Sending email over Office365 account in Codeigniter 3 - connection timeout

Question

I'm trying to connect to my Office365 account and send out an email in Codeigniter 3:

$config['protocol'] = 'smtp';
$config['smtp_host'] = 'smtp.office365.com';
$config['smtp_user'] = '****';
$config['smtp_pass'] = '****';
$config['smtp_port'] = '587';
$config['smtp_timeout'] = '60';
$config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls';
$config['mailtype'] = 'html';
$this->email->initialize($config);

$this->email->from('****', '****');
$this->email->to('****');

$this->email->subject('Email Test');
$this->email->message('Testing the email class.');

$this->email->send(FALSE);

$this->email->print_debugger();

This code works fine on my local server (wamp), but not on my production server (Debian), that's why I suspect some settings on the server need to be altered. All I get is this:

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: fsockopen(): unable to connect to smtp.office365.com:587 (Connection timed out)

Filename: libraries/Email.php

Line Number: 1949

I also tried sending mail with Phpmailer class and I got the same result; works on my local machine, not on production server.

Codeigniter class uses function fsockopen to connect to the mail server, but I can't find out the solution, since I don't know much about server configuration.

Any suggestion would be appreciated!

Answer 1

Here is what has worked for me in the past:

<?php 
$config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls'; 
$config['protocol'] = 'smtp'; 
$config['smtp_host'] = 'smtp.office365.com';
$config['smtp_user'] = 'USER@EMAIL.COM'; 
$config['smtp_pass'] = 'password'; 
$config['smtp_port'] = '587'; 
$config['charset']='utf-8'; // Default should be utf-8 (this should be a text field) 
$config['newline']="\r\n"; //"\r\n" or "\n" or "\r". DEFAULT should be "\r\n" 
$config['crlf'] = "\r\n"; //"\r\n" or "\n" or "\r" DEFAULT should be "\r\n" 
?>

Also to note that the FROM address must be the same as smtp_user

Answer 2

You probably ran php on a Linux machine, if this is the case, you'd need to use following line to override CodeIgniter's configuration parameter

'newline' => "\r\n", //must have for office365!

I published an article here:

http://aus800.com.au/sending-out-emails-using-codeigniter-from-office365-account/

Answer 3

I cant exactly point out the error. So i posted 3 Methods. Grab the Idea or which Method is worked out.

Method 01

1. Login in to the Microsoft Online Services Portal.
2. Click on Outlook
3. Click Options (upper right corner)
4. Click on About
5. There will be a section titled External SMTP setting that looks like:

The important information is:

• Server name: pod51010.outlook.com (your’s may be different)
• Port: 587
• Encryption method: TLS

then

$config['smtp_host'] = '';//change this
$config['smtp_timeout'] = '5';//fist try with 5 if no response increase to 90 and check

Method 02

$config['protocol'] = 'smtp';
$config['smtp_host'] = 'smtp.office365.com';
$config['smtp_user'] = '****';
$config['smtp_pass'] = '****';
$config['smtp_port'] = '465';//change this
$config['smtp_timeout'] = '60';
$config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls';

SSL/TLS vs plaintext/STARTTLS port numbers

Method 03

$config['protocol'] = 'smtp';
$config['smtp_host'] = 'tls://smtp.office365.com';//change this
$config['smtp_user'] = '****';
$config['smtp_pass'] = '****';
$config['smtp_port'] = '587';
$config['smtp_timeout'] = '60';
$config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls';//not sure about this, if not work remove this and try once

