Laravel default mail not working

Question

Im attempting to send a user activation email upon registration. I have a simple laravel site with registration and authentication. Upon registration, there are no errors, and the data is stored correctly, however the email never actually gets sent. Tried a few different examples, but I have the same problem.

This is my mail.php config file -

<?php

return array(

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Mail Driver
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | Laravel supports both SMTP and PHP's "mail" function as drivers for the
    | sending of e-mail. You may specify which one you're using throughout
    | your application here. By default, Laravel is setup for SMTP mail.
    |
    | Supported: "smtp", "mail", "sendmail"
    |
    */

    'driver' => 'smtp',

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | SMTP Host Address
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | Here you may provide the host address of the SMTP server used by your
    | applications. A default option is provided that is compatible with
    | the Postmark mail service, which will provide reliable delivery.
    |
    */

    'host' => 'smtp.mailgun.org',

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | SMTP Host Port
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | This is the SMTP port used by your application to delivery e-mails to
    | users of your application. Like the host we have set this value to
    | stay compatible with the Postmark e-mail application by default.
    |
    */

    'port' => 587,

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Global "From" Address
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | You may wish for all e-mails sent by your application to be sent from
    | the same address. Here, you may specify a name and address that is
    | used globally for all e-mails that are sent by your application.
    |
    */

    'from' => array('address' => '[e-mail]', 'name' => 'God'),

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | E-Mail Encryption Protocol
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | Here you may specify the encryption protocol that should be used when
    | the application send e-mail messages. A sensible default using the
    | transport layer security protocol should provide great security.
    |
    */

    'encryption' => 'tls',

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | SMTP Server Username
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | If your SMTP server requires a username for authentication, you should
    | set it here. This will get used to authenticate with your server on
    | connection. You may also set the "password" value below this one.
    |
    */

    'username' => null,

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | SMTP Server Password
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | Here you may set the password required by your SMTP server to send out
    | messages from your application. This will be given to the server on
    | connection so that the application will be able to send messages.
    |
    */

    'password' => null,

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Sendmail System Path
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | When using the "sendmail" driver to send e-mails, we will need to know
    | the path to where Sendmail lives on this server. A default path has
    | been provided here, which will work well on most of your systems.
    |
    */

    'sendmail' => '/usr/sbin/sendmail -bs',

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Mail "Pretend"
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    | When this option is enabled, e-mail will not actually be sent over the
    | web and will instead be written to your application's logs files so
    | you may inspect the message. This is great for local development.
    |
    */

    'pretend' => false,

);

And this is the logic for handling the mailer - (This is in UsersController)

public function postCreate()
    {
            $validator = Validator::make(Input::all(), User::$rules);

        if ($validator->passes()) 
        {
            $act_code = str_random(60);
            $user = new User;
            $user->user_username = Input::get('user_username');
            $user->user_email = Input::get('user_email');
            $user->user_password = Hash::make(Input::get('user_password'));
            $user->user_status = "N";
            $user->user_activation_key = $act_code;
            if($user->save())
            {

              $email_data = array(
             'recipient' => $user->user_email,
             'subject' => 'Activation Email'
              );
                $view_data = array(
                'actkey' => $act_code,
            );

              Mail::send('emails.welcome', $view_data, function($message) use ($email_data) {
                  $message->to( $email_data['recipient'] )
                          ->subject( $email_data['subject'] );
              });


            return Redirect::to('login')->with('message', 'Thanks for registering!');
            }
        } 
        else 
        {
            return Redirect::to('register')->with('message', 'The following errors occurred')->withErrors($validator)->withInput();
        }
    }

Answer 1

Expanding on the answers above as they weren't working for me.

The port you define has to correlate with the right type of encryption. As it turns out, ssl and tls are not equivalent and correlate to different ports.
The default encryption setting in laravel is set on tls (port 587), but if you're using port 465, you need to change it to ssl.

