THIS MUST BE HERE
    } else { 
        echo '<p>Something went wrong, try again later!</p>'; 
    }

Also, you probably want an 'else' condition for that if (mail)... statement. If you're seeing a blank page, it will be because you aren't handling what happens if the mail() function returns false:

if (mail ($to, $subject, $body, $from)) { 
  echo '<p style="margin-top: 150; text-align:center; font-size: 18px;">Your message has been sent! Click <a href="../index.php">here</a> to return to the website.</p>';
} else {
  echo '<p>Problem sending mail!';
}

And honestly, the native PHP mail() function sucks! Consider using SwiftMailer or PHPMailer instead.

edited Feb 08 '17 at 00:07

answered Feb 07 '17 at 23:52

djs

3,947
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I forgot a brace?? Figures. Thanks. I'll test that out. – B Johnson Feb 08 '17 at 00:03
Okay so it didn't give me an error, just a blank page. Progress! – B Johnson Feb 08 '17 at 00:04
Yeah, it's actually not necessary since you only are running one statement in the if conditional. But, since you had an opening brace, the closing brace was necessary. – djs Feb 08 '17 at 00:04
You are more than likely getting a blank page because the mail() function returned false, see my edit to my answer for a solution. – djs Feb 08 '17 at 00:07
You're exactly right. Now it's throwing `Problem sending mail.` I'll edit the mail function. Thanks for your help! – B Johnson Feb 08 '17 at 00:09

PHP Contact Form Failing

2 Answers2