mail() fails, but returns true

Question

I am trying to use the php mail() function on my server. Weirdly, it returns true but I do not receive anything in my email inbox.

Yet the cpanel email forwarder is working fine.

So prolly it's not a configuration thing since the forwarder sends me emails?

I tried adding in:

ini_set("sendmail_from", "[email protected]");

But that didn't work.

Here's my code:

$subject = "My Subject";
$body = "Email Body ";
$headers = 'From: [email protected]' . "\r\n" . 
    'Reply-To: [email protected]' . "\r\n" . 
    'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion(); 

if (mail($email,$subject,$body,$headers))
    echo "Sent!";
else
    echo "Fail!";

Answer 1

There are a myriad of reasons that could cause this problem. Here are a few:

1. The mail was received, but marked as spam.
2. The recipient's address was incorrect.
3. There is a slow mail queue on the sending mail server.
4. There is a slow mail queue on the receiving mail server.

mail() returns true when the outgoing mail server accepts the message for delivery. You will need to troubleshoot the other possibilities to find the point of failure.