Google's smtp.gmail.com server is a good example of this:

'host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',
'port' => 465, 
'encryption' => 'ssl',

OR

'host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',
'port' => 587, 
'encryption' => 'tls',

Furthermore, port 587 doesn't mandate the use of encryption (more on that here). If you find that setting 'encryption' => '' works for you, it should raise a red flag as it may mean the smtp server you're using is not encrypting your emails.
In this case, you should find alternative means of sending your emails.

Answer 2

Okay, I'd give Yousef an ''Up One'' , but my reputation is not high enough (seems broken). I had EXACTLY the same issue with my ISP in connecting to their smtp server. The only way I could FINALLY get an email through using laravel was to set the 'encryption' value to nothing (ie just as in the post above). Every other combination of port-change, account-change, etc. resulted in a laravel exception. I tried using my gmail account and credentials with no luck.

The only combination of settings that finally worked was to use

'host' => 'smtp.your-domain',
'port' => 587, 
'encryption' => '',
'username' => 'Your-account@Your-domain',
'password' => 'your-password for Your-account',...

Answer 3

try removing tls encryption by setting it to

'encryption' => '',

i had a similar issue, and the tls was it.

Answer 4

I had this problem but I set configuration mail in .env file and I used this:

php artisan config:cache

Answer 5

If you are using this on local machine using Xampp. Please disable all the encryption application which are running at the back end. I had experienced the same issue and it was solved when i disabled PGP encryption software. The encryption software doesn't allow to pass token to the email.

Answer 6

Config/mail.php

<?php

return [

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mail Driver
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Laravel supports both SMTP and PHP's "mail" function as drivers for the
| sending of e-mail. You may specify which one you're using throughout
| your application here. By default, Laravel is setup for SMTP mail.
|
| Supported: "smtp", "mail", "sendmail", "mailgun", "mandrill", "log"
|
*/

'driver' => 'sendmail',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Host Address
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may provide the host address of the SMTP server used by your
| applications. A default option is provided that is compatible with
| the Mailgun mail service which will provide reliable deliveries.
|
*/

'host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Host Port
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This is the SMTP port used by your application to deliver e-mails to
| users of the application. Like the host we have set this value to
| stay compatible with the Mailgun e-mail application by default.
|
*/

'port' => 465,

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Global "From" Address
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| You may wish for all e-mails sent by your application to be sent from
| the same address. Here, you may specify a name and address that is
| used globally for all e-mails that are sent by your application.
|
*/

'from' => ['address' => 'your mail', 'name' => 'Project'],

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| E-Mail Encryption Protocol
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may specify the encryption protocol that should be used when
| the application send e-mail messages. A sensible default using the
| transport layer security protocol should provide great security.
|
*/

'encryption' => '',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Server Username
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| If your SMTP server requires a username for authentication, you should
| set it here. This will get used to authenticate with your server on
| connection. You may also set the "password" value below this one.
|
*/

'username' => 'your email (gmail)',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Server Password
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may set the password required by your SMTP server to send out
| messages from your application. This will be given to the server on
| connection so that the application will be able to send messages.
|
*/

'password' => 'password (email)',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Sendmail System Path
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When using the "sendmail" driver to send e-mails, we will need to know
| the path to where Sendmail lives on this server. A default path has
| been provided here, which will work well on most of your systems.
|
*/

'sendmail' => '/usr/sbin/sendmail -bs',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mail "Pretend"
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When this option is enabled, e-mail will not actually be sent over the
| web and will instead be written to your application's logs files so
| you may inspect the message. This is great for local development.
|
*/

'pretend' => false,

];

The mail function

use Illuminate\Contracts\Mail\Mailer;

$message = [
            'title'     => 'Verification code',
            'intro'     => "Please verify your email address with ".$user->confirmation_code,
            'link'      => '',
            'confirmation_code' => '',
            'to_email'  => $user->email,
            'to_name'   => $user_details->first_name.' '.$user_details->last_name,
        ];

        \Mail::send('emails.auth.verify', $message, function($m) use($message) {
            $m->to($message['to_email'], $message['to_name'])
                    ->subject('Email verification');
        });