phpMailer: Could not instantiate mail function

Question

I created a form that uses phpMailer to email the results to the website owner. Of course, before I add the owner\'s email address I use mine to test that the form works. When

Answer 1

Set $mail->SMTPDebug = 2; so you can see what the server has to say, and read the troubleshooting guide.

You're using authentication without encryption, which is not a good combination and many servers won't allow that. Add this:

$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$mail->Port = 587;

You've based your code on an old example, so you're probably using an old version of PHPMailer too; get the latest from github.

Answer 2

There are couple of things you should try and check with this particular error message:

Make sure you can use regular php mail() function. Create a blank page and use the php mail() to send a test email. If that works, maybe its your SMTP that's having issues with the particular user domain. Setup gmail SMTP or a different SMTP to send emails:

$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->Host = "smtp.domain.com";

// optional
// used only when SMTP requires authentication  
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Username = 'smtp_username';
$mail->Password = 'smtp_password';

Can you share your phpMailer source for us to view?