On Thu, Sep 04, 2014 at 09:13:29AM -0400, Jim Giner wrote: > I've been using the built-in (?) 'mail()' function quite > successfully so far (ie, a couple of years) and have not had need to > seek an alternate. That said, I now have to ask the group if there > are known cases of intermittent success with this tool. > > I have a pretty good working template for handling emails with a > piped script that sends it results to a std mailbox for review after > the script does it thing. I have several (3-4) scripts linked to > mailboxes that work successfully every time, meaning that my db gets > updated and the emails get sent. Recently I built a new mailbox, > made a new script from my template and began testing. At first > (after clearing out all the syntax errors) it worked successfully > but then after a dozen or so tests I stopped getting the emails. > Now it gets weird. > > Sometimes the script doesn't seem to run at all since my db doesn't > get updated nor do I receive an email. Other times the db does get > updated but I still get no email. I have debugged and debugged and > placed incremental 'send email' steps throughout my code and still > no emails come back. > > But then all of a sudden it works! My hosting co. says there is no > problem with my email accounts and no errors showing, nor do I have > any error logs that show anything. It's been about 4 days now and I > am at a loss to explain it. > > Could it be possible that php or mail() is truly buggy and tempermental? > > FYI -my host is running mysql 5.5.37(cli) with php 5.4.31 on apache 2.2.7 For what it's worth, I never ever trust what a hosting vendor says about his environment and the state of his network. If your code always worked and then it doesn't, it virtually has to be your hosting company. I also don't know how many times I've had to contact hosting companies because it's become clear to me that their email servers have gotten wedged. Or they'll change something on their network and never tell anyone. Here's a ridiculous (but real) example: I had been hosting for years with this hosting company (Company X). I'd had increasing problems with their mailing hosts, as I used them for sending and receiving email for my company. Investigation turned up the following: When I had signed on with them years ago, they had recommended ns1.companyx.net and ns2.companyx.net for nameservers at my registrars. When they found out that my registrars were still using these nameservers, I was informed that ns1.companyx.net was kinda working and ns2.companyx.net was defunct, and I really should be using ns23.companyx.net and ns24.companyx.net. Those were their "modern" nameservers. Immediately a couple of questions occurred to me. First, what self-respecting hosting company allows old nameservers to simply age out and die without telling all their clients who would be relying on those nameservers? Second, who would simply move to different nameservers without upgrading the old ones so that clients didn't have to go back to their registrars and change nameservers? They also asked me, in light of my email problems, if I wouldn't prefer using IMAP instead of POP3 for my email? And I'm thinking, "Are you freaking kidding me? What does that have to do with ANYTHING? If I wanted IMAP, I'd already be doing it, pinheads". All that question does is tell me definitively, 1) you don't really have a clue what's wrong, and 2) you don't want to fix whatever it is. And don't think this is just some guy in his living room. These guys are a major hosting company whose name you'd probably recognize if you've shopped for hosting in the last decade. Needless to say, I moved all my internal (company) sites off of these guys after this. Paul -- Paul M. Foster http://noferblatz.com http://quillandmouse.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
