CodeIgniter unable to send email using PHP mail()

Question

I'm trying to send an e-mail with Codeigniter like this:

$this->load->library('email');

$this->email->from("myemail@email.com");
$this->email->reply_to("myemail@email.com");
$this->email->to("myemail@email.com");
$this->email->subject("Test mail");
$this->email->message("Email body");
$this->email->set_alt_message("Email body txt");
$this->email->send();

and I got this on the email debugger: Unable to send email using PHP mail(). Your server might not be configured to send mail using this method.

If I do e simple PHP mail() function with the same addresses, it works but when I use CodeIgniter it gives me the error. So why would it work with simple mail() but not with CodeIgniter ? Any ideas ?

Thanks.

The reference in [PHP mail() form doesn't complete sending e-mail](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43766055/php-mail-form-doesnt-complete-sending-e-mail) generally applies to the CodeIgniter wrapper as well. — mario, Nov 04 '17 at 22:07

Fedir RYKHTIK · Answer 1 · 2012-06-12T22:26:16.797

Had similar issue.

That's working code from the controller :

        $config = array();
        $config['useragent']           = "CodeIgniter";
        $config['mailpath']            = "/usr/bin/sendmail"; // or "/usr/sbin/sendmail"
        $config['protocol']            = "smtp";
        $config['smtp_host']           = "localhost";
        $config['smtp_port']           = "25";
        $config['mailtype'] = 'html';
        $config['charset']  = 'utf-8';
        $config['newline']  = "\r\n";
        $config['wordwrap'] = TRUE;

        $this->load->library('email');

        $this->email->initialize($config);

        $this->email->from($fromEmail, $fromName);
        $this->email->to($email);

        $this->email->subject('Тест Email');
        $this->email->message($this->load->view('email/'.$type.'-html', $data, TRUE));

        $this->email->send();

The location of `sendmail` solved my issue, I was using the default `bin` when it was actually in `sbin` — Hamman Samuel, May 16 '15 at 14:48

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 22 '15 at 22:23

12

Clearly, there does not seem to be a definitive 'one size fits all' answer. What worked for me was changing

$config['protocol'] = 'smtp';

TO:

$config['protocol'] = 'mail';

Hope this helps...

answered Sep 22 '15 at 22:23

mc_kaiser

717
8
18

Huh, funny. What worked for me was exactly the opposite, i.e., changing the protocol _from_ 'mail' _to_ 'smtp' (and adding 'smtp_host' and 'smtp_port' as shown in @Fedir's answer). As stated, one size does not fit all -- mainly because each of is is doing this in a different server environment. Moral of the story: look at _all_ of these answers, and try variations. (The clue for me was noting that the documentation of the PHP `mail()` function -- which works for me -- mentions in passing that it uses SMTP.) – Hephaestus Oct 19 '15 at 05:47
If you are using smtp, make sure to also set smtp_host. localhost should probably be the default smtp_host for the framework. – Jul 26 '18 at 15:06

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 19 '13 at 05:16

Nobody seemed to really find a definitive answer, so I did some digging around and found out why.

in system/libraries/Email.php, first look at line 1552:

if ( ! mail($this->_recipients, $this->_subject, $this->_finalbody, $this->_header_str, "-f ".$this->clean_email($this->_headers['From'])))

it seems to send everything all peachy like. I had the exact same symptoms too. To see if I was crazy, i inserted immediately before...

mail($this->_recipients, $this->_subject, $this->_finalbody)

so I basically removed all the headers and let PHP put in the defaults. Bingo! Without CI's headers, it works. With the CI headers, it doesn't. So what is it?

Digging around some more, I looked up to where html is initialized and used. Turns out it doesn't really do anything until around 1046, where it builds the message body.

from line 1048:

if ($this->send_multipart === FALSE)
{
    $hdr .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=" . $this->charset . $this->newline;
    $hdr .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable";
}
else
{
    $hdr .= "Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=\"" . $this->_alt_boundary . "\"" . $this->newline . $this->newline;

    $body .= $this->_get_mime_message() . $this->newline . $this->newline;
    $body .= "--" . $this->_alt_boundary . $this->newline;

    $body .= "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=" . $this->charset . $this->newline;
    $body .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: " . $this->_get_encoding() . $this->newline . $this->newline;
    $body .= $this->_get_alt_message() . $this->newline . $this->newline . "--" . $this->_alt_boundary . $this->newline;

    $body .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=" . $this->charset . $this->newline;
    $body .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable" . $this->newline . $this->newline;
}

Flipping send_multipart between TRUE and FALSE will make the mail class work or not work.

Looked through the Code Ignitor's email class docs reveals nothing. Going to line 52:

var $send_multipart = TRUE; // TRUE/FALSE - Yahoo does not like multipart alternative, so this is an override.  Set to FALSE for Yahoo.

So there you have it. Possibly an error in how CI does multipart messages? The hidden config preference

$config['send_multipart'] = FALSE;

in the email.php seems to do the trick.

