Contact Form Sending Error

Question

I'm screwing around with a template and just trying to get my contact form to work (in attempt to see how it works, sends messages, etc.). When filling out my contact form and then hitting submit, instead of it going through successfully, one of the errors pops up:

Email could not be sent due to some Unexpected Error. Please Try Again later.

Reason: Could not instantiate mail function.

http://prntscr.com/fh5cct

Here's my contact form in HTML:

<div class="col_half col_last">

    <div class="fancy-title title-dotted-border test-john">
        <h3>Send us an Email</h3>
    </div>

    <div class="contact-widget">

        <div class="contact-form-result"></div>

        <form class="nobottommargin" id="template-contactform" name="template-contactform" action="include/sendemail.php" method="post">

        <div class="form-process"></div>

        <div class="col_one_third">
            <label for="template-contactform-name">Name <small>*</small></label>
            <input type="text" id="template-contactform-name" name="template-contactform-name" value="" class="sm-form-control required" />
        </div>

        <div class="col_one_third">
            <label for="template-contactform-email">Email <small>*</small></label>
            <input type="email" id="template-contactform-email" name="template-contactform-email" value="" class="required email sm-form-control" />
        </div>

        <div class="col_one_third col_last">
            <label for="template-contactform-phone">Phone</label>
            <input type="text" id="template-contactform-phone" name="template-contactform-phone" value="" class="sm-form-control" />
        </div>

        <div class="clear"></div>

        <div class="col_full">
            <label for="template-contactform-subject">Subject <small>*</small></label>
            <input type="text" id="template-contactform-subject" name="template-contactform-subject" value="" class="required sm-form-control" />
        </div>

        <div class="clear"></div>

        <div class="col_full">
            <label for="template-contactform-message">Message <small>*</small></label>
            <textarea class="required sm-form-control" id="template-contactform-message" name="template-contactform-message" rows="6" cols="30"></textarea>
        </div>

        <div class="col_full hidden">
            <input type="text" id="template-contactform-botcheck" name="template-contactform-botcheck" value="" class="sm-form-control" />
        </div>

        <div class="col_full">
            <button name="submit" type="submit" id="submit-button" tabindex="5" value="Submit" class="button button-3d nomargin">Submit Comment</button>
        </div>

        </form>
    </div>

</div>

Then I have the sendemail.php file:

<?php

require_once('phpmailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php');

$toemails = array();

$toemails[] = array(
                'email' => 'myEmail@yahoo.com', // Your Email Address
                'name' => 'My Name' // Your Name
            );

// Form Processing Messages
$message_success = 'We have <strong>successfully</strong> received your Message and will get Back to you as soon as possible.';

// Add this only if you use reCaptcha with your Contact Forms
$recaptcha_secret = 'your-recaptcha-secret-key'; // Your reCaptcha Secret

$mail = new PHPMailer();

// If you intend you use SMTP, add your SMTP Code after this Line


if( $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST' ) {
    if( $_POST['template-contactform-email'] != '' ) {

        $name = isset( $_POST['template-contactform-name'] ) ? $_POST['template-contactform-name'] : '';
        $email = isset( $_POST['template-contactform-email'] ) ? $_POST['template-contactform-email'] : '';
        $phone = isset( $_POST['template-contactform-phone'] ) ? $_POST['template-contactform-phone'] : '';
        $service = isset( $_POST['template-contactform-service'] ) ? $_POST['template-contactform-service'] : '';
        $subject = isset( $_POST['template-contactform-subject'] ) ? $_POST['template-contactform-subject'] : '';
        $message = isset( $_POST['template-contactform-message'] ) ? $_POST['template-contactform-message'] : '';

        $subject = isset($subject) ? $subject : 'New Message From Contact Form';

        $botcheck = $_POST['template-contactform-botcheck'];

        if( $botcheck == '' ) {

            $mail->SetFrom( $email , $name );
            $mail->AddReplyTo( $email , $name );
            foreach( $toemails as $toemail ) {
                $mail->AddAddress( $toemail['email'] , $toemail['name'] );
            }
            $mail->Subject = $subject;

            $name = isset($name) ? "Name: $name<br><br>" : '';
            $email = isset($email) ? "Email: $email<br><br>" : '';
            $phone = isset($phone) ? "Phone: $phone<br><br>" : '';
            $service = isset($service) ? "Service: $service<br><br>" : '';
            $message = isset($message) ? "Message: $message<br><br>" : '';

            $referrer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] ? '<br><br><br>This Form was submitted from: ' . $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] : '';

            $body = "$name $email $phone $service $message $referrer";

