Email Error: Could not instantiate mail function. Please check Admin->Configuration->

[stephaniebt]

I am having this exact same problem. My customers get an email thanking them for the sale, but I am not receiving a notification. I only know I have a sale if I log in and check my admin section, or from a PayPal email receipt. What's maddening is that it all worked perfectly for the first couple of sales, and then the emails stopped. I was able to send emails to customer from within ZC admin, but now I can't. And now I cannot get it to send me my password, and the old one stopped working. So I can't even get into my admin section. I am doomed.

[DrByte]

I am having this exact same problem. My customers get an email thanking them for the sale, but I am not receiving a notification. I only know I have a sale if I log in and check my admin section, or from a PayPal email receipt. What's maddening is that it all worked perfectly for the first couple of sales, and then the emails stopped. I was able to send emails to customer from within ZC admin, but now I can't. And now I cannot get it to send me my password, and the old one stopped working. So I can't even get into my admin section. I am doomed.

So, when you say "I am having this exact same problem", are you referring to the error message mentioned in the title and in the original post? ie: "Email Error: Could not instantiate mail function. Please check Admin->Configurati..."

[stephaniebt]

Yes, that is the problem, this error message:

Email Error: Could not instantiate mail function. Please check Admin->Configurati

This happens when I try to send an email to a customer from within the ZC admin section. It worked fine for a number of sales, and now it won't work anymore. Further, when I went to my shop admin section, the username and password were filled in automatically. I wanted to double check the password, so clicked the link to "Resend password." That was a big mistake! I got that Email Error message again, no password was sent to me, and now I can't even log into my shop admin anymore. So I can't even do anything with my shop. The shop itself is working fine.

http://seaspritesoaps.com/shop/

My hosting service swears that they did not change anything. I can't understand why it would work perfectly for several weeks and then start throwing errors. I have not changed one thing in the admin section except for my products.

How can I reset the password to get into my admin?

[stephaniebt]

I just want to add that I found this thread

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...assword+change

I've accessed my DB but there are a lot of different files and I'm not sure which one is the one where I'm supposed to cut and paste the new admin name and pw?

I'm using ZC 1.3.8
My hosting service is Jaguarpc.net

[stephaniebt]

Whew, I figured it out with the help of that thread and a help tutorial. I was able to get into my admin again, thankfully! :)

[Blueeyedfrog]

I am also getting the same error:

(ERROR: Failed sending email to: "" with subject: "[ORDERS STATUS] Order Update #1058" Could not instantiate mail function. Please check Admin->Configuration->Email Options->Email Transport.)

I fiddled in the Admin email options (changed from PHP to SMTPAUTH and back again).

Now I just get the following error:

Notice: FAILED to send Email to all recipients: [email protected] (0)

Everything has been working fine for over one year. Was hacked a month ago though. I repaired and reinstalled an old backup and all catalogue files. Everything was then working ok for a few weeks - now this.

The only other thing I've done recently is purge the archive, but I don't remember if that was since my last sussessful email...

Cheers,