Why can't I connect to the gmail SMTP server using tls? - php

Question

My target is to send an email to myself using PHPMailer. I am using Gmail SMTP as a start (I have enabled less secure app access and disabled two factor authentication), and am trying to connect from localhost (using MAMP). This is my code:
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;
require 'PHPMailer-master/src/Exception.php';
require 'PHPMailer-master/src/PHPMailer.php';
require 'PHPMailer-master/src/SMTP.php';
$mail = new PHPmailer(true);
try {
$mail->SetFrom('myemail','myname');
$mail->AddAddress('myemail','mynickname');
$mail->Body = 'There is a great disturbance in the Force.';
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
$mail->SMTPAuth = TRUE;
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$mail->Username = 'myemail#gmail.com';
$mail->Password = 'mypassword';
$mail->Port = 587;
$mail->Send();
}
catch (Exception $e){
echo $e->errorMessage();
}
This gives me a SMTP connect() failed error. I checked the troubleshooting page for this and have found that this error occurs when there is a Firewall or DNS failure, so I have tried disabling the firewall on my computer altogether, but to no avail. What could be the problem?
It is worth noting that I have tried connecting to the smtp server on cmd using telnet smtp.gmail.com 587 and that didn't work either. What could be the problem here?
Edit: I changed $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls'; and $mail->Port = 587; to $mail->SMTPSecure = 'ssl'; and $mail->Port = 587; respectively it worked. Why does tls not work?

Answer 1

Use
$mail->SMTPDebug = 4;
In the try{ section to help narrow down the errors