Good point, and this comment from codeigniter email script "This is a multi-part message in MIME format. Your email application may not support this format." — Furkat U., Jun 25 '13 at 10:44
I found that the mail($this->_recipients, $this->_subject, $this->_finalbody) combined with the $config['send_multipart'] = FALSE; $config['mailpath'] = "/usr/sbin/sendmail"; Solved my issue. — Scott Fleming, Feb 08 '16 at 16:30

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 05 '10 at 01:00

9

Do you have an email.php file in your config folder? Maybe there's a problem with your configuration in there.

answered Oct 05 '10 at 01:00

mseo

3,881
3
22
26

Yes, I do have an email.php config, it's default and holds only these: $config['mailtype'] = 'html'; $config['charset'] = 'utf-8'; $config['newline'] = '\r\n'; – Manny Calavera Oct 05 '10 at 12:38
Maybe you should try $config['mailtype'] = 'text'; The mailtype html already caused some problems for me. Or try deleting the whole config file to use default settings. – mseo Oct 06 '10 at 12:19
I will try that, thanks. But I shouldn't have this problem, I want to be able to send HTML message if needed. And I can do it with mail(), and it's bad that I can't do it with such large framework. I still wonder if I am doing something wrong. – Manny Calavera Oct 11 '10 at 13:48
1

`$config['protocol'] = 'sendmail';` => `$config['protocol'] = 'mail';` – Bert Sep 06 '18 at 17:58

score 5 · Answer 5 · edited May 24 '13 at 20:42

5

Be sure domain name in

$this->email->from("myemail@**email.com**");

match to server domain name

edited May 24 '13 at 20:42

demongolem

9,474
36
90
105

answered May 24 '13 at 20:25

Roma Dov

51
1
1

This is the real solution. I was also about to post it too. – Abhishek Goel Jul 12 '14 at 04:19

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 03 '11 at 22:14

Add a protocol variable to the config array and assign it the value "sendmail". The email.php file in the config folder should read as shown below. Mine works like this:

$config['protocol'] = 'sendmail';
$config['mailtype'] = 'html';
$config['charset']  = 'utf-8';
$config['newline']  = "\r\n";

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 28 '20 at 04:47

2

Ensure that Apache can send emails.

To check your current sendmail status: sestatus -b | grep httpd_can_sendmail

Change it to this if it is off: sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_sendmail on

answered Apr 28 '20 at 04:47

Ildar Nogmanov

21
3

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 23 '15 at 12:25

I read a comment in the file email.php :

// most documentation of sendmail using the "-f" flag lacks a space after it, however
        // we've encountered servers that seem to require it to be in place.
        return mail($this->_recipients, $this->_subject, $this->_finalbody, $this->_header_str, '-f '.$this->clean_email($this->_headers['Return-Path']));

"-f" flag - this problem!!!

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 19 '14 at 18:24

0

Had the same problem, Make sure your 'from' address is a valid email address.

answered Jan 19 '14 at 18:24

Oren Yakobi

279
1
4
14

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 05 '16 at 05:36

I had the same problem and though it seems silly to me now, I had some of the config array options capitalized when they all need to be lowercase:

was:

$mail_config['smtp_host'] = 'mail.example.com';
$mail_config['smtp_port'] = '587';
$mail_config['smtp_user'] = 'email@example.com';
$mail_config['smtp_pass'] = 'password';
$mail_config['smtp_crypto'] = 'TLS'; //ERROR
$mail_config['protocol'] = 'SMTP'; //ERROR
$mail_config['mailtype'] = 'HTML'; //ERROR
$mail_config['send_multipart'] = FALSE;
$this->email->initialize($mail_config);

Fixed:

$mail_config['smtp_host'] = 'mail.example.com';
$mail_config['smtp_port'] = '587';
$mail_config['smtp_user'] = 'email@example.com';
$mail_config['smtp_pass'] = 'password';
$mail_config['smtp_crypto'] = 'tls'; //FIXED
$mail_config['protocol'] = 'smtp'; //FIXED
$mail_config['mailtype'] = 'html'; //FIXED
$mail_config['send_multipart'] = FALSE;
$this->email->initialize($mail_config);

That worked for me

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 30 '17 at 19:40

0

Its worth saying that if you're on WAMP (Windows) you will need to have sendmail installed otherwise there is no default SMTP method of sending. I wanted to use Gmail but couldn't because there is simply no default mail mechanism.

answered Aug 30 '17 at 19:40

Antony

3,875
30
32

score -1 · Answer 12 · answered Feb 09 '17 at 05:29

    $config = Array(
        'protocol' => 'smtp',
        'smtp_host' => 'ssl://smtp.googlemail.com',
        'smtp_port' => 465,
        'smtp_user' => 'email',
        'smtp_pass' => 'pass',
        'mailtype'  => 'html',
        'charset'   => 'iso-8859-1'
    );

    $this->load->library('email',$config);
**$this->email->set_newline("\r\n");**  <- add this line
   this code worked for me.

CodeIgniter unable to send email using PHP mail()

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