FPDF generated attachment for e-mail consists out of weird characters - php

Question

I have been using FPDF for the last two years to generate a PDF file. After this file has been generated it is e-mailed to me. I recently installed the exact same script on a new server. For one or other reason the generation of the PDF works since I don't get a error message. The message that I receive on the email is straight text and looks like:
--4aca5942d8bd7e7d523d8b2d71c6b1ea--
or
--d7582bf6769dd1fa2ee8f05cb04cf445--
every message is different.
The stripped code is:
require('class.phpmailer.php');
require('fpdf.php');
define('FPDF_FONTPATH','font/');
//Create new PDF
$pdf=new PDF();
$pdf->AliasNbPages();
$pdf->company = $business;
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','',12);
$pdf->SetAutoPageBreak(false);
$pdf->AddPage('P');
// email stuff
$tijd = time();
$datum = date('j-m-Y', $tijd);
$bestandsnaam = $usernameinlog."-".$datum;
$from = "magazijnbeheer#".$website;
$subject = "Voorraad mutatie door ".$usernameinlog;
$message = "<p>Zie bijlage voor een mutatieoverzicht.</p>";
// a random hash will be necessary to send mixed content
$separator = md5(time());
// carriage return type (we use a PHP end of line constant)
$eol = PHP_EOL;
// attachment name
$filename = $bestandsnaam.".pdf";
// encode data (puts attachment in proper format)
$pdfdoc = $pdf->Output("", "S");
$attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode($pdfdoc));
// main header (multipart mandatory)
$headers = "From: ".$from.$eol;
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"".$separator."\"".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".$eol;
$headers .= "This is a MIME encoded message.".$eol.$eol;
// The actual message
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $message.$eol.$eol;
// Bijlage
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$filename."\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $attachment.$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "--".$separator."--";
mail($emailemployee, $subject, "", $headers);
Does anyone know what is going wrong, am I missing a parameter in the php.ini?
once again: this same code worked on a different server, so I think some setting is wrong or I forgot to install something.
:-) Thanks,
Alex

Answer 1

$eol = PHP_EOL; is likely to cause problems if your server isn't running Windows.
Each line in an email MUST end in CRLF, irrespective of OS, so you should hard-code $eol = "\r\n";
Sometimes, servers and clients will cope with either CR or LF, but it's non-standard and they really don't have to.
.
If you still have problems after this, please can you add the message source to the question (for brevity, perhaps trim the base64 bit to 2 lines)?

Answer 2

mail($emailemployee, $subject, "", $headers);
your basically sending a empty message with the whole content somehow stuffed into
$headers....
Try putting everything below $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".$eol; in a $body variable instead of $headers and then send with
mail($emailemployee, $subject, $body, $headers);
(also replace $eol = PHP_EOL with $eol = "\r\n" as suggested by SimonMayer)