Pear mail not working without any error message - php

Question

I am trying to using Pear mail on my hostgator server. Firstly I've installed the mail package using cpanel and net_smpt was already installed, however when I required the Mail.php class it insisted that the Net folder be within the Mail folder - they were both at the same level before. So I've moved Net inside Mail and it stopped complaining - but maybe I've just messed up everything (maybe not: let me know).
This is my test script, mostly copied from tutorials:
<?php
echo 'Test Pear<br>';
require_once("/home3/myaccountname/php/Mail.php");
$from = "info#mydomain.com";
$to = "myrealemail#gmail.com";
$subject = "Test pear";
$body = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit...";
$params['host'] = 'gator3015.hostgator.com';
$params['port'] = '465';
$params['username'] = 'info#mydomain.com';
$params['password'] = 'mypassword';
$params['debug'] = 'true';
$headers = array('From' => $from, 'To' => $to, 'Subject' => $subject);
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp', $params);
echo 'good so far';
$mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);
echo 'Still there';
if ( PEAR::isError($mail) ) {
echo("<p>Error sending mail:<br/>" . $mail->getMessage() . "</p>");
} else {
echo("<p>Message sent.</p>");
}
?>
The SMTP parameters have been tested using the codeigniter email class, where they succesfully send emails (but as cronjobs and codeigniter refuse to work for me I'm trying to use Pear Mail instead). It requires SSL but apparently it's on by default with Pear Mail.
I've made sure the PHP error messages were displayed for my test. What happens is that I see all my echos except for "Still there" so something goes wrong when I call $smtp->send(). However no error message is displayed, despite setting debug as true. The if(PEAR::isError($mail)) doesn't seem to have any effect either. And no email is sent.
So I'm a bit at a loss to know what's going wrong. Any idea?
UPDATE: the host does not support SMTP for some reason, which explains why I had the weird issue. Using Mandrill works fine.

Answer 1

Try this example,
<?php
require_once "Mail.php";
$from = "Sandra Sender <sender#example.com>";
$to = "Ramona Recipient <recipient#example.com>";
$subject = "Hi!";
$body = "Hi,\n\nHow are you?";
$host = "mail.example.com";
$username = "smtp_username";
$password = "smtp_password";
$headers = array ('From' => $from,
'To' => $to,
'Subject' => $subject);
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array ('host' => $host,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));
$mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);
if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
echo("<p>" . $mail->getMessage() . "</p>");
} else {
echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
}
?>
Also this one,
<?php
require_once "Mail.php";
$from = "Sandra Sender <sender#example.com>";
$to = "Ramona Recipient <recipient#example.com>";
$subject = "Hi!";
$body = "Hi,\n\nHow are you?";
$host = "ssl://mail.example.com";
$port = "465";
$username = "smtp_username";
$password = "smtp_password";
$headers = array ('From' => $from,
'To' => $to,
'Subject' => $subject);
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array ('host' => $host,
'port' => $port,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));
$mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);
if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
echo("<p>" . $mail->getMessage() . "</p>");
} else {
echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
}
?>