Ajax and PHP form - 500 (Internal Server Error)

Question

I have a contact form that will be sent to an e-mail, but when I try to send I get the 500 Internal Server Error.

I already check probable errors like wrong variable name on HTML file and these stuff.

My hosting is Digital Ocean.

Here is my js code:

  var form = $('#form-contact');
  var formMessages = $('#form-messages');

  $(form).submit( function( event ) {

    event.preventDefault();

    var formData = $(form).serialize();

    $.ajax({
      type  : 'POST',
      url   : $(form).attr('action'),
      data  : formData,
      beforeSend: function(){
         $(".load").show();
      },
    })

    .done( function( response ) {
      $(".load").hide();

      $(formMessages).removeClass('error');
      $(formMessages).addClass('success');

      $(formMessages).text(response);

      $('#form-contact input').val('');
      $('#form-contact textarea').val('');
    })

    .fail( function( data ) {
      $(".load").hide();

      $(formMessages).removeClass('success');
      $(formMessages).addClass('error');

      // Sending
      if ( data.response !== '' ) {
        $(formMessages).text( data.responseText );
      } else {
        $(formMessages).text( 'error.' );
      }

    });

  } );

And here, my PHP code:

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

  // Set the recipient email address.
  $recipient = "mail@here.com";

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

  // Build the email content.
  $email_content = "Name: ". $name;
  $email_content .= "\nE-mail: ". $email;
  $email_content .= "\n\nMessage:\n " . $message;

  // 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 "Thanks, your message was sent.";
  } else {
      // Set a 500 (internal server error) response code.
      http_response_code(500);
      echo "OOps! Sorry, error.";
  }

  } else {
      // Not a POST request, set a 403 (forbidden) response code.
      http_response_code(403);
      echo "Problem with your request!";
  }

Answer 1

That 500 is coming from your own code: http_response_code(500);

The reason your getting it is because mail() is returning false, which means that it's not configured properly. You'll need to install and set up postfix or fakesendmail.