Simple mail() not working

in php.ini you should set
sendmail_from = me@example.com

No good. I also copy pasted the following ode from the PHP manual, and it gave me the same error. I can't edit the php.ini file on the public server that'll be hosting the page. Any thoughts?

<?php

$to = 'nobody@example.com';
$subject = 'the subject';
$message = 'hello';
$headers = 'From: webmaster@example.com' . "\r\n" .
   'Reply-To: webmaster@example.com' . "\r\n" .
   'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

      if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers))
            echo("Success");
      else
            echo("failure");
?>

I solved it: on php.ini, just uncomment the second line that's posted below :) You can leave it as is

; For Win32 only.
sendmail_from =

didn't you say that you cannot edit the php.ini?

And I can't :\ And even if I could, I'd still need an SMTP server so mail() could send the messages correct? So how am I going to send e-mail from a HTML form, customizing the subject and other fields? :(

I had the same problem on my server.  Quickest solution is to download PHPMailer (http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net/) and use it with SMTP support.  There is a great tutorial at: http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/130/0.php .  Of course we can provide any more help if necessary.

M

Well...my only problem now is to find an SMTP server that is reachable from a PHP host. I still haven't found a host that provides PHP + SMTP server + send e-mail with mail(...). I've found one but recently discovered that they don't allow using mail() to avoid abuse. Any suggestions?

I am currently with HostVector (http://www.hostvector.com/)  So far I have had very few problems and their tech support is excellent.  You still wont be able to use the mail() function, but you should have no problem getting PHPMailer to work.

M

Don't I need access to a SMTP server to use PHP mailer? BTW HostVector isn't free, is it?

Just to clear something up: phpMailer doesn't necessarily need an SMTP server. By default, it acts as a front end to mail(), so it uses whatever mailer is available on your system (sendmail, or others via sendmail wrappers, qmail-inject etc). On Windows servers there often isn't one, so you can use IsSMTP() and talk to one elsewhere (not necessarily at the same ISP). Most people having trouble with mail() are in fact having trouble getting message formatting right, and this is something that phpMailer makes very easy. There are really no downsides to using PHPMailer.