Joomla! Discussion Forums

So I have received an error at my site after seding stuff that goes like this:

COULD NOT INSTANTIATE MAIL FUNCTION

I am using XAMPP 1.6.4 with php 5.2.4 (joomla 1.5) and my site is still on localhost. I have downloaded a free SMTP server but there were no changes. I must get rid of the error ASAP so that I can finally export my site. Any help will be appreciated.

Personally I would not worry about the localhost mail functionality. Having experienced similar problems in the past. I would enter the smtp.yourdomain.com and password settings into your local dev site, upload and see if it works. The important thing is: make sure the domain and mail settings are the same.

Eg:www.yourdomain.com and smtp.yourdomain.com If you try using a mail server other than the one where your Joomla site is hosted, you may well encounter problems. Ie: www.yourdomain.com, then in Joomla: smtp.otherdomain.com = problem.

Hope this makes sense. M

Am.. could you please go a little slower? I am new to this stuff and I do not know how to make my site accessible for others (export) yet. I am only able to reach it from my localhost. I was planning to ask some of you how to do that later after I get rid of my mail error. So I don't know how to check these things you just named. Will the error even be active when my site is exported? If so could you please explain me by some sort of steps? Thanks. I am not a pro

In your Joomla admin: Top menu:

>site>global configuration>server>

Look on the right, and you will see the mail settings. Have you set your mail server parameters here?

With regards to publishing your site, you will need to purchase a hosting package which includes PHPMysql, then upload your files via your FTP client. You can download a free one here: http://filezilla-project.org/download.php

Most of the reference you need is here: http://docs.joomla.org/Beginners

As I mentioned before, don't worry too much about mail working on the localhost. Enter your mail server details correctly and when you upload to your hosting package, all should be well.

Regards

Mick

Thanks, I'm glad I won't have these problems when my site is exported. My mail settings were ok. I seem to have found the problem. The free SMTP server didn't wanna do things right. So I tried another one. On my site everything was successful but I didn't receive an e-mail with account activation link (I tried registering a test user) and when I checked back on my SMTP server it didn't wanna run anymore. It crashed. I was wondering could you please suggest me any working SMTP server? I just want to test all the functions on my site including registration.
And another question. Let's imagine that I have exported my site to an external server. Will I still be able to modify it? Like changing and modifying templates, installing extensions and all?

Unfortunately, I haven't tried using a local SMTP server, so I can't recommend one. Once again I would suggest addressing this problem on the live server. When you have everything as you would like it - upload the site via ftp. If you are worried about end users encountering problems, put the site in offline mode and login through the front end - the site will then appear to you only. Test your forms and email settings from there. You could spend time fixing "phantom" handshake problems on your local setup only to find that it does not work with your live hosting.

With regards to updating the live site. you certainly can update and develop your Joomla site in exactly the same way you can with your localhost. Just make sure that you regularly download all the files via FTP - (less the configuration.php and .htaccess which are relevant only to the live site) and back them up with a copy of the database exported from your livehost PHPMyadmin. If you are working on a major overhaul of the site, download as above, work locally, then upload again via ftp. Don't forget not to touch the configuration.php files in either installation until you know how to edit them.

M