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PHPMailer Error "Message body empty"

Hello Experts;

I am passing form variables to a script that sends a response Email from an AWS ec2 instance using the SMTP interface. I have no problem sending a simple phpmailer text response Email but I cannot send an HTML formatted Email. I receive the following browser message when tyring to send an HTML Email: "Mailer Error: Message body empty".

I can echo the variables inserted into the HTML but the code will not finish sending the Email. I've searched the web for hours trying to find a solution but none seem to align with the issue in my script; hopefully someone can point out my error.

My code for the "HTML phpmailer" that causes the error is:

<?php
session_start();
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
$mail = new PHPMailer;
$mail->SMTPDebug = 2;
$msg = '';

if (array_key_exists('email', $_POST)) {
$mail->setFrom('quote@xxxxxxx', 'Quotations');
$mail->addAddress('jimh@xxxxxx.com', 'Store Copy');
$mail->addCC($_POST['email'], 'Quote request copy');
$headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type:text/html;charset=UTF-8" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion();
$headers .= "X-Priority: 1" . "\r\n";
$mail->addReplyTo($_POST['email'], $_POST['name']);
$mail->Subject = 'Quote Request';
$mail->isHTML(true);

$message = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Quote Request</title>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td>'.$_POST['email'].'</td>
<td>'.$_POST['telephone'].'</td>
<td>'.$_POST['list'].'</td>
<td>'.$_POST['comments'].'</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
';
echo $message;

$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;

$mail->Username = 'XXXXXX';
$mail->Password = 'XXXXXXXXXXX';
$mail->Host = 'email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com';
$mail->Port = 587;

if ($mail->send()) {
echo 'Your mail has been sent successfully.';
                  session_unset();
session_destroy();
                  echo $_POST['email'];
                  echo "<meta http-equiv='refresh' content='0;url=http://XX.XXX.XXX.XXX/exit.htm'>";
} else {
                  echo 'Unable to send email. Please try again.';
                  echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
} else {
//$msg = 'Invalid email address, message ignored.';
}

?>

My code for the "Text phpmailer" which works fine is:

<?php
session_start();
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
$mail = new PHPMailer;
//$mail->SMTPDebug = 2;
$msg = '';
//Don't run this unless we're handling a form submission
if (array_key_exists('email', $_POST)) {
date_default_timezone_set('Etc/UTC');
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Username = 'XXXXXXX';
$mail->Password = 'XXXXXXXXXXXX';
$mail->Host = 'email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com';
$mail->Port = 587;

$mail->setFrom('quote@xxxxxxx', 'Quotations');
$mail->addAddress('jimh@xxxxxx.com', 'Store Copy');
$mail->addCC($_POST['email'], 'Quote request copy');

if ($mail->addReplyTo($_POST['email'], $_POST['name'])) {
$mail->Subject = 'Quote Request';
$mail->isHTML(false);

$mail->Body = <<<EOT
From: {$_POST['email']}
Name: {$_POST['name']}
Phone: {$_POST['telephone']}
List: {$_POST['list']}
Comments: {$_POST['comments']}
EOT;
//Send the message, check for errors
if (!$mail->send()) {
$msg = 'Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again later.';
} else {
$msg = 'Message sent! Thanks for contacting us.';
                  session_unset();
session_destroy();
                  echo "<meta http-equiv='refresh' content='0;url=http://xx.xxx.xxx.xxx/exit.htm'>";
}
} else {
$msg = 'Invalid email address, message ignored.';
}
}

?>

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

David Favor

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visionetv

ASKER

Thanks for directing me to GitHub, I been there before but somehow missed the barebones PHP HTML example and now my script is now working. Still have some HTML <table> formatting to work through though that should be pretty straightforward. - Thanks again

PHPMailer Error &quot;Message body empty&quot;

PHPMailer Error "Message body empty"