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' => '[email protected]', '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

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',...