Sending multiple emails with PHPmailer - php

Question

Edit: I forgot I'd created the SendMail(); function myself, which is why the explanation doesn't mention at first what it does.
I'm having some trouble with PHPMailer (https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer) when attempting to send two emails, one directly after the other.
The script is almost completely 'out of the box', with only a few modifications such as a foreach loop to allow for multiple addresses, and everything still works perfectly.
However, if I attempt to call more than one instance of SendMail(); I get the error message:
Fatal error: Cannot override final method Exception::__clone() in .... online 0
Previously I was using the in-built mail(); function, which allowed me to use it as many times as I liked in quick succession , but it doesn't appear to be that simple with PHPmailer:
$to = me#me.com;
$to2 = me2#me2.com';
$headers = 'php headers etc';
$subject = 'generic subject';
$message = 'generic message';
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
mail($to2, $subject, $message, $headers);
The above would result in two identical emails being sent to different people, however I can't easily replicate this functionality with PHPmailer.
Is there a way of stacking these requests so that I can send successive emails without it failing? Forcing the script to wait until the first email has been sent would also be acceptable, although not preferential.
As I mentioned I know it works when only one instance is called, but I don't seem to be able to re-use the function.
I haven't included the source code, although it is all available on the link provided above.
Thanks in advance
Edit as requested
// First Email
$to = array(
'test#test.com',
'test2#test.com',);
$subject = "Subject";
$message = $message_start.$message_ONE.$message_end;
sendMail();
// Second Email
$to = array(
'test#test.com',
'test2#test.com',);
$subject = "Subject";
$message = $message_start.$message_TWO.$message_end;
sendMail();
The above is how I want this to work, as it would work with mail();. The first email will work fine, the second will not.
SendMail() code
This is from the PHPmailer website, and is what is defined as SendMail();. The only difference from the example is the loop for AddAddress, and the inclusion of $to as a global variable.
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->IsSMTP(); // set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = "smtp1.example.com;smtp2.example.com"; // specify main and backup server
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // turn on SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = "jswan"; // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "secret"; // SMTP password
$mail->From = "from#example.com";
$mail->FromName = "Mailer";
foreach($to as $to_add){
$mail->AddAddress($to_add); // name is optional
}
$mail->AddReplyTo("info#example.com", "Information");
$mail->WordWrap = 50; // set word wrap to 50 characters
$mail->AddAttachment("/var/tmp/file.tar.gz"); // add attachments
$mail->AddAttachment("/tmp/image.jpg", "new.jpg"); // optional name
$mail->IsHTML(true); // set email format to HTML
$mail->Subject = "Here is the subject";
$mail->Body = "This is the HTML message body <b>in bold!</b>";
$mail->AltBody = "This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients";
if(!$mail->Send())
{
echo "Message could not be sent. <p>";
echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
exit;
}
echo "Message has been sent";

Answer 1

You haven't posted this code that lets me make this a complete conclusion, but from the Exception and the way you've defined an overriding class inside a function, you probably have class.phpmailer.php loading every time like this:
require('class.phpmailer.php');
or
include('class.phpmailer.php');
You should change that line to
require_once('class.phpmailer.php');
The reason you need to change it to require_once is so that PHP will not load the class file the second time when you try to create the new/second PHPMailer class. Otherwise, the line class PHPMailer throws the __clone() exception.

Answer 2

Added an example below:
<?php
/**
* This example shows how to send a message to a whole list of recipients efficiently.
*/
//Import the PHPMailer class into the global namespace
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;
error_reporting(E_STRICT | E_ALL);
date_default_timezone_set('Etc/UTC');
require '../vendor/autoload.php';
//Passing `true` enables PHPMailer exceptions
$mail = new PHPMailer(true);
$body = file_get_contents('contents.html');
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com';
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->SMTPKeepAlive = true; // SMTP connection will not close after each email sent, reduces SMTP overhead
$mail->Port = 25;
$mail->Username = 'yourname#example.com';
$mail->Password = 'yourpassword';
$mail->setFrom('list#example.com', 'List manager');
$mail->addReplyTo('list#example.com', 'List manager');
$mail->Subject = 'PHPMailer Simple database mailing list test';
//Same body for all messages, so set this before the sending loop
//If you generate a different body for each recipient (e.g. you're using a templating system),
//set it inside the loop
$mail->msgHTML($body);
//msgHTML also sets AltBody, but if you want a custom one, set it afterwards
$mail->AltBody = 'To view the message, please use an HTML compatible email viewer!';
//Connect to the database and select the recipients from your mailing list that have not yet been sent to
//You'll need to alter this to match your database
$mysql = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password');
mysqli_select_db($mysql, 'mydb');
$result = mysqli_query($mysql, 'SELECT full_name, email, photo FROM mailinglist WHERE sent = FALSE');
foreach ($result as $row) {
try {
$mail->addAddress($row['email'], $row['full_name']);
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo 'Invalid address skipped: ' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . '<br>';
continue;
}
if (!empty($row['photo'])) {
//Assumes the image data is stored in the DB
$mail->addStringAttachment($row['photo'], 'YourPhoto.jpg');
}
try {
$mail->send();
echo 'Message sent to :' . htmlspecialchars($row['full_name']) . ' (' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . ')<br>';
//Mark it as sent in the DB
mysqli_query(
$mysql,
"UPDATE mailinglist SET sent = TRUE WHERE email = '" .
mysqli_real_escape_string($mysql, $row['email']) . "'"
);
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo 'Mailer Error (' . htmlspecialchars($row['email']) . ') ' . $mail->ErrorInfo . '<br>';
//Reset the connection to abort sending this message
//The loop will continue trying to send to the rest of the list
$mail->getSMTPInstance()->reset();
}
//Clear all addresses and attachments for the next iteration
$mail->clearAddresses();
$mail->clearAttachments();
}

Answer 3

In addition to #Amr most excellent code.
In order to use this in a cron fasion, two adds are useful.
$mail-> SMTPDebug = true;
$mail-> Debugoutput = function( $str, $level ) {_log($str);};
The function _log is up to you. Writing to a file, to a database or wherever. I personally have reduced this to
$mail-> Debugoutput = function( $str, $level ) {if( $level===3 ) {_log( $str ); } };
to only write the more juicier messages

Answer 4

the solution is to reset recipients data like this:
$Mailer->clearAddresses()
use your own variable as an instance of PHPMailer (instead of $Mailer)

Answer 5

$Mailer->clearAddresses()
This is the solution to avoid multiple msj to be send to the same recipient.