Email Failure

I'm new to developing on a local server (windows 7) with php, Xampp, Apache/mySql and uploading to Yahoo as my website host. I'm using Universal Email 4 as a Dreamweaver CS4 extension. I use Windows Live Mail locally with a connection to my Yahoo email account. I can send emails from my website locally and on Yahoo using 'mailto' commands but I cannot get UE to work. It inserts a row into the email_log and gets to my "Go to Page" when done but no emails are sent. In the email_log I have the following error message:

Sending To: myemail@yahoo.com... mail() [<a href='plugins/function.mail'>function.mail</a>]: Failed to connect to mailserver at &quot;localhost&quot; port 25, verify your &quot;SMTP&quot; and &quot;smtp_port&quot; setting in php.ini or use ini_set() - Failure <br>

I checked php.ini and they are set to localhost and port 25 as expected. I uploaded the file to Yahoo and it fails there too, the error at Yahoo says:

Sending To: myemail@yahoo.com... - Failure <br>

This seems like such a simple matter yet I don't know how to proceed. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

From what I can tell, this issue looks like it either arises from having the smtp settings set up incorrectly in your php.ini file or your smtp server requires authentication. Can you check the php.ini smtp settings?

That's what I thought too. I checked them and made sure I was in the live file. I think they are correct as "localhost" and 25. Since email is failing I tried numerous other settings that I did not think would work - but I'm just trying anything I can think of. I tried stuff like smtp.mail.yahoo.com. I tried all manner of settings in the UE Create Email Message Window too. Nothing I've tried works when using UE.

I can send emails locally (uses Windows Live Mail) and on the Yahoo host using a simple mailto inserted into pages with Dreamweaver, as follows:

<a href="mailto:kalian@joexxxxxx.com?Subject=Contact Us&cc=dave@joexxxxxx.com">

Is there any code I can insert into my page using UE to gather more info about what is going on in UE?

When I Status Apache it shows SMTP Service and IPv6 are Deactivated. When I try send an email with Mercury Mail it fails: < Error! The message was not successfully sent!> Did not care since I don't plan to use it. Not sure if that is a clue or irrelevant.

Thanks for any help. I need to persist and get this to work but am at a loss since it seems so simple - yet fails.

For a lot of SMTP servers, you can leave the SMTP setting of Universal Email blank and the mail will send. Try doing that and seeing if that gets it working.

As soon as localhost and 25 failed I read that most work without any entry so I tried empty entries without success. I'd blame my localhost setup except UE also fails for me when I upload to my Yahoo host account. I made a very simple form and it still fails. I'll attach the code as a PDF. For some reason UE inserts the code in the wrong <div> so I had to move it. Maybe I did something wrong while moving the code??? The simple form is at: ueTest.php

It links to a Thanks page but I don't get any emails and when I check the email_log I have an error: "Sending To: dave@shebedino.com... - Failure <br>". Not much help.

The email header in the email_log is:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="WAMULTIBREAKWA"
From: davewosborn@yahoo.com
Reply-To: davewosborn@yahoo.com
Return-Path: davewosborn@yahoo.com
X-Sender: davewosborn@yahoo.com
X-Priority: 3
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:30:39 +0000 (GMT)
Message-ID: <810895685.90190e060b89a4992c67090f8b3cbfdd@yahoo.com>

Every day I try a few more things but, frankly, I'm out of reasonable things to try. Is there some way for me to add code that will echo useful details about the failure?

Yesterday I removed UE 4.0 as a DW extension and installed the 4.0.1 version. I remembered to delete the winfilecache file but found many new errors when doing DW things that used to work. Just Great. It took several hours of Forum searches and irritating work to get back to everything working...except UE still fails. Rats. Someone at DataAssist must have an idea what is going wrong. I'm not doing anything complicated. This is so basic it has to work, but doesn't.

For something like this you shouldn't be guessing as to what the correct settings are. You should contact the service provider to ask them what the settings should be. You could also ask them to provide a sample script that will send emails out on their server, which should help you determine the settings that should be used. Please post back if you still have this issue after contacting the hosting service.

I got the settings from the host although they confuse me. UE only offers 'mail' or 'PEAR Mail with SMTP'. My host (yahoo) says the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) = smtp.bizmail.yahoo.com on Port = 465. They also say use SSL and use authentication and they remind me the values of my user name and password. The UE choise 'Mail' doesn't let me enter anything other than SMTP Server and Port. The UE choice "PEAR Mail..." lets me check "authenticate" and enter my username and password. It also asks for the "Path to PEAR which Yahoo did not provide and I have no idea what to enter. So, based on what Yahoo told me and what UE offers, I don't know if I should use "Mail'" or "PEAR..." and if I use "PEAR..." I don't know the path. I've tried many combinations with no success. I'm sure I'm missing something simple...just don't have enough background to figure it out. Thanks.

It sounds like they did not give you enough information on how to set up the mail behavior correctly. You should ask them specifically what you would need to set up the email behavior for mail and PEAR for mail. You can tell them what options you have and what values are asked for in the wizard and they should be able to tell you what to fill in for those values for their server.

To close this thread I'll post the ultimate resolution. As the WebAssist doc states, the settings for host and port can usually be left blank. That is what eventually worked for me on Yahoo hosting. However, when I was initially using those simple settings, I had the email From field set to a random user, not from an email address within my domain. Yahoo doesn't allow an email to originate from other than your domain. So it failed. I assumed the host and/or port was wrong and attempted numerous other values, including those specified in writting on Yahoo's site. The real issue the entire time was my "From" email address. When a Web Assist professional helped me and we went back to blank host/port and an email From address within my domain, all worked.