PHP contact form returning sent but it isn't sending

Question

I have tried to make sure others mistakes aren't here but I can't seem to fix this problem. When I run a test by entering a Name, email and message it returns the thanks for the message but never sends the email.

Hopefully this one isn't a stupid typo

HTML:

            <form method="post" action="contact.php" id="contactform">

                <div>
                <p>Send us your message</p>
                </div>

                <div>
                <label>Username <span class="required">*</span></label>
                <input name="name" type="text" id="name" value="" />
                </div>

                <div>
                <label>Email <span class="required">*</span></label>
                <input name="email" type="text" id="email" value="" />
                </div>

                <div>
                <label>Message <span class="required">*</span></label>
                <textarea name="message" rows="20" cols="50"  id="message" ></textarea><br /><br />
                </div>

                <div>
                <input type="submit"  value="Submit" class="button">
                <input type="reset" value="Reset" class="button">
                </div>

            </form>

PHP:

<?php
$field_name    = $_POST['name'];
$field_email   = $_POST['email'];
$field_message = $_POST['message'];

$mail_to = 'test@email.com';
$subject = 'Web message from '.$field_name;

$body_message = 'From: '.$field_name."\n";
$body_message .= 'E-mail: '.$field_email."\n";
$body_message .= 'Message: '.$field_message;

$headers = 'From: '.$field_email."\r\n";
$headers .= 'Reply-To: '.$field_email."\r\n";

$mail_status = mail($mail_to, $subject, $body_message, $headers);

if ($mail_status) { ?>
  <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    alert('Thank you for the message.');
    window.location = '/';
  </script>
<?php
}
else { ?>
  <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    alert('Message failed.);
    window.location = '/';
  </script>
<?php
}
?>

Answer 1

please dont do things like that. You need to escape and clean the user input with something like mysql_real_escape_string and you can simply use

header('Location: http://example.org/');
exit();

For your question: In my opinion the mail function is not good to use in any given situation. Simply because there are many webhosting services that don't allow using it or with a limit. I´d use something like PHPMailer , which uses smtp for sending and retrieving email data. Keep in mind, that you need an email account for using libraries like that.

Manni