form doesn't get sent with PHPMailer() - php

Question

can someone help me a bit with PhpMailer form? I'm not a php dev and i'm a bit lost, mostly because I have no idea how to debug it.
Tips how to debug such scripts are very welcome! (I don't know how to do it in localhost and I host it in a web shared host so I cannot ssh the server)
This is the script:
I have a multiple step form from Frontend which has also recaptcha, so the script include validation of different form steps and recaptcha validation.
<?php
require_once("/PHPMailer/PHPMailer.php");
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
$t_mailer = new PHPMailer;
$t_mailer->SMTPAuth = true;
$t_mailer->Username = "myemail#gmail.com"; // gmail username
$t_mailer->Password = "****"; //gmail password
$t_mailer->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$t_mailer->Port = 587;
$t_mailer->setFrom("myemail#gmail.com", "Name for the owner of the Account");
//$t_mailer->addAddress("myemail#gmail.com", "Name for who is being sent the email.");
$t_mailer->Subject = "Project request from ECA";
$t_mailer->Body = "This will be the message body that is sent.";
// $recipient = 'myemail#gmail.com'; // Enter the recipient's email address here.
// $subject = 'Project request from ECA'; // Enter the subject of the email here.
$success = 'Your message was sent successful. Thanks.';
$error = 'Sorry. We were unable to send your message.';
$invalid = 'Validation errors occurred. Please confirm the fields and submit it again.';
if ( ! empty( $_POST ) ) {
require_once('recaptcha.php');
if( isset( $_POST['email'] ) ) {
$from = filter_var( $_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL );
} else {
$from = null;
}
if( isset( $_POST['step'] ) ) {
$step = $_POST['step'];
} else {
$step = 'send';
}
if ( ! empty( $_POST['reCAPTCHA'] ) ) {
if ( ! empty( $reCAPTCHA['success'] ) ) {
$errCaptcha = '';
} else {
$errCaptcha = true;
}
} else {
$errCaptcha = '';
}
$errFields = array();
foreach( $_POST as $key => $value ) {
if ( $key != 'section' && $key != 'reCAPTCHA' ) {
if ( $key == 'email' ) {
$validation = filter_var( $_POST[$key], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL );
} else {
$validation = ! empty( $_POST[$key] );
}
if ( ! $validation ) {
$errFields[$key] = true;
}
}
}
if ( empty( $errCaptcha ) && count( $errFields ) === 0 && $step === 'send' ) {
$header = "From: " . $from . " <" . $from . ">" . "\r\n";
$header .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$header .= "Content-type: text/html\r\n";
$body = '<table style="padding: 35px; background-color: #f5f5f5"; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 1rem; text-align: left; border-radius: 4px>';
$body .= '<tr><th style="font-size: 1.5rem; font-weight: 600; color: #1E50BC">'.$subject.'</th></tr>';
$body .= '<tr></td>';
foreach( $_POST as $key => $value ) {
if ( $key != 'section' && $key != 'reCAPTCHA' ) {
$body .= '<p><b>' . str_replace( '-', ' ', ucfirst( $key ) ) . '</b>: ' . $value . '</p>';
}
}
$body .= '</td></tr>';
$body .= '</table>';
$t_mailer->Body = $body;
$t_mailer->addAddress($from, 'who send the email');
// $mail = mail( $recipient, $subject, $body, $header );
// $mail
if ( $t_mailer->send() ) {
$response = array(
'status' => 'success',
'info' => $success
);
print_r( json_encode( $response ) );
} else {
$response = array(
'status' => 'fail',
'info' => $error
);
print_r( json_encode( $response ) );
}
} else {
$response = array(
'status' => 'invalid',
'info' => $invalid,
'captcha' => $errCaptcha,
'fields' => $errFields,
'errors' => count( $errFields )
);
print_r( json_encode( $response ) );
}
exit;
}
I'm sure PhpMailer works with my host and my server because I tried a very simple script that send an email from root and it worked. (I got the email in my gmail inbox)
But This script is in another folder, not root, even tho they all have same folder/files permission (not sure if is relevant, but better specify!)

Answer 1

Several things not quite right here.
When you're using PHPMailer without composer, you need to load all the classes it needs yourself, so add:
require_once '/PHPMailer/SMTP.php';
require_once '/PHPMailer/Exception.php';
You are setting some SMTP config properties, but not actually telling PHPMailer to use SMTP, so add this:
$t_mailer->isSMTP();
You're sending from a gmail address, which means you must send through gmail's servers (or you will fail SPF checks), but you have not specified a server to send through, so set this:
$t_mailer->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
Your content is in HTML, but you're not asking PHPMailer to send it as HTML:
$t_mailer->isHTML();
You don't need any of that stuff you're doing with $header; PHPMailer does all that for you.
Rather than going any further, I'd recommend basing your code on the gmail example provided with PHPMailer, and if you run into any other issues, refer to the PHPMailer troubleshooting guide and search on here.