Email Error: Could not instantiate mail function

[TheMusician]

Hello,

IIS 6
PHP 5.2.1
ZenCart 1.3.7

When a new customer signs up or someone uses the Contact Us form this error is thrown.

Email Error: Could not instantiate mail function

This just started occurring and I have not made any changes to the store or the server. My SMTP is running, messages are going through, and the PHP function works just fine when used outside of ZenCart.

What exactly triggers this flag?

Thank you,

TheMusician

[Chuckl]

It's the all singing and dancing world record informative error message isn't it?

It's a phpMailer error - class.phpmailer.php. Rough translation, I tried to use the php mail() function, and it returned an error.

Fraid I've never used PHP mail() on IIS, is it relaying to an external SMTP server? If so, is it possible to switch to the SMTP transport and send directly? Possibilities are a blocked port 25 or external mail server problems.

Rgds,

Chuck

[TheMusician]

Thanks for the reply Chuck. IIS has a built in SMTP server for outgoing mail only. I have tested it on the server, it hosts other sites that use the PHP mail() function, and it passed all tests with flying colors. The port is open. I will keep digging around.

Thank you

[TheMusician]

I looked into the class.phpmailer.php and its default SMTP port is 25, I am using a different port, it is correct in my php.ini file. Should I mess around with the class.phpmailer.php file, or do the php.ini settings override this class?

[DrByte]

In Admin->Configuration->Email Options, if you set your transport method to PHP, then your php.ini will drive all of it, provided its mail() settings are able to follow the php.ini instructions.

If you instead choose the SMTPAUTH transport method and set all your SMTP settings on that same screen (lower in the list), then Zen Cart will use those settings directly, including the port number you supply.

[Chuckl]

And in fact if the port number is set to something other than 25, the pure SMTP (no auth) transport will use that port, although the setup screen implies otherwise.

[TheMusician]

Thanks again to both of you for the quick replies. I changed it over to smtpauth and got it working. Currently it is going to the wrong e-mail address, but it does now go through without throwing an error.

Thank you

[sugarandspice]

In Admin->Configuration->Email Options, if you set your transport method to PHP, then your php.ini will drive all of it, provided its mail() settings are able to follow the php.ini instructions.

If you instead choose the SMTPAUTH transport method and set all your SMTP settings on that same screen (lower in the list), then Zen Cart will use those settings directly, including the port number you supply.

Hi I would first like to point out that I AM BLONDE and don't really understand all this PHP stuff But I am trying to send e mails to all my subscribers (never had a problem before) and it's coming up with the same error message .

Please help

marion x

[knuckle-101]

Hi I would first like to point out that I AM BLONDE and don't really understand all this PHP stuff But I am trying to send e mails to all my subscribers (never had a problem before) and it's coming up with the same error message .

Please help

marion x

A version of zencart your using would be greatly helpful and also what email method is your cart using now.

Go to tools --> Server/Version Info tells you the version
Go to Configuration --> Email Options -> The first line tells you what function you are using.

All this is in the admin section.

[lollypopstar]

I was having this same problem with mails that used to work and now were coming up with this error message.

The reason I was getting it I found out was that client had changed their email addresses to a domian that didn't exist(!) - there was a typo in their domain name!
Once I had found it and changed it - it worked like a charm!

Thought it might help someone else who comes up against this problem