Weird email issue with a form

I suspect this issue is to do with some weird DNS setting somewhere, rather than the functionality of the form itself, so I only ask out of interest in case its something someone might have come across before.

Basically I have a form, and in testing it works fine with my personal and work email address.

But when I changed it to the address for the live page, it doesn't work.

Which would make me think that the issue was with the email address.

Except that if I send a normal email to that email address, it does work.

Meaning, weirdly, that the issue does not appear to be with either the email address or the form, but rather something specific to the form using that particular email address.

The only thing common to email addresses not working with the form is that they are all on the same domain.

Any ideas? (although asking you guys is a long shot with this one!)

  Basically I have a form, and in testing it works fine with my personal and work email address.

But when I changed it to the address for the live page, it doesn't work.  

I dont follow?

you changed the to address to the address of the live page? This wouldn't work because the page address is not an email address.

I must be missing something...

Sorry Jason, I didn't explain that very well.

When I said test page I just meant a page on the site that I was using to test the form before making it a page people could visit from elsewhere on the site.

So it worked in testing with a couple of my email addresses.

But it doesn't work with the email address it actually needs to use.

But I know that email address does work if I just send an email rather than send a form.

And we have checked junk folders in case they were in there.

where it works sending to some email addresses, but not sending to others, it is is a problem on the SMTP server, the sSMTP server is refusing to relay the email for that address for some reason. you would need to access the SMTP server error logs to find why the message is not being relayed for that address.


you want to try using a different SMTP server.

if you have a Gmail account, and your host supports pear mail, you can send through the Gmail SMTP server.

set the from address to your GMail address, in the server settings, set the mail object to pear mail for SMTP, enable authentication, use your Gmail address for the username and your Gmail password for the password.

for the SMTP server, enter:
ssl://smtp.gmail.com

and for the port enter:
465

Thanks Jason.

Where would those changes be made? Where we log in to the domain, and access email settings? I don't have access to that, but can forward that on to the site owner who does.

Having said that, the issue is slightly complicated again, as the address the form needs to use is then being forwarded to another address. (Its overly complicated, I know, but the site owner has his reasons!)

So I don't know if using a Gmail address will be a solution.

Basically, the site is www.oursite.com, and there are forms getting sent to a few people in the related industry.

So the site owner has set up various email addresses for them, eg company@oursite.com, which then forwards to their actual email address.

It works fine just using their actual address, so its a bit of a pain it needs to be so convoluted!

  So the site owner has set up various email addresses for them, eg company@oursite.com, which then forwards to their actual email address.

It works fine just using their actual address,  

that makes me think the problem is with the address forwarding.

anyway using the Gmail SMTP server is done in the universal email settings.

It looks that way Jason.

I tried it with another address of the same domain to someone within the organisation (so not being forwarded), and that worked fine.

So the easiest solution is probably going to be supplying the external contacts with details to set up the email address at their end, so no forwarding is required.

Having said that, the Gmail server might be worth a look, I just wasn't sure exactly where that gets changed.

Do I just need to change the From Address (even though the issue is with the To Address), ie is it just a spoof type thing for the To Address, by way if using the GMail SMTP info?

So it can be any GMail account / email address used here as a means to an end, even though no emails are actually going to the GMail address?

Or have I completely misread that?

I think I may have, as the From Address is currently set to the email address field filled in in the form:

<?php echo ((isset($_POST["Email_Address"]))?$_POST["Email_Address"]:""); ?>

And looking in the server settings, they are just currently:

Email object: mail
Character set: default

All the rest is blank / empty - I assume that's fine, or else it wouldn't be working at all.

in order for the gmail SMTP server to relay the email message, the from address must be the same gmail address used in in the authentication settings.

the gmail server will not relay the email message if you use a different email address as the from address.


if you go to the advanced from options, you can use the dynamic binding as the Replay to address, so the SMTP Server sees the from address as being a valid email address, but when the receipt replies to the email, it uses the address from the form.

Thanks Jason - that's the bit that was confusing me, ie if I used the gmail address to get round the SMTP issue, how would the recipient know the actual from address.

I've tried it anyway (although I haven't been able to confirm whether PEAR is supported yet.)

I've attached some screenshots of the Create Email Message, Mail Object Settings and From Settings as they currently are - can you have a quick look and let me know if that looks about right?

Its not working, so if it looks OK, I can put it down to PEAR not being supported, and abandon this route.

What happens is you fill the form in, and upon submit it starts to refresh the page, but fails before any emails are sent, page redirected etc, just loading up a blank white screen.