Problems sending contact form emails via website. 
Author: Jim C.Hi All,
Looking for some advice in relation to sending emails via the contact form from the website. On testing one of my sites, emails are no longer being sent from the website. The last date that I can find that the contact form emails was working OK was the 12th March. I have not made any changes to the website, all the contact form settings are the same and I am using PHP 7.2 see settings below:
The website has been set up to send a confirmation email when an email is sent this is working OK, but the email sent via the website never gets to the server, I have checked the Spam/Junk folders on the server and it is not there either.
After much frustration and using up this year’s allocation of swear words, I have found that if I enter a heading in the Subject Box, the email is sent OK, previously the emails were sent OK with the subject box empty. I do not know why there must now be a heading in the subject box for the email to be sent, this was never required before.
I have tested sending emails direct from my PC’s email client without a subject heading and they are received OK at by the server and forwarded to me without any problems.
In posting this on the forum, I have three questions:
Has anyone else experienced this?
If the subject box must be populated is there a way to do this from the content of the contact form rather than having a fixed heading set up in X5?
Do you think that this is a hosting issue? I will contact them during the week. If it is a hosting issue how can I send and receive emails without a subject heading OK from my PC’s email client?
The website is at www.naphillvillagehall.org.uk I am using X5 Evo version 2019.3.14.
As always, any help is appreciated.
Jim
I wanted to test this for you but my website did not even send the form!
So tested several PHP settings, no result eather.
From time to time it's needed to clean out the webserver because x5 will not delete files from your webserver as a general rule.
So i did this, cleaned it out totally, checked online and pressed F5 to check all files where gone, did a full upload and the email form works with an empty subject after that!
So i think it might be your provider that has did this.
But at first may i suggest to use ctrl-F5 before filling in the form and test.
if this does not help try my above suggestion to do a full clean up.
But to be honest, i alway's fill in this form, i have several and i would like to know where it came from, so i always fill it in with a text for myself, like: mail form (website name or form).
Thiis way i know where it originated from and i can better relate to the incoming mail from the form. Fot the customer it does not make any difference and he also knows (if he get's a copy) where it's from, that looks a lot better then no subject at all and it helps in getting through spamfilters at customer ends!
Hope this helps you!
Author
Hi Andre,
Thank you for your prompt feedback. I always clear the browser cache before testing. I had also cleaned out all the website files from the server and reloaded them again with a heading in the subject box for emails from the website. However, following your input I was curious and removed the subject box heading and then reloaded the changed file back onto the server. With the subject box empty the email from the website is not sent to the hosting server. On reloading the server with a heading in the subject box the email is sent OK to the server.
I have set up the various email forms with logo’s so that I know which website that they originated from see below:
It looks very like the hosting service does not allow emails via the website without a subject heading.
Thank you for your feedback it appreciated.
Jim
Great Jim,
And any text will do so it's not such a big issue to add it. And it's also more clear to customers, most e-mail clients (mine also) remove pictures and links if it's not a trusted sender and i need to accept this manually. So setting an subject is import for receivers as well.
Anyway, glad you sorted it out.
Thanks for the feedabck.