PHP Mailer - Internal Server Error - php

Question

I have been trying to make the contact form on my website to work and I've spent weeks trying to figure it out and I couldn't.
Here's the problem - I purchased a web template and it came with the PHPMailer. I'm now done plugging my content into the template, but the contact form has been a pain. I've followed the instructions the best I know on the PHP file, but it's giving me an "Internal Server Error" when I am testing the contact form.
Here's the code that came with my purchase:
$name = trim($_POST['name']);
$email = $_POST['email'];
$subject = $_POST['subject'];
$message = $_POST['message'];
$site_owners_email = 'name#mydomain.com'; // Replace this with your own email address
$site_owners_name = 'My Name'; // Replace with your name
try {
require_once('/Beta-BRC/php/PHPMailer/class.phpmailer.php');
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->CharSet = 'UTF-8';
$mail->From = $email;
$mail->FromName = $name;
$mail->Subject = "[WEB Form] ".$subject;
$mail->AddAddress($site_owners_email, $site_owners_name);
$mail->Body = $message;
$mail->Mailer = "smtp";
$mail->Host = "smtp.gmail.com"; // Replace with your SMTP server address
$mail->Port = 465;
$mail->SMTPSecure = "SSL";
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // Turn on SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = "name#mydomain.com"; // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "mypassword"; // SMTP password
//echo "true";
if($mail->Send()) {
echo "true";
} else {
echo "Error sending: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo $e;
}
Quick note - I've alrealy tried using a GMAIL account on this part but it still does not work.
$mail->Username = "name#mydomain.com"; // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "mypassword"; // SMTP password

Answer 1

There's no need to log into Gmail with phpmailer. Below is an example of my phpmailer function using the default settings.
public function sendEmail($toaddress,$toname,$subject,$message){
if($template = file_get_contents('/home/username/domains/mydomain.com/public_html/html/email-template.html')){
$template = str_replace("[SUBJECT]",$subject,$template);
$template = str_replace("[CONTENT]",nl2br($message),$template);
$mailer = new PHPMailer;
$mailer->XMailer = "Organization Name 4.0.0";
if($this->is_logged_in()){
$mailer->AddCustomHeader("X-Originating-User-ID",$this->acct['id']);
}
$mailer->AddCustomHeader("X-Originating-IP",$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
$mailer->setFrom("outbound#mydomain.com","From Name");
$mailer->AddAddress($toaddress,$toname);
$mailer->Subject = $subject;
$mailer->MsgHTML($template);
$mailer->AltBody = $message;
return $mailer->Send();
}else{
return false;
}
}
The email address listed doesn't actually exist. The email is just being sent from my server and phpmailer just says it's from that email address.
Try modifying my function to suit your needs and let me know how that works.
Note: You'll need to make sure your mail server is turned on for this to work
Although you don't have to use my function at all. Try debugging your code by checking some error logs on your server. Typically in the apache error logs (if you're running apache, however). Checking error logs is a huge part of troubleshooting your code and often can help you become more proactive.
I hope this helps even the slightest!

Answer 2

The specific cause of the Internal Server Error is the incorrect path you've supplied to the require_once statement that loads the PHPMailer class.
The path you've supplied is /Beta-BRC/php/PHPMailer/class.phpmailer.php, where the correct statement should be
require_once('/home/trsta/public_html/Beta-BRC/php/PHPMailer/class.phpmailer.php');
or perhaps more generally:
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/home/trsta/public_html/Beta-BRC/php/PHPMailer/class.phpmailer.php');
You've provided effectively a URL, but PHP requires the path in the server file system, which is not the same.
That should get you past this error. It's possible that there are others.