PHP cannot POST /email.php error

Question

I am creating a website with a contact form that sends an e-mail to me with information from the visiting user (name, email, subject and message). I have tried using both the mail() function as well as the PHPMailer library, but keep getting the error Cannot POST /email.php as soon as I submit the form.

I think it has something to do with my HTML code, but I am not entirely sure. I have attached both the HTML and PHP code below.

HTML Code

<div class="col-md-9  wow fadeInRight animated">
                    <form class="contact-form" action="/email.php" method="post" >
                        <div class="row">
                            <div class="col-md-6">
                                <input type="text" class="form-control" name="sender" id="sender" placeholder="Name">
                                <input type="email" class="form-control" name="senderemail" id="email" placeholder="Email">
                                <input type="text" class="form-control" name="sendsubject" id="subject" placeholder="Subject">
                            </div>
                            <div class="col-md-6">
                                <textarea class="form-control" style="resize:none" name="sendermessage" id="message" rows="25" cols="20" placeholder="Type message here..."></textarea>
                                <input type="submit" name="submit" class="btn btn-default submit-btn form_submit" value="SEND MESSAGE"></input>
                            </div>
                        </div>
                    </form>
                </div>

PHP Code - Using mail() function

<?php

if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {
    $recipient='naman.mandhan@gmail.com';
    $subject=$_POST['sendersubject'];
    $sender=$_POST['sender'];
    $senderEmail=$_POST['senderemail'];
    $message=$_POST['sendermessage'];

    //$mailBody="Name: $sender\nEmail: $senderEmail\n\n$message";

    mail($recipient, $subject, $mailBody, "From: $sender <$senderEmail>");

}
?>

PHP Code - Using PHPMailer

<?php
require 'PHPMailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php';

//Create a new PHPMailer instance
$mail = new PHPMailer;

//Tell PHPMailer to use SMTP
$mail->isSMTP();

//Enable SMTP debugging
// 0 = off (for production use)
// 1 = client messages
// 2 = client and server messages
$mail->SMTPDebug = 2;

//Ask for HTML-friendly debug output
$mail->Debugoutput = 'html';

//Set the hostname of the mail server
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
// use
// $mail->Host = gethostbyname('smtp.gmail.com');
// if your network does not support SMTP over IPv6

//Set the SMTP port number - 587 for authenticated TLS, a.k.a. RFC4409 SMTP submission
$mail->Port = 587;

//Set the encryption system to use - ssl (deprecated) or tls
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';

//Whether to use SMTP authentication
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;

//Username to use for SMTP authentication - use full email address for gmail
$mail->Username = "naman.mandhan@gmail.com";

//Password to use for SMTP authentication
$mail->Password = "nahdnam";

//Set who the message is to be sent from
$mail->setFrom($senderEmail, $sender);

//Set an alternative reply-to address
//$mail->addReplyTo('replyto@example.com', 'First Last');

//Set who the message is to be sent to
$mail->addAddress($recipient, 'Naman Mandhan');

//Set the subject line
$mail->Subject = $subject;

//Read an HTML message body from an external file, convert referenced images to embedded,
//convert HTML into a basic plain-text alternative body
//$mail->msgHTML(file_get_contents('contents.html'), dirname(__FILE__));

//Include the sender message in the body
$mail->Body = $message;
$mail->AltBody = $message;

//Attach an image file
//$mail->addAttachment('images/phpmailer_mini.png');

//send the message, check for errors
if (!$mail->send()) {
    echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
    echo "Message sent!";
}

?>

Things I Have Checked/Tried

1. email.php is in the same folder as the html file.
2. Configured php.ini to the Gmail SMTP server and port.

3. I receive the following error and have checked but there is nothing that should be causing it, since I have used the same WAMP local server on a different project and gotten the code to write data into a database through PHP.

   [21-Jul-2016 23:52:23 UTC] PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'c:/wamp/bin/php/php5.5.12/ext/php_intl.dll' - The specified module could not be found.

   in Unknown on line 0

   [21-Jul-2016 23:52:23 UTC] PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'c:/wamp/bin/php/php5.5.12/ext/php_ldap.dll' - The specified module could not be found.

   in Unknown on line 0

Answer 1

you have a typo in the code for your form / email.php

in the form the input for subject is

name="sendsubject"

but in your email.php it is

$subject=$_POST['sendersubject'];

Given the other two php inputs are sender..., it would be easier to change the form input name to be:

name="sendersubject"

Incidentally - you should also include labels with a for="" attribute that links the label to the id of each input. This is for accessibility and SEO purposes to ensure that the label and input are linked.

Answer 2

In your form, change the action parameter from

action="/email.php"

To:

action="email.php"

The problem was that the first path is relative to the root of the website, so the form is POSTing to example.com/email.php and not finding anything. You get a 404 Not found result.

The 2nd path will look for email.php in the same folder as the HTML file.