I recently implemented a comment area on my website and tried to get the email notification to work. It doesn’t seem to want to send email notifications when new comments are made.
Just to see if PHP can send emails, I tried to reset the password (because you’ll get a new password via mail), and I got the message:
The e-mail could not be sent. Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function
I’ve checked the checkboxes in Settings -> Discussion, and the email is valid, so it’s not a setting issue. I tried to create a PHP file and send using mail(), and it sent successfully. So there must be something weird going on with WordPress.
Any ideas?
Step by step: First find the file where the error message appear. I use Notepad++ and the CTRL + F command to search in files. It is a good idea to search only the first few words of the error message, because some error messages are combined of different messages.
Your error message appear in wp-login.php and holy luck, only there. So let’s have a look why this error could occur.
if ( $message && !wp_mail($user_email, $title, $message) )
There are two conditions. $messagehave to be true (not an empty string, not false, not null, etc). And wp_mail() shouldn’t return false.
One line above, there is a filter $message = apply_filters('retrieve_password_message', $message, $key);, so it is possible that a plugin (or theme) use this filter and returns a value that is not true (empty string, false, null, etc.).
But it is much easier to check if wp_mail() is working or not. Write a small plugin to send a test mail to yourself:
<?php
/**
* Plugin Name: Stackexchange Testplugin
* Plugin URI: http://yoda.neun12.de
* Description: Send me a test email
* Version: 0.1
* Author: Ralf Albert
* Author URI: http://yoda.neun12.de
* Text Domain:
* Domain Path:
* Network:
* License: GPLv3
*/
namespace WordPressStackexchange;
add_action( 'init', __NAMESPACE__ . '\plugin_init' );
function plugin_init(){
$to = 'your-email-adress@some-domain.tld';
$subject="Testemail";
$message="FooBarBaz Testmail is working";
wp_mail( $to, $subject, $message );
}
(This is PHP5.3 code. If you are running PHP5.2, remove the namespace things)
The plugin should send a testmail immediately after activation. If not, calling some backend pages (e.g. dashboard) should do it.
If the testmail does not arrive, then you probably have an issue with wp_mail(). So turn on debugging:
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true );
@ini_set( 'display_errors',1 );
Put this code into your wp-config.php and retry sending yourself a testmail. Now you should get some error messages and they also should be logged into wp-content/debug.log (The debug log can grow very large if there are more errors caused by plugins and/or themes).
At this point, you got good informations if wp_mail() fails and if so, why. If wp_mail() work correctly and the testmail arrived, go back to top and find out why $message is not true.
If you have issues with wp_mail(), so keep in mind that wp_mail() does not use PHPs mail() function. WordPress use a PHP class (PHPMailer). Maybe you just need a plugin to use SMTP instead of sendmail. Or the problem is located at another place. We don’t know. You have to investigate.
