Could email be sent but still throws an exception?

So I am want to send an email and record in the database that it was sent successfully, here is what I do:

First, try sending an email to the user containing the product information
Second, check if the email was sent successfully. If yes, then record in the database that it was sent successfully.

But if sending the email failed (an exception was thrown) I want to catch that exception and return an error message.

My question is: Is there a case that the email gets sent but still throws an exception?

So by that the code returns error thinking that the email wasn't sent .. but it was actually sent and the exception was throw later after that.

    // pseudo code      
    try{
        $is_sent = send_email();
        if($is_sent){
            $db->email_was_sent();
        }
    }catch(Exception $e){
        return 'Email was not sent. An exception';
    }

Solution

Is there a case that the email gets sent but still throws an exception?

It depends.

If email is sent for a single recipient, any 3 of these situation could result:

email is delivered to recipient
email failed to be delivered to recipient
an exception was raised

For this case, it would be undocumented behaviour of the SwiftMailer email client to have an email sent but still throw an exception.

If email is sent to several recipients, any 3 of these situation could result:

email is delivered to all recipients
email failed to be delivered to one or more recipient(s)
an exception was raised

For this other case, email could be delivered to some recipients and still raise an exception.

https://swiftmailer.symfony.com/docs/sending.html#using-the-send-method

AbstractSmtpTransport::send() shows that email may fail to be sent for one or more of the recipients. https://github.com/swiftmailer/swiftmailer/blob/v6.2.1/lib/classes/Swift/Transport/AbstractSmtpTransport.php#L178