Support » Fixing WordPress » mail() suddenly disabled??

  • I noticed today that when I made a new WP blog on my windows 2003 server I never received an e-mail with username + password. Then, when I went to “forgot your password” I got this message:
    The e-mail could not be sent.
    Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function…

    I am not sure how mail() could have been disabled; this has never happened before and I have numerous wp blogs on this server.

    Any help as to how to fix this would be great!

    Thanks

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Great question for your host. Unless using a plugin to override it, WordPress uses whatever mail service PHP is configured to use.

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    I am the host- lol

    I just figured out what the problem was; I have a php.ini file in the main directory for that site for changing the permalink structure (stupid IIS thing). I removed that file and that cured the problem.

    Edit:

    Okay so removing the php.ini file brings back mail() for me but now my new permalink structure doesn’t work. Is there a line of code to put into the php.ini file to keep mail working while still allowing custom permalink structure on IIS?

    Don’t you love it when you find the answer right after you post? 😉

    Mark this one as [Resolved] at the top of the page then?

    I have some bad news for you about pretty Permalinks and IIS servers…

    Without installing some 3rd party stuff, it ain’t gonna happen. You can get close with “almost pretty” permalinks though.

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    I know I can’t get “pretty” per say, but I can get close without much trouble using two easy lines of code in a php.ini file. (ie. my links look like this http://mysite.ca/index.php/sign-up/)

    There must be a way to re-enable mail in the php.ini file so that I can still use SEO friendly links and mail().

    I only figured out pretty permalinks on IIS a few days ago, so I hadn’t noticed that mail() wasn’t working until today. This also explains why a contact form plugin I was using on another blog was failing…mail() was disabled!

    Does anyone know of a way to “enable” mail() in a php.ini file? I am not much of a php guru so I really have no idea what to do…

    Well, we tend to avoid server config support here. As you can imagine, that gets pretty hairy and out of scope pretty fast.

    That being said… here’s my first post ever… http://wordpress.org/support/topic/49346?replies=5

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    🙂

    I guess I’ll go back home to the server admin forums….

    (that first post was on this very topic. has some helpful links in it!)

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    I read the page, I still don’t see the solution. Is there one?

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    bump, anyone have a solution?

    From the link I gave you:

    flipped it to use the provider’s smtp instead of my own local server and suddenly I’m back in business 🙂

    Loosely translated, I made some changes to php.ini. Pointed it at my ISP’s smtp server.

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    I read that, but it won’t solve the problem I have with contact forms. I use the inTouch plugin, which uses mail() to send the emails from the form…

    right?

    Ah – I missed that side detail. But won’t mail() use whatever PHP is configured to use for mail?

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    I’m really not sure… I don’t know much about this stuff.

    Thread Starter mundi89

    (@mundi89)

    I have found the solution and posted it here for those of you who are interested: http://urld.ca/article.php?id=1

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
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