PHP Contact Form Not Working on Wordpress - php

Question

I built a simple php contact form using mail(). This form has worked on my website for years.
However, I recently built a new website on wordpress. I pretty much copied and pasted the same form, however, I do not receive any email. When I hit submit, the form simply redirects to the homepage/index layout, but has the contact form url.
On the original site, however, a message is printed on a blank screen confirming the email was sent. I also tested the original code on the original site and it works.
contact_form.php:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Contact Form
`*/
include( 'header.php');
?>
<?php
if(have_posts()): while (have_posts()): the_post();
?>
<div class="wrapper">
<div class="message">
<div class="text">
<?php the_content(); ?>
<form action="contact_form_script.php" method="post">
<p>Your email address:</p> <input type="text" name="emailAddress">
<p>Subject:</p> <input type="text" name="subject">
<p>Message:</p> <textarea name="message"></textarea>
<input type="text" name="honeyPot" style="display: none;">
<br />
<input type="submit" name="email_form" value="SUBMIT"/>
</form>
<br />
<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php
endwhile;
endif;
?>
<?php
include('footer.php');
?>
contact_form_script.php
<?php
$to= 'myEmailAddress#email.com';
$from = "FROM: Email#myDomain.com";
$replyTo=$_POST['emailAddress']; /*whatever the user input*/
$headers= $from ."\r\n" .'Reply-To: '. $replyTo;
//Have also tried just $_POST['subject']; Still doesn't work
$subj="Subject: "+$_POST['subject'];
$msg=$_POST['message'];
$spam=$_POST['honeyPot'];
if (empty($spam)){
mail($to, $subj, $msg, $headers);
};
Print "Thank you for email! <br /> <br /> <a href='/'><--BACK</a>"
?>
Also, is there a better way to test a form like this to see errors or troubleshoot in some way other than just checking to see if I got the email?

Answer 1

There are many ways in WordPress to accomplish what you are trying to do.
Currently your form action is pointing at contact_form_script.php which assumes that this script is in the current directory. But that current directory is not relative to your contact_form.php. It is relative to the users current path. eg www.mysite.com/contact/.
One quick (but lazy) way of solving your problem would be to move contact_form_script.php into the root WordPress directory of your site. Then change the form action="/contact_form_script.php" (Note the /) causing it to post to a file called contact_form_script.php in the root site dir.
A better method would be to keep contact_form_script.php in your template directory and include it in your functions.php.
If we use the email_form submit input to let WordPress know the contact_form_script.php script needs to be loaded, this should allow you to load the whole of wordpress core and still have your custom form handling script deal with the data:
functions.php:
if (!empty($_POST['email_form'])) {
require_once(__DIR__.'/contact_form_script.php');
// You could put a die() here if you wanted the script to stop executing.
}
contact_form.php:
include( 'header.php');
if(have_posts()): while (have_posts()): the_post();
<div class="wrapper">
<div class="message">
<div class="text">
<?php the_content(); ?>
<form action="" method="post"> <!-- Notice we are now submitting our data to wordpress and not directly to our form script -->
<p>Your email address:</p> <input type="text" name="emailAddress">
<p>Subject:</p> <input type="text" name="subject">
<p>Message:</p> <textarea name="message"></textarea>
<input type="text" name="honeyPot" style="display: none;">
<br />
<input type="submit" name="email_form" value="SUBMIT"/>
</form>
<br />
<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
Again this isn't ideal, but I suspect is what you are looking for at this point in time, and it is a step in the right direction. Keeping your code within your template.

Answer 2

Change the following
mail($to, $subj, $msg, $headers);
Into
wp_mail($to, $subj, $msg, $headers);
This will let WordPress properly route your mail.
Also as a whole... you should use wp_ajax to do this you can use it without writing any javascript... create a file that you include in functions with the following.
function process_contact_form() {
$to= 'myEmailAddress#email.com';
$from = "FROM: Email#myDomain.com";
$replyTo=$_POST['emailAddress']; /*whatever the user input*/
$headers= $from ."\r\n" .'Reply-To: '. $replyTo;
//Have also tried just $_POST['subject']; Still doesn't work
$subj="Subject: "+$_POST['subject'];
$msg=$_POST['message'];
$spam=$_POST['honeyPot'];
if (empty($spam)){
wp_mail($to, $subj, $msg, $headers);
};
header('Location:'.$_REQUEST['_wp_http_referer']);
wp_die();
}
add_action( 'wp_ajax_process_contact_form', 'process_contact_form' );
add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_process_contact_form', 'process_contact_form' );
Change your template file to
<?php
/*
Template Name: Contact Form
`*/
include( 'header.php');
?>
<?php
if(have_posts()): while (have_posts()): the_post();
?>
<div class="wrapper">
<div class="message">
<div class="text">
<?php the_content(); ?>
<form action="<?php echo admin_url( 'admin-ajax.php' ); ?>" method="post">
<p>Your email address:</p> <input type="text" name="emailAddress">
<p>Subject:</p> <input type="text" name="subject">
<p>Message:</p> <textarea name="message"></textarea>
<?php wp_referer_field(true); ?>
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="process_contact_form">
<input type="text" name="honeyPot" style="display: none;">
<br />
<input type="submit" name="email_form" value="SUBMIT"/>
</form>
<br />
<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php
endwhile;
endif;
?>
<?php
include('footer.php');
?>

Answer 3

We recently faced a similar problem with our contact form. Apparently, the problem was not a result of a problem with our PHP, but rather a change in shared-hosting policies. Naturally, if you are using a VPS this would not be a problem.
However, if you have any form of shared hosting using cPanel and any form of script based email (including Contact Form 7) this can be a potential solution.
Using the "paper lantern" theme, chose the option "Registered Mail IDs" as below:
Then you should get an option to add additional email IDs. Just enter your email ID that you use in the script. In roughly around 8 hours the ID should have been propagated and you will be able to use your script.
Hope this helps! Took us a really long time to figure out.