Ajax/PHP contact form not able to send mail - php

Question

The funny thing is it did work for one evening. I contacted my host, and they are saying there's no reason it should not be working. I have also attempted to test it in Firebug, but it seemed to be sending. And I specifically put the email address (hosted in my domain) on my email safe list, so that is not the culprit either.
Would anyone here take a look at it for me? I'd be so grateful.
In the header I have:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function () {
var options = {
target: '#alert'
};
$('#contactForm').ajaxForm(options);
});
$.fn.clearForm = function () {
return this.each(function () {
var type = this.type,
tag = this.tagName.toLowerCase();
if (tag == 'form')
return $(':input', this).clearForm();
if (type == 'text' || type == 'password' || tag == 'textarea')
this.value = '';
else if (type == 'checkbox' || type == 'radio')
this.checked = false;
else if (tag == 'select')
this.selectedIndex = -1;
});
};
</script>
Here is the actual form:
<form id="contactForm" method="post" action="sendmail.php">
<fieldset>
<p>Email Me</p>
<div id="fieldset_container">
<label for="name">Your Name:</label>
<input type="text" name="name" id="name" /><br /><br />
<label for="email">Email:</label>
<input type="text" name="email" id="email" /><br /><br />
<span style="display:none;">
<label for="last">Honeypot:</label>
<input type="text" name="last" value="" id="last" />
</span><br /><br />
<label for="message">Comments & Inquiries:</label>
<textarea name="message" id="message" cols="" rows=""></textarea><br/>
</div>
<div id="submit_button">
<input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Send It" />
</div>
</fieldset>
</form>
<div class="message"><div id="alert"></div></div>
Here is the code from my validating page, sendmail.php:
<?php
// Who you want to recieve the emails from the form. (Hint: generally you.)
$sendto = 'my#emailaddress.com';
// The subject you'll see in your inbox
$subject = 'SH Contact Form';
// Message for the user when he/she doesn't fill in the form correctly.
$errormessage = 'There seems to have been a problem. May I suggest...';
// Message for the user when he/she fills in the form correctly.
$thanks = "Thanks for the email!";
// Message for the bot when it fills in in at all.
$honeypot = "You filled in the honeypot! If you're human, try again!";
// Various messages displayed when the fields are empty.
$emptyname = 'Entering your name?';
$emptyemail = 'Entering your email address?';
$emptymessage = 'Entering a message?';
// Various messages displayed when the fields are incorrectly formatted.
$alertname = 'Entering your name using only the standard alphabet?';
$alertemail = 'Entering your email in this format: <i>name#example.com</i>?';
$alertmessage = "Making sure you aren't using any parenthesis or other escaping characters in the message? Most URLS are fine though!";
//Setting used variables.
$alert = '';
$pass = 0;
// Sanitizing the data, kind of done via error messages first. Twice is better! ;-)
function clean_var($variable) {
$variable = strip_tags(stripslashes(trim(rtrim($variable))));
return $variable;
}
//The first if for honeypot.
if ( empty($_REQUEST['last']) ) {
// A bunch of if's for all the fields and the error messages.
if ( empty($_REQUEST['name']) ) {
$pass = 1;
$alert .= "<li>" . $emptyname . "</li>";
} elseif ( ereg( "[][{}()*+?.\\^$|]", $_REQUEST['name'] ) ) {
$pass = 1;
$alert .= "<li>" . $alertname . "</li>";
}
if ( empty($_REQUEST['email']) ) {
$pass = 1;
$alert .= "<li>" . $emptyemail . "</li>";
} elseif ( !eregi("^[_a-z0-9-]+(.[_a-z0-9-]+)*#[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)*(.[a-z]{2,3})$", $_REQUEST['email']) ) {
$pass = 1;
$alert .= "<li>" . $alertemail . "</li>";
}
if ( empty($_REQUEST['message']) ) {
$pass = 1;
$alert .= "<li>" . $emptymessage . "</li>";
} elseif ( ereg( "[][{}()*+?\\^$|]", $_REQUEST['message'] ) ) {
$pass = 1;
$alert .= "<li>" . $alertmessage . "</li>";
}
//If the user err'd, print the error messages.
if ( $pass==1 ) {
//This first line is for ajax/javascript, comment it or delete it if this isn't your cup o' tea.
echo "<script>$(\".message\").hide(\"slow\").show(\"slow\"); </script>";
echo "<b>" . $errormessage . "</b>";
echo "<ul>";
echo $alert;
echo "</ul>";
// If the user didn't err and there is in fact a message, time to email it.
} elseif (isset($_REQUEST['message'])) {
//Construct the message.
$message = "From: " . clean_var($_REQUEST['name']) . "\n";
$message .= "Email: " . clean_var($_REQUEST['email']) . "\n";
$message .= "Message: \n" . clean_var($_REQUEST['message']);
$header = 'From:'. clean_var($_REQUEST['email']);
//Mail the message - for production
mail($sendto, $subject, $message, $header, "-fstephanie#stephaniehenderson.com");
//This is for javascript,
echo "<script>$(\".message\").hide(\"slow\").show(\"slow\").animate({opacity: 1.0}, 4000).hide(\"slow\"); $(':input').clearForm() </script>";
echo $thanks;
die();
//Echo the email message - for development
echo "<br/><br/>" . $message;
}
//If honeypot is filled, trigger the message that bot likely won't see.
} else {
echo "<script>$(\".message\").hide(\"slow\").show(\"slow\"); </script>";
echo $honeypot;
}
?>

Answer 1

If the message is echoing then it's not a problem with your javascript or html. I would suggest making a fresh PHP file with only the 1 line that attempts to send mail:
mail('youremailaddress#example.com', 'My Subject', 'This is a message');
Hardcode everything. If that works, then you know that it's probably not a problem with your host, and you need to examine that line and the variables to are passing to mail()