PHP contact form script not sending emails - php

Question

I am not very good with php and my friend helped me with this php contact form script. But this does not seem to send emails to the desired address. Can you please suggest what might be the problem with this script?
I really appreciate it. Thanks
<?php
$error = array();
if(!empty($_POST['contact_submit']) && ($_POST['contact_submit'] == 'submit') ) {
if(!empty($_POST['name'])) {
$name = filter_var($_POST['name'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your name.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['email'])) {
if(filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter a correct email address.';
}
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your email address.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['phone'])) {
if(filter_var($_POST['phone'], FILTER_VALIDATE_INT)) {
$phone = filter_var($_POST['phone'], FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT);
} else {
$error[] = '<i>Phone number</i> only expects number';
}
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your email address.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['time'])) {
$time = filter_var($_POST['time'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your best time to contact.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['msg'])) {
$msg = filter_var($_POST['msg'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your message.';
}
if(empty($error)) {
$to = 'your#email.com';
$subject = 'from contact form';
$message = $phone . "\r\n";
$message .= $time . "\r\n";
$message .= $msg;
$headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: '.$name.' <'. $email.'>' . "\r\n" .
'Reply-To: '.$name.' <'. $email . '>' ."\r\n";
//echo '<pre>'; var_dump($to, $subject, $message, $headers); echo '</pre>'; die();
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
}
}
?>
<?php
if(!empty($error)) {
echo '<ul class="error">';
echo '<li>' . implode('</li><li>', $error) . '</li>';
echo '</ul>';
}
?>
<form method="post" action="">
<input type="text" name="name" value="" placeholder="Enter your name" class="email_form"/>
<input type="text" name="email" value="" placeholder="Enter your email address" class="email_form"/>
<input type="text" name="phone" value="" placeholder="Phone number" class="email_form"/>
<input type="text" name="time" value="" placeholder="Best time to contact. e.g. 3 am" class="email_form"/>
<textarea name="msg" placeholder="Your message" class="email_form"></textarea>
<input type="image" value="submit" name="contact_submit" src="images/submit.png" width="96" height="43" class="email_button">
</form>

Answer 1

Change this line:
if(!empty($_POST['contact_submit']) && ($_POST['contact_submit'] == 'submit') ) {
to
if(isset($_POST['contact_submit']) ) {
and
<input type="image" value="submit" name="contact_submit" src="images/submit.png" width="96" height="43" class="email_button">
to
<input type = "submit" value="submit" name="contact_submit">
PHP is looking for a submit type, and you're using an image type.
If you still want to use the image as the submit button:
You will need to change:
if(!empty($_POST['contact_submit']) && ($_POST['contact_submit'] == 'submit') )
to another conditional statement.
For example:
if(!empty($_POST['email'])){
You can always add on to that conditional statement with the other fields you wish to check if they are set/empty.
For example:
if(!empty($_POST['email']) || !empty($_POST['name'])){
Upon testing your code, the code did not work till those changes were made.
N.B.: If mail is still not being sent/received, you will need to make sure that mail() is indeed available for you to use, and/or check your logs and the Spam box.
Add error reporting to the top of your file(s) which will help during production testing.
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
Which will trigger any errors found.
Footnotes:
The phone field needs to be all numbers, otherwise it will fail.
I.e.: 555-234-5678 did not work, but 5552345678 did, therefore you will need to inform your users of how it should be entered.
Edit: (full code) - copy exactly as shown while changing email#example.com to your own Email.
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
$error = array();
if(isset($_POST['contact_submit']) ) {
if(!empty($_POST['name'])) {
$name = filter_var($_POST['name'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your name.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['email'])) {
if(filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter a correct email address.';
}
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your email address.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['phone'])) {
if(filter_var($_POST['phone'], FILTER_VALIDATE_INT)) {
$phone = filter_var($_POST['phone'], FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT);
} else {
$error[] = '<i>Phone number</i> only expects number';
}
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your email address.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['time'])) {
$time = filter_var($_POST['time'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your best time to contact.';
}
if(!empty($_POST['msg'])) {
$msg = filter_var($_POST['msg'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
} else {
$error[] = 'Please enter your message.';
}
if(empty($error)) {
$to = 'email#example.com';
$subject = 'from contact form';
$message = $phone . "\r\n";
$message .= $time . "\r\n";
$message .= $msg;
$headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: '.$name.' <'. $email.'>' . "\r\n" .
'Reply-To: '.$name.' <'. $email . '>' ."\r\n";
//echo '<pre>'; var_dump($to, $subject, $message, $headers); echo '</pre>'; die();
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
}
}
?>
<?php
if(!empty($error)) {
echo '<ul class="error">';
echo '<li>' . implode('</li><li>', $error) . '</li>';
echo '</ul>';
}
?>
<form method="post" action="">
<input type="text" name="name" value="" placeholder="Enter your name" class="email_form"/>
<input type="text" name="email" value="" placeholder="Enter your email address" class="email_form"/>
<input type="text" name="phone" value="" placeholder="Phone number" class="email_form"/>
<input type="text" name="time" value="" placeholder="Best time to contact. e.g. 3 am" class="email_form"/>
<textarea name="msg" placeholder="Your message" class="email_form"></textarea>
<input type = "submit" value="submit" name="contact_submit">
</form>
You can also show a message if it was sent successfully by replacing:
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
with:
if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)){
echo "Mail sent, thank you.";
}
else{
echo "There was an error.";
}
You can also log the error:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.error-log.php
0 message is sent to PHP's system logger, using the Operating System's system logging mechanism or a file, depending on what the error_log configuration directive is set to. This is the default option.
1 message is sent by email to the address in the destination parameter. This is the only message type where the fourth parameter, extra_headers is used.
2 No longer an option.
3 message is appended to the file destination. A newline is not automatically added to the end of the message string.
4 message is sent directly to the SAPI logging handler.
I.e.:
if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)){
echo "Mail sent, thank you.";
}
else{
error_log("Error!", 3, "/var/tmp/mail-errors.log");
}