Can't modify php.ini - other ways of getting email to work?

[E2E]

Hi there, I hope someone can help me out with this: Turns out (Windows) emails aren't being sent from our forum b/c the sendmail_from setting in the php.ini file is blank (this was determined by a combination of the Admin CP Diagnostics tool and help from the folks over at vBulletin.com). However, the host company won't change or let us change this file -- when we asked them about it we got the following response:

The php.ini file is on the server and controls php settings for the
server. You do not have access to this file. The link that was given
contains the code you need to create on a new page for sending email.
It is not used on the php.ini file. Use the sample code on a new php
page and modify the required sections.

"The link" mentioned in that quote is as follows: http://www.brinkster.com/Kb/Kb.asp?kb=107593, but newbie that I am I'm quite stuck as to what to do with the code therein. I'm assuming I don't -really- want to add it to an entirely new page -- but is there a certain vBulletin file I can add this to (or some -other- workaround I can use) to make email work despite our hobbled and apparently inaccessible php.ini file? The folks over at vBulletin were as helpful as they could be but pointed out that modifying the actual vB files fell into the vBulletin.org bailiwick, so...here I am! Thanks very much to anybody who might take a stab at helping with this =)

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by E2E

Hi there, I hope someone can help me out with this: Turns out (Windows) emails aren't being sent from our forum b/c the sendmail_from setting in the php.ini file is blank (this was determined by a combination of the Admin CP Diagnostics tool and help from the folks over at vBulletin.com). However, the host company won't change or let us change this file -- when we asked them about it we got the following response:



"The link" mentioned in that quote is as follows: http://www.brinkster.com/Kb/Kb.asp?kb=107593, but newbie that I am I'm quite stuck as to what to do with the code therein. I'm assuming I don't -really- want to add it to an entirely new page -- but is there a certain vBulletin file I can add this to (or some -other- workaround I can use) to make email work despite our hobbled and apparently inaccessible php.ini file? The folks over at vBulletin were as helpful as they could be but pointed out that modifying the actual vB files fell into the vBulletin.org bailiwick, so...here I am! Thanks very much to anybody who might take a stab at helping with this =)

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...highlight=SMPT

[E2E]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, I feel silly now as I'd seen that How-To tip before I'd posted but somehow in all my newbie glory hadn't -really- made the connection between it and my problem...d'oh! But now that I have tried it I'm still getting an error message within the diagnostic tool -- specifically it tells me the following:

Pertinent PHP Settings
SMTP: localhost
sendmail_from: None
sendmail_path: None

Parse error: parse error, unexpected '@', expecting ',' or ';' in \\[site path]\includes\mail.php on line 96

Line 96 is the one in which we'd specified var $smtpUser -- specifically we'd set it to the email address from which we want emails to be sent (so that it now reads var $smtpUser = forums@edtropolis.com; ), was that incorrect? In that original How To post you'd linked me to the only potential clue I thought I saw was the comment about making sure one creates an smtp account -- is this my problem, is there some specific other type of account I need to create in order for this to work?

Thanks yet again for the help with this, I swear I won't -always- be quite such a noob...I hope... =)

[E2E]

Hi there, I'm back to working on this problem after some time away from it and was wondering if anybody could help me: After working with my host company for a while I've -finally- been able to confirm that things -are- set up correctly on their end for php/smtp mail to work -- in fact I was able to get the following code, which is their recommended way of enabling php/smtp mail on their server, to work:

<?
require("c:\php\includes\class.phpmailer.php");

$mail = new PHPMailer();

$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->Host     = "sendmail.brinkster.com";
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; // This line is important for smtp authentication
$mail->Username = "Validbrinkster@hostedemail.com";
$mail->Password = "EmailPassword";

$mail->From     ="Validbrinkster@hostedemail.com";
$mail->FromName ="Validbrinkster@hostedemail.com";
$mail->AddAddress("Valid@emailaddress.com"); 
$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->Subject  =  "Email Subject";
$mail->Body     =  "Email Body";

if(!$mail->Send())
{
   echo "Message was not sent <p>";
   echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
   exit;
}
echo "Message has been sent";
?>

My problem is that I've not been able to update my mail.php file to make -it- work correctly for my vBulletin forum (despite the fact that I've followed the steps in Zachery's linked "How to enable SMTP" thread) and I just don't have enough php/vBulletin experience to understand what the problem could be. Since I -know- the code above works with my host, would it make sense to somehow incorporate that into my mail.php file? If that would make sense, could someone point me in the right direction as to what specific pieces I would -have- to include and in what way? Are there other solutions anyone might suggest?

As always, thanks in advance to anyone who might help me out with this =)