Problems sending emails
This page will help you with problems related to sending an email.
When sending an email, the following configurations are essentially affected:
- Email configuration in Joomla,
- Email configuration in the form configuration,
- Email configuration in the field configuration (field type Email).
Problems that can occur when receiving an email are described on another page:
Problems when receiving emails.
There are many more involved parties with many more contributors that can lead to an email not being received as expected.
Note: Within Visforms, sending emails is a very stable and error-free function. If email sending has been configured correctly in Joomla and Visforms, the cause is usually not Visforms.
The email sending log in Visforms
To determine whether Visforms successfully passed an email to the Joomla Mailer object or whether an error occurred, you can look in one of the Visforms log files.
In order for Visforms to log all email sending, you must configure email sending accordingly and enable logging.
You can find details in:
Log email sending.
Fixed log entry in the event of an error
In the event of an error when generating and transferring the finished email from Visforms to the Joomla mailer object, Visforms always writes a log entry.
In the event of an error, Visforms also writes a log entry if the email sending log is deactivated.
You can find details in:
Logging in the event of an error.
Requirements
Requirements for successfully sending emails with Visforms:
- Email sending via Joomla is activated in the Joomla configuration.
- Email sending via Joomla is set up in the Joomla configuration with all the required information.
- The email test sending in the Joomla configuration is successful.
- Form sending for the desired email type is activated in the form configuration for the form in question.
- Form sending is set up in the form configuration for the form in question with all the required information.
- When sending an email to the user, the affected form contains a form field of type Email.
Note: Sending a custom email to the form sender requires at least one form field of type Email. It is not enough to give a text field the title or the name "E-Mail".
Joomla sends the emails
Visforms itself does not send emails in the true sense of the word. Visforms itself only sets up specific emails and passes them on to the Joomla mailer object for sending.
In Visforms, only email addresses, sender names and subject texts are configured and set at runtime. All other settings are configured in Joomla or other areas.
In particular, the basic email settings in the Joomla configuration (SMTP, PHP mailer) are the basis for successfully sending an email. These basic email settings in the Joomla configuration are not part of the functionality of Visforms.
Note: The configuration for sending emails under Joomla should be the first point to look for solutions to problems.
Settings for sending emails in the Joomla configuration
The Joomla Mailer object for sending an email follows the Joomla configuration for sending emails under:
Joomla Dashboard » System » Configuration » Server tab, E-Mailing group.
SMTP/IMAP or your own web mailer
Basically, two connections for sending emails can be configured.
Note: If you have problems sending emails, we recommend switching to the alternative connection if possible, i.e. switching from SMTP/IMAP to web mailer and vice versa. However, an SMTP/IMAP connection is generally preferable (see also below).
SMTP/IMAP connection
In this case, Joomla uses API calls to connect directly to the email provider to send and receive emails. The access data is used in the API calls to authenticate and authorize access.
Note: The connection via SMTP/IMAP is easy to establish with the correct access data. The connection via SMTP/IMAP is generally stable and less prone to errors, especially compared to a self-operated web mailer.
Note: If you have problems sending emails via SMTP/IMAP, we recommend switching to an alternative SMTP/IMAP connection. In other words, switching to a different email provider or a different email account with the same email provider.
Self-operated web mailer
A self-operated web mailer places high demands on its administration and secure operation.
A self-operated web mailer has:
- its own IP address,
- its own security rating by third parties.
- the possibility of being blocked by third parties.
Compared to an MTP/IMAP connection, a self-operated webmailer is significantly more complex in terms of:
- configuration,
- operation,
- secure operation,
- error-free operation.
Note: If you have problems sending emails with a webmailer, we recommend switching to an SMTP/IMAP connection.
Joomla test button
The configuration for sending emails under Joomla should be the first point to look for solutions to problems.
Note: In particular, a Joomla internal test of email sending should be carried out by clicking on the Send test email button.
Testing the affected email sending outside of the form
Testing the affected email sending outside of the form can help.
Email sending is also a recurring topic in the forum.
So far, it has generally been the above ‘third parties’ that have led to problems and irregularities.
Checklist
Note: Please go through the following checklist if you have problems sending emails.
- Make sure that you have understood all the configuration settings for sending emails and have set them correctly.
- Check that submitting the form works.
Set the “Save data” option for the form to “yes”.
More on this in: Save and use data.
If submitting the form works correctly, a data record will now be saved in the data table each time.
If saving the data does not work, then the error is not with the email sending, but earlier. - Make sure that the mailer on your system is correctly configured and working.
Visforms passes the finished email directly to Joomla!, which takes care of the actual sending.
The mailer configuration is located under Joomla Dashboard » System » Configuration » ‘Server’ tab, ‘Emailing’ group. - Actively test the mailer’s functionality with another Joomla functionality, e.g. when registering as a user.
- In particular, a Joomla-internal test of email sending should be carried out by clicking on the Send test email button.
The Send test email button is located under Joomla Dashboard » System » Configuration » ‘Server’ tab, ‘Emailing’ group. - You can determine from a log entry that there was an error in the email transfer.
More on this further down the page: Logging in the event of an error.