Answer 4

continue with this tested code

  <?php
     $mail= new phpmailer();  
     $mail->isSMTP();
     $mail->Host = 'smtp.office365.com'; 
     $mail->Port       = 587;
     $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
     $mail->SMTPAuth   = true;
     $mail->Username = 'alertas@xxx.com';
     $mail->Password = 'Password';
     $mail->SetFrom('alertas@xxx.com', 'FromEmail'`enter code here`);
     $mail->addAddress('x@xxx.com', 'ToEmail');
     $mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->Subject = 'Correo desde PHP';
$mail->Body    = 'Prueba de correo desde php</b>';       

if(!$mail->send()) { 
  echo "Ok"; 
} else { 
   echo "Error";
}
?>

Answer 5

For those facing same problem to connect Office365 smtp on 2019 and after: I resolved my problem just using PHPMailer Class. I tested everything here and in another questions and nothing. Uploaded PHPMailer Folder, set up config files and boom. Emails works. Using codeigniter 3.10 and problem seems to remain since this is a old question. In their Email class (codeigniter) have a comment that seems smtp connect is not very good...

/**
* STREAM_CRYPTO_METHOD_TLS_CLIENT is quite the mess ...
*
* - On PHP <5.6 it doesn't even mean TLS, but SSL 2.0, and there's no option to use actual TLS
* - On PHP 5.6.0-5.6.6, >=7.2 it means negotiation with any of TLS 1.0, 1.1, 1.2
* - On PHP 5.6.7-7.1.* it means only TLS 1.0
*
* We want the negotiation, so we'll force it below ...
*/

I don't speak english very well but this seems little confusing.

Ok, so, if you don't want to lose more time, upload PHPMailer Folder you can download at: https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer

Upload your PHPMailer folder to application/libraries/ and create a file there too:

MY_phpmailer.php

In MY_phpmailer.php file:

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class MY_PHPMailer {
        public function My_PHPMailer() {
        require_once('Phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php');
    }
}
?>

PHPMailer send function:

public  function sendmail2($to,$subject,$message,$reply=null,$nameReply=null){

    $this->CI->load->library('MY_phpmailer');

    //$this->load->library('MY_phpmailer'); (If you use this function inside CI, use this instead above) I use CI->load above because my function is in a function_helper, not on controller

    $mail = new PHPMailer();
    $mail->IsSMTP(); //Definimos que usaremos o protocolo SMTP para envio.
    $mail->SMTPDebug = 0;
    $mail->CharSet = 'UTF-8';
    $mail->SMTPAuth = true; //Habilitamos a autenticaçăo do SMTP. (true ou false)
    $mail->SMTPSecure = "tls"; //Estabelecemos qual protocolo de segurança será usado.
    $mail->Host = "smtp.office365.com"; //Podemos usar o servidor do gMail para enviar.
    $mail->Port = 587; //Estabelecemos a porta utilizada pelo servidor do gMail.
    $mail->Username = "your_email@yourdomain.com.br"; //Usuário do gMail
    $mail->Password = "Strong_Password"; //Senha do gMail

    if($reply != null and $nameReply != null){
        //add replyto if you send those values, so you can set other reply address than senders address
        $mail->AddReplyTo($reply, $nameReply);
    }

    $mail->SetFrom('your_email@yourdomain.com.br', 'Senders Name'); //Quem está enviando o e-mail.
    $mail->Subject =  $subject;
    $mail->IsHTML(true); 
    $mail->Body = $message;
    //$mail->AltBody = "Plain text.";
    $mail->AddAddress($to);

    /*If you want to put attachments that comes from a input FILE type name='file'.*/
    if (isset($_FILES['file']) &&
        $_FILES['file']['error'] == UPLOAD_ERR_OK) {
        $mail->AddAttachment($_FILES['file']['tmp_name'],
                             $_FILES['file']['name']);
    }

    if(!$mail->Send()) {
        // error occur - user your show method to show error
        set_msg('msgerro', $mail->ErrorInfo, 'erro');
    } else {
        // success occur - user your show method to show success
        set_msg('msgok', 'E-mail enviado.', 'sucesso');
    }

}

Ok, to finish, on controller that you'd want to use this send function:

$this->load->library("MY_phpmailer");

And in your view, when you want to send e-mails:

$this->system->sendmail2($to, $subject, $message); //$to, $subject and $message are vars you sent from your backend - prefer HTML to $message