Email Error:

As of yesterday, I have become unable to sen emails via the ZENCART system to my customers or update my order status. As soon as I hit send through the email system in zencart or click update button when updating order status in the admin, then it goes to a blank screen that just says, "email error:" Thats it! Is this a problem within Zen Cart or do I need to be seeing what is going on with my hosting company? Please help quick, as my customers want to know what is going on. Oh yeah, I also can't receive emailsfrom customers via our contact us page on the web site. I tested incoming emails as well, and same thing. When they go to our contact us page and try and send us an email through the form, it goes to the email error: as well. You cna check it out: http://carjamz.com/zen/index.php?main_page=contact_us . Try sending us a test email and you will see what I am talking about.

What version of Zen Cart are you using? The most recent version will at least tell you what error occurred, rather than just "email error:".

But the more important issue is ... you said "as of yesterday" ... which implies that things were working fine before yesterday.
This begs the question: what changed yesterday? either by you or by your hosting company. If you don't know, ask them. Report your problem to them.
Did you change passwords on any of your email accounts?

Zen Cart is only the messenger ... it's telling you that when it attempted to send the email that you requested, it encountered an error from the mailserver engine on your webserver.

Zen Cart 1.3.6

What with in the Zen-Cart Admin Area would affect that?

carjamz:

What with in the Zen-Cart Admin Area would affect that?
It was a coding change, not a switch setting.

What did your hosting company say when you asked them about it?

I have SASHBOX Hosting and they are horrible at answering the phones and have not returned 1 email all day. I tried another site that is ran by Zen Cart and the same thing is happening on that site. SO I know it is with the Host and not specific to my site.

Any suggestions at this point. I founf out it causes a problem whenver a customer orders as well. The hit confirm order, and the next page they see is the EMAIL ERROR. I had a customer order an item 3 times today because he thought he was making a mistake.

But in reality, the order went through every time.

You could try using the following files from v1.3.8a, which should show the actual error message in more detail.
However, be sure to backup your original files first, so you can go back in case you have other problems.

/includes/functions/functions_email.php
/includes/classes/class.phpmailer.php
/includes/classes/class.smtp.php

Since v1.3.6 is not officially supported anymore, I haven't done a detailed review to check for dependencies or whatever might break by trying this.

This morning everything is working fine, so my hosting company must have fixed whatever was messed up. Thanks for your help though.

I am having the exact same problem, but here is the email error. I also use sashbox. I have a call into them 2 days agao but have heard nothing back.

Email Error: Could not execute: /usr/sbin/sendmail

OutdoorsInteriors:

I am having the exact same problem, but here is the email error. I also use sashbox. I have a call into them 2 days agao but have heard nothing back.

Email Error: Could not execute: /usr/sbin/sendmail

Why are you using "sendmail" as your Email Transport method? Try using "PHP" instead.

Well, it was working for half a day, and it is down again. I am not sure what to do. I can't get ahold of anyone with SASHBOX and have sent out several emails asking for some support. Nothing. I do see I am not the onyl one wqith this problem though.

Did you try what DrByte suggested?

How do you have your email configured right now?

I have several accounts on sashbox and cannot reproduce this error ...

Have you made any changes at all to your site since it was last working consistantly?

Linda and Dr. Byte:

I changed the email transport method, but still getting the error. Below are the settings I have right now.

Title Value Action
E-Mail Transport Method PHP
E-Mail Linefeeds LF
Use MIME HTML When Sending Emails true
Send E-Mails true
Verify E-Mail Addresses Through DNS true
Email Archiving Active? false
E-Mail Friendly-Errors false
Email Address (Displayed to Contact you) [email protected]
Email Address (sent FROM) [email protected]
Emails must send from known domain? No
Email Admin Format? HTML
Send Copy of Order Confirmation Emails To [email protected]
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To [email protected]
Send Copy of Tell a Friend Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Tell a Friend Emails To [email protected]
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To [email protected]
Send Copy of Admin GV Mail Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Customer Admin GV Mail Emails To [email protected]
Send Copy of Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Customer Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To [email protected]
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To [email protected]
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To - Status 0
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To [email protected]
Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List
Allow Guest To Tell A Friend false
Contact Us - Show Store Name and Address 1
Send Low Stock Emails 1
Send Low Stock Emails To [email protected]
Display "Newsletter Unsubscribe" Link? true
Audience-Select Count Display true
SMTP Email Account Mailbox YourEmailAccountNameHere
SMTP Email Account Password YourPasswordHere
SMTP Email Mail Host mail.EnterYourDomain.com
SMTP Email Mail Server Port 25
Convert currencies for Text emails £,£:€,€

Hi Doctor and thanks for replying. I have changed nothing as mentioned on my site but went and changed the 1.3.7 conf setting to PHP mail. This is the error I'm now getting.

Email Error: Could not instantiate mail function.

Any advise?

Thank You so much

OutdoorsInteriors

carjamz:

Emails must send from known domain? No

Can you change that to YES and see what happens ...

Hi Linda, Dr,

Appears anyone using sashbox is having the same email issues. I tried switching to PHP and YES on the known domain with no luck. I get the error in my previous post about.

Any advise besides trying to reach hosting company which has pathetic user support.

OutdoorsInteriors

OutdoorsInteriors:

Email Error: Could not instantiate mail function.

That message means that "when we attempted to talk to your mailserver, it didn't respond".

This typically suggests that you've selected an Email Transport option that's not correct for your server.

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Troubleshoot_-_Email_Problems

I changed from "sendmail" to PHP and got that error. I also setting send from known domains to "yes" as Linda suggested and still same result. Again I have made no changes to my site since I have been having email issues for about a week now.

Thoughts?

Sashbox Support is investigating. There has been no server config change since April. Manually restarting the main apache/mail/database/etc pieces hasn't improved the problem. A server reboot is in progress now. That may or may not help.

Can you try the following:
a) Fill in the SMTPAUTH settings at the bottom of the email options settings list using the SMTP details for your hosting account on the same server as your website is running from.
b) Change email transport to SMTPAUTH

Do an email test.