SMTP connect() failed PHPmailer - PHP

Question

I am new to PHP. I was trying to send myself a sample e-mail through PHPmailer. I am using gmail's smtp server. I am trying to send a sample mail from my gmail account to my yahoo account. But I am getting the error : Mailer Error: SMTP connect() failed.
Here is the code :

<?php

require "class.phpmailer.php";
$mail = new PHPMailer(); 
$mail->IsSMTP();                              // send via SMTP
$mail->Host = "ssl://smtp.gmail.com";
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;                       // turn on SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = "[e-mail]";        // SMTP username
$mail->Password = "mypassword";               // SMTP password
$webmaster_email = "[e-mail]";       //Reply to this email ID
$email="[e-mail]";                // Recipients email ID
$name="My Name";                              // Recipient's name
$mail->From = $webmaster_email;
$mail->Port = 465;
$mail->FromName = "My Name";
$mail->AddAddress($email,$name);
$mail->AddReplyTo($webmaster_email,"My Name");
$mail->WordWrap = 50;                         // set word wrap
$mail->IsHTML(true);                          // send as HTML
$mail->Subject = "subject";
$mail->Body = "Hi,
This is the HTML BODY ";                      //HTML Body 
$mail->AltBody = "This is the body when user views in plain text format"; //Text Body 

if(!$mail->Send())
{
echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
else
{
echo "Message has been sent";
}
?>

I am using WAMP server on a Windows 7 64-bit machine. What could be the prob?
Please help me solve this. Thanks!

Answer 1

The solution of this problem is really very simple. actually Google start using a new authorization mechanism for its User.. you might have seen another line in debug console prompting you to log into your account using any browser.! this is because of new XOAUTH2 authentication mechanism which google start using since 2014. remember.. do not use the ssl over port 465, instead go for tls over 587. this is just because of XOAUTH2 authentication mechanism. if you use ssl over 465, your request will be bounced back.

what you really need to do is .. log into your google account and open up following address https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps and check turn on . you have to do this for letting you to connect with the google SMTP because according to new authentication mechanism google bounce back all the requests from all those applications which does not follow any standard encryption technique.. after checking turn on.. you are good to go.. here is the code which worked fine for me..

require_once 'C:\xampp\htdocs\email\vendor\autoload.php';

define ('GUSER','[e-mail]');
define ('GPWD','your password');


// make a separate file and include this file in that. call this function in that file.

function smtpmailer($to, $from, $from_name, $subject, $body) { 
    global $error;
    $mail = new PHPMailer();  // create a new object
    $mail->IsSMTP(); // enable SMTP
    $mail->SMTPDebug = 2;  // debugging: 1 = errors and messages, 2 = messages only
    $mail->SMTPAuth = true;  // authentication enabled
    $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls'; // secure transfer enabled REQUIRED for GMail
    $mail->SMTPAutoTLS = false;
    $mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
    $mail->Port = 587;

    $mail->Username = GUSER;  
    $mail->Password = GPWD;           
    $mail->SetFrom($from, $from_name);
    $mail->Subject = $subject;
    $mail->Body = $body;
    $mail->AddAddress($to);
    if(!$mail->Send()) {
        $error = 'Mail error: '.$mail->ErrorInfo; 
        return false;
    } else {
        $error = 'Message sent!';
        return true;
    }
}

Answer 2

if everything fails then for gmail you must turn on access to 3rd party apps to connect to ur gmail account.

https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps // turn it on

Answer 3

If anyone is still unable to solve the issue, please check following thread and follow callmebob's answer.

PHPMailer - SMTP ERROR: Password command failed when send mail from my server

Answer 4

Solved an almost identical problem, by adding these lines to the standard PHPMailer configuration. Works like a charm.

$mail->SMTPKeepAlive = true;   
$mail->Mailer = “smtp”; // don't change the quotes!

Came across this code (from Simon Chen) while researching a solution here, https://webolio.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/phpmailer-and-smtp-on-1and1-shared-hosting/#comment-89

Answer 5

Please look at this

I fixed it ...

Turn on that access and enjoy..! That is on gmail account setting.

https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/tree/5.2-stable

<?php
require 'PHPMailerAutoload.php';

$mail = new PHPMailer;

//$mail->SMTPDebug = 3;                               // Enable verbose debug output

$mail->isSMTP();                                      // Set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';  // Specify main and backup SMTP servers
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;                               // Enable SMTP authentication
$mail->Username = '[e-mail]';                 // SMTP username
$mail->Password = 'pass';                           // SMTP password
//$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';                            // Enable TLS encryption, `ssl` also accepted
$mail->Port = 25;                                    // TCP port to connect to

$mail->setFrom('[e-mail]', 'Mailer');
$mail->addAddress('[e-mail]', 'User');     // Add a recipient

$mail->isHTML(true);                                  // Set email format to HTML

$mail->Subject = 'Here is the subject';
$mail->Body    = 'This is the HTML message body <b>in bold!</b>';
$mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients';

if(!$mail->send()) {
    echo 'Message could not be sent.';
    echo 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
    echo 'Message has been sent';
}

Answer 6

You need to add the Host parameter

$mail->Host = "ssl://smtp.gmail.com"; 

Also, check if you have open_ssl enabled.

<?php
echo !extension_loaded('openssl')?"Not Available":"Available";