Wordpress: Mailer Error: Could not instantiate mail function

Question

I am using PHP mailer to send emails on wordpress. I put a simple code just to test if the class works. Unfortunately I got the error below.

include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/class-phpmailer.php');

//PHPMailer Object
 $mail = new PHPMailer;

//From email address and name
$mail->From = "[email protected]";
$mail->FromName = "Full Name";

//To address and name
$mail->addAddress("[email protected]", "Recepient Name");
$mail->addAddress("[email protected]"); //Recipient name is optional

//Address to which recipient will reply
$mail->addReplyTo("[email protected]", "Reply");


//Send HTML or Plain Text email
$mail->isHTML(true);

$mail->Subject = "Subject Text";
$mail->Body = "<i>Mail body in HTML</i>";
$mail->AltBody = "This is the plain text version of the email content";

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

I am getting following error:

Mailer Error: Could not instantiate mail function.

Answer 1

Try using SMTP to send email:-

<?php
require_once('../class.phpmailer.php');

$mail = new PHPMailer(true); // the true param means it will throw exceptions on errors, which we need to catch

$mail->IsSMTP(); // telling the class to use SMTP

try {
  $mail->Host       = "mail.yourdomain.com"; // SMTP server
  $mail->SMTPDebug  = 2;                     // enables SMTP debug information (for testing)
  $mail->SMTPAuth   = true;                  // enable SMTP authentication
  $mail->Host       = "mail.yourdomain.com"; // sets the SMTP server
  $mail->Port       = 26;                    // set the SMTP port for the GMAIL server
  $mail->Username   = "yourname@yourdomain"; // SMTP account username
  $mail->Password   = "yourpassword";        // SMTP account password
  $mail->AddReplyTo('[email protected]', 'First Last');
  $mail->AddAddress('[email protected]', 'John Doe');
  $mail->SetFrom('[email protected]', 'First Last');
  $mail->AddReplyTo('[email protected]', 'First Last');
  $mail->Subject = 'PHPMailer Test Subject via mail(), advanced';
  $mail->AltBody = 'To view the message, please use an HTML compatible email viewer!'; // optional - MsgHTML will create an alternate automatically
  $mail->MsgHTML(file_get_contents('contents.html'));
  $mail->AddAttachment('images/phpmailer.gif');      // attachment
  $mail->AddAttachment('images/phpmailer_mini.gif'); // attachment
  $mail->Send();
  echo "Message Sent OK</p>\n";
} catch (phpmailerException $e) {
  echo $e->errorMessage(); //Pretty error messages from PHPMailer
} catch (Exception $e) {
  echo $e->getMessage(); //Boring error messages from anything else!
}
?>

Download the class.phpmailer.php file from this link - https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/email/send-email-from-a-page/using-phpmailer-to-send-mail-through-php