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PHP

Posted by Justin Esders
Justin Esders
9,154 Points

PHP Contact Form Mailer Problem

I have been following the series of videos on here in php and cant figure out why i keep getting this error. Can someone help

There was a problem sending the email: Could not instantiate mail function.

1 Answer

Randy Hoyt
STAFF
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Randy Hoyt
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest Teacher

It sounds like your server does not have the mail() function available. You'll probably need to use SMTP. Your host probably has an SMTP server set up; I would contact them and ask for information. PHPMailer can be configured to use SMTP; it comes with an example in the download or you can take a look at my blog post: Sending Email With PHPMailer and SMTP.

Does that help?

ricardogutierrez
ricardogutierrez
11,349 Points

Hi Randy.

When I submit the information it gives me an error. Is this message an SMTP problem also?:

"Fatal error: Class 'PHPMailer' not found in /home2/sitename/public_html/php/contact-process.php on line 34"

The files are uploaded to my server and I am just using the "default" server configuration.

The website is http://ultraloud.net

:) ... thanks.

Randy Hoyt
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Randy Hoyt
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest Teacher

If the PHPMailer class isn't found, that means you are not including the third-party library correctly. Double-check your require() command and the path.

Does that help?

ricardogutierrez
ricardogutierrez
11,349 Points

Thank you very much Randy ! yes ... the path was the problem.

Succesfully send email and receive the information :D.

My first formulary !!! yayyyyy !!!

By the way... do you know about the htmlspecialchars() ? I have read about it but not to sure how to implement this. Is necessary to include it for security?

Thanks a lot !!!

Randy Hoyt
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Randy Hoyt
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Glad you got it working!

I cover htmlspecialchars in the next course, in the Integrating Validation Errors badge. I explain there how it works and when you would want to use it.

ricardogutierrez
ricardogutierrez
11,349 Points

Oh great !

I'll check it right now.