            // Runs only when File Field is present in the Contact Form
            if ( isset( $_FILES['template-contactform-file'] ) && $_FILES['template-contactform-file']['error'] == UPLOAD_ERR_OK ) {
                $mail->IsHTML(true);
                $mail->AddAttachment( $_FILES['template-contactform-file']['tmp_name'], $_FILES['template-contactform-file']['name'] );
            }

            // Runs only when reCaptcha is present in the Contact Form
            if( isset( $_POST['g-recaptcha-response'] ) ) {
                $recaptcha_response = $_POST['g-recaptcha-response'];
                $response = file_get_contents( "https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify?secret=" . $recaptcha_secret . "&response=" . $recaptcha_response );

                $g_response = json_decode( $response );

                if ( $g_response->success !== true ) {
                    echo '{ "alert": "error", "message": "Captcha not Validated! Please Try Again." }';
                    die;
                }
            }

            $mail->MsgHTML( $body );
            $sendEmail = $mail->Send();

            if( $sendEmail == true ):
                echo '{ "alert": "success", "message": "' . $message_success . '" }';
            else:
                echo '{ "alert": "error", "message": "Email <strong>could not</strong> be sent due to some Unexpected Error. Please Try Again later.<br /><br /><strong>Reason:</strong><br />' . $mail->ErrorInfo . '" }';
            endif;
        } else {
            echo '{ "alert": "error", "message": "Bot <strong>Detected</strong>.! Clean yourself Botster.!" }';
        }
    } else {
        echo '{ "alert": "error", "message": "Please <strong>Fill up</strong> all the Fields and Try Again." }';
    }
} else {
    echo '{ "alert": "error", "message": "An <strong>unexpected error</strong> occured. Please Try Again later." }';
}

?>

Which requires this autoload.php file:

<?php
/**
 * PHPMailer SPL autoloader.
 * PHP Version 5
 * @package PHPMailer
 * @link https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/ The PHPMailer GitHub project
 * @author Marcus Bointon (Synchro/coolbru) <phpmailer@synchromedia.co.uk>
 * @author Jim Jagielski (jimjag) <jimjag@gmail.com>
 * @author Andy Prevost (codeworxtech) <codeworxtech@users.sourceforge.net>
 * @author Brent R. Matzelle (original founder)
 * @copyright 2012 - 2014 Marcus Bointon
 * @copyright 2010 - 2012 Jim Jagielski
 * @copyright 2004 - 2009 Andy Prevost
 * @license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html GNU Lesser General Public License
 * @note This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful - WITHOUT
 * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 */

/**
 * PHPMailer SPL autoloader.
 * @param string $classname The name of the class to load
 */
function PHPMailerAutoload($classname)
{
    //Can't use __DIR__ as it's only in PHP 5.3+
    $filename = dirname(__FILE__).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'class.'.strtolower($classname).'.php';
    if (is_readable($filename)) {
        require $filename;
    }
}

if (version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '5.1.2', '>=')) {
    //SPL autoloading was introduced in PHP 5.1.2
    if (version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '5.3.0', '>=')) {
        spl_autoload_register('PHPMailerAutoload', true, true);
    } else {
        spl_autoload_register('PHPMailerAutoload');
    }
} else {
    /**
     * Fall back to traditional autoload for old PHP versions
     * @param string $classname The name of the class to load
     */
    function __autoload($classname)
    {
        PHPMailerAutoload($classname);
    }
}

---

Edit: Looks like I must edit/change a few lines of code here and input more data.

If you are not receiving Emails from your Forms then chances are that your Server Configuration doesn't support PHP mail() function. But you can use SMTP Authentication.

So I can add the following under $mail = new PHPMailer(); :

$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->Host = "mail.yourdomain.com";
$mail->SMTPDebug = 0;
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Port = 26;
$mail->Username = "yourname@yourdomain.com";
$mail->Password = "yourpassword";

This gives me a few more questions now. What's the mail in mail.yourdomain.com ? Is the User/Pass for cPanel, my Email, what?

Answer 1

Here's how I set it up on Bluehost:

function mailerExpressBlueHost(array $mailInputs){

         require_once '../includes/phpmailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php';

         $mail = new PHPMailer();
         $mail->IsMail();

         $mail->SetFrom('skipper@yourdomain.com'); // make sure this is an andress 
                                                 // on your domain        
         $mail->IsHTML(true);
         $mail->addAddress($mailInputs['addAddress']);    
         $body = $mailInputs['body'] ;              
         $mail->isHTML(true);
         $mail->Subject = $mailInputs['subject'] ;
         $mail->Body    = $body;

         if(!$mail->send()) {
            return 'Message could not be sent.' . 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;  
         } else {
            return 'Message has been sent';
         }

          $mail->ClearAddresses();
}