ajax contact form error but email is sent

Question

I have this html markup:

<form id="ajax-contact" method="post" action="mailer.php">

<div id="form-messages"></div>

<div class="field">
    <label for="name">Name:</label>
    <input type="text" id="name" class="contact" name="name" placeholder="Name" required>
</div>

<div class="field">
    <label for="email">Email:</label>
    <input type="email" id="email" class="contact" name="email" placeholder="Email" required>
</div>

<div class="field">
    <label for="message">Message:</label>
    <textarea id="message"  name="message" placeholder="Message" required></textarea>
</div>

<div class="field">
    <button type="submit">Send</button>
</div>
</form>

this jQuery (for the AJAX call):

$(function() {

// Get the form.
var form = $('#ajax-contact');

// Get the messages div.
var formMessages = $('#form-messages');

// Set up an event listener for the contact form.
$(form).submit(function(e) {
    // Stop the browser from submitting the form.
    e.preventDefault();

    // Serialize the form data.
    var formData = $(form).serialize();

    // Submit the form using AJAX.
    $.ajax({
        type: 'POST',
        url: $(form).attr('action'),
        data: formData
    })
    .done(function(response) {
        // Make sure that the formMessages div has the 'success' class.
        $(formMessages).removeClass('error');
        $(formMessages).addClass('success');

        // Set the message text.
        $(formMessages).text(response);

        // Clear the form.
        $('#name').val('');
        $('#email').val('');
        $('#message').val('');
    })
    .fail(function(data) {
        // Make sure that the formMessages div has the 'error' class.
        $(formMessages).removeClass('success');
        $(formMessages).addClass('error');

        // Set the message text.
        if (data.responseText !== '') {
            $(formMessages).text(data.responseText);
        } else {
            $(formMessages).text('Oops! An error occured and your message could not be sent.');
        }
    });

});

});

and this mailer.php file:

<?php
// My modifications to mailer script from:
// http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/create-ajax-contact-form
// Added input sanitizing to prevent injection

// Only process POST reqeusts.
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    // Get the form fields and remove whitespace.
    $name = strip_tags(trim($_POST["name"]));
            $name = str_replace(array("\r","\n"),array(" "," "),$name);
    $email = filter_var(trim($_POST["email"]), FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
    $message = trim($_POST["message"]);

    // Check that data was sent to the mailer.
    if ( empty($name) OR empty($message) OR !filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
        // Set a 400 (bad request) response code and exit.
        http_response_code(400);
        echo "Oops! There was a problem with your submission. Please complete the form and try again.";
        exit;
    }

    // Set the recipient email address.
    // FIXME: Update this to your desired email address.
    $recipient = "email@email.com";

    // Set the email subject.
    $subject = "New contact from $name";

    // Build the email content.
    $email_content = "Name: $name\n";
    $email_content .= "Email: $email\n\n";
    $email_content .= "Message:\n$message\n";

    // Build the email headers.
    $email_headers = "From: $name <$email>";

    // Send the email.
    if (mail($recipient, $subject, $email_content, $email_headers)) {
        // Set a 200 (okay) response code.
        http_response_code(200);
        echo "Thank You! Your message has been sent.";
    } else {
        // Set a 500 (internal server error) response code.
        http_response_code(500);
        echo "Oops! Something went wrong and we couldn't send your message.";
    }

} else {
    // Not a POST request, set a 403 (forbidden) response code.
    http_response_code(403);
    echo "There was a problem with your submission, please try again.";
}

?>

The issue is that after I press the submit button, I receive this message: Oops! An error occured and your message could not be sent. When I check the console I see this error: Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (Internal Server Error) which is the mailer.php file.

However, when I check my inbox I see the email submitted in the form.

I can not figure out what is going wrong, can someone tell how can I fix this issue?

Thank you!

Answer 1

1. You are using the wrong error number - 500 is reserved for faults in code (hence why internal server error).

2. Even for security reasons, always send 200 however when mail returns false, log the email in a text file. Together with the get_last_error function, so that you can properly analyze your issue.

Hope this helps.

http://www.w3schools.com/php/func_error_get_last.asp