Email not working

[desertking]

Please don't reply with the form response.

Fedora and sendmail. Sendmail is working fine for another application and from mutt. Will not work from vBulletin. Tried using both mail() and SMTP. php.ini is correct. vBulletin diagnosics shows standard error "The mailing function returned an error while trying to send the mail." Sendmail path is correct /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i, and defined correctly in the php.ini.

No entries are inserted into the sendmail log when vBulletin diag is run. This problem occures regardless if I use Sendmail or Postfix.

Any ideas? Please don't respond with form answer.

[Colin F]

Have you tried using an SMTP server?

[desertking]

Have you tried using an SMTP server?

I would like to get php mail() working if possible. I don't believe that I have an SMTP account to use anyway.

[desertking]

Anyone? This seems to be a very common problem. A search returns many questions, but few answers.

[Steve Machol]

Getting PHP mail to work is a server issue. You need to contact your host about this.

[desertking]

Steve, I'm not convinced yet that it is a php issue, maybe it is, but too soon to know for sure. But if it is I need help with some ideas to identify/fix it.

One thing is for sure is that the mail log does not acknowledge that the diag message was received.... so Sendmail is okay.

Since there is no other logging, that I am aware, it has to either be vB not initiating the message, or PHP no receiving/forwarding it to Sendmail.

The PHP configuration is correct as per the link that you have posted in other messages. I think that I have thoroughly checked everything that I can find in the vB settings and php.ini.

It is my server, I don't have a host to assist. If there is anything that you can think of for me to look at it would be appreciated. Could it be permission related? Is there anyway to trace the vB function, or PHP?

[Steve Machol]

In vB 3.6 there is an option to log all outgoing emails so you can verify that vB is sending them. This is not built-in to 3.5, but there is an unsupported plugin at www.vbulletin.org to do this. I don't know the link but you should be able to find it if you want.

By default vB uses PHP's mail() function for all its email and uses the SMTP server specified in php.ini. If PHP and the mail server are configured correctly then email will work. You can view the details here: http://us3.php.net/mail/

[desertking]

Thanks Steve. I'll review the link that you sent. But this is the one that I have already looked at. The setup does seem simple enough and is the same as on another server of mine, which is working.

I'll also look for the plugin.

[desertking]

I installed 3.6 RC1 in order to troubleshoot. How do I enable and view email logs?

[Steve Machol]

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Error Handling & Logging -> Log sent eMails to a File

[desertking]

Steve, you were correct. It was a server problem.

I noticed that the email log only gave a status of "failed", so I created a test email php page and used that to capture the error. After a bunch of troubleshooting it ended up being SELinux settings preventing php from communicating with sendmail.

What a pain in the butt that was.

[Steve Machol]

Thanks for letting me know.

[ErnestA]

Solution to SMTP and PHP mail with SELinux can be found here:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1749813#post1749813