Form Not Sending Email

[Grumpous]

Hello,

I’ve been working on this problem on/off for 2 days. I little concerned. I have read multiple posts in this forum that look similar, but the remedies are not helping.

Simple setup, I have a form that gathers a few pieces of info and sends the results to an address outside of the service’s domain.

1. I have set the email addresses in Dashboard>System & Settings>Email>System Email Addresses.

2. I have set Dashboard>System & Settings>Email>SMTP Method to enabled and use External SMTP service.

3. I have tested the SMTP settings and do receive the test email from the server. I assume this means my SMTP settings and email routing on the host are correct.

4. When I submit the form, logs show that Concrete thinks it has sent the email, but no joy. It never arrives.

5. Log entry showing that Concrete thinks it has sent the email:
   **EMAILS ARE ENABLED. THIS EMAIL HAS BEEN SENT**
   Template Used: block_express_form_submission
   Mail Details: Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2026 12:35:26 -0700
   Reply-To: (redacted)
   From: (redacted)
   Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Website Form Submission – Membership Question?
   To: (redacted)
   Message-ID:
   MIME-Version: 1.0
   Content-Type: text/plain;
   charset=“UTF-8”
   Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Where else should I be looking to figure out what is going on?

Environment:

Concrete Version

Core Version - 9.4.7
Version Installed - 9.4.7
Database Version - 20250827152432

PHP Version

8.3.30

PHP Extensions

apcu, bcmath, bz2, calendar, Core, ctype, curl, date, dom, exif, fileinfo, filter, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, hash, iconv, imagick, imap, intl, json, libxml, litespeed, mbstring, monarxprotect, mysqli, mysqlnd, odbc, openssl, pcntl, pcre, PDO, pdo_mysql, PDO_ODBC, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, Phar, posix, pspell, random, readline, redis, Reflection, session, SimpleXML, soap, sockets, sodium, SPL, sqlite3, standard, tidy, tokenizer, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, Zend OPcache, zip, zlib

[Grumpous]

Is anyone else seeing this problem?

[ConcreteOwl]

@Grumpous

sends the results to an address outside of the service’s domain.

Have you looked in the spam folder for that email account?

[Grumpous]

SPAM folder is empty. It is so strange. I receive the test emails from the “Test Email Settings” page, but not from the form. The Test Emails work regardless of which SMTP method I use, “Default PHP Mail Function” or “External”. The only difference is the format of the message.

Is there another set of Concrete logs or php logs I can inspect on the host?

[JohntheFish]

Some mail services such as Gmail are extremely fussy about who they will accept mail from and how the sending mail servers are set up.

Try setting up a limited free SMTP sending account with one of the many SMTP services available online and use that to make an alternate set of tests. You can then send a test mail from their web interface, and then a test mail from concrete and a form submission from concrete.

If you get that far, you can then look at the mail sending history in the online service dashboard and that will confirm whether mail is getting out of the web site.

[Grumpous]

I am not sure what that would prove. I get the email when I test the Email setting from within Concrete. If I am getting mail when I run the test, to an outside email address, but do not get email to the same address from a form, it would seem to me that the form is the variable that is causing the issue. No?

[ConcreteOwl]

I suspect that you have setup your form correctly but I have to ask, did you fill in the ‘Send form submissions to email addresses’ in the form ‘Options’ tab?

[Grumpous]

Here is the form’s settings…

[ConcreteOwl]

Perhaps try a different email account other than an icloud one, if the email arrives you will know it is icloud that is not forwarding the email.

[Grumpous]

I have configured the form three different times each with a different email address to different domains. None has worked. I seriously believe that there is a defect here. I know others have gotten this to work; however, there is something wrong here.

It is to the point where I am going to pitch Concreate and consider going back to WordPress - god forbid.

[mhawke]

Have you looked at your server logs or even contacted your Host for them to read it and make suggestions? Have you contacted your SMTP service to see if they have any thoughts?

[Grumpous]

I have. I’ve looked a PHP logs, and other logs. I have contacted tech support for BlueHost and they said they could not find any evidence that Concreate attempted to send a mail message. They told me to contact Concreate support. But, since I am using the free version I do not have support.

[mhawke]

Some things I would try…

Make sure Dashboard->System & Settings->Email->Email Logging is on

1. Temporarily switch the Email Sending Method setting to ‘Default PHP Mail Function’ instead of the external SMTP service
2. Check the activity logs at the SMTP service
3. Initiate a ‘Forgot my password’ reset email to see if that works. Then check if that is tracked in the Reports->Logs

None of this will answer your question directly but may lead to something.

[Grumpous]

I really appreciate all your help. I have done all these things over the last 5 or 6 days now. There is something wrong with Concreate as it is not attempting to send mail from a form on multiple of my sites.

I had real high hopes for this tool, but it is just not working in my environment. No error logs, nothing. Just blank. It think it sends the email, it just doesn’t do it. It is like a Sinefeld episode.

[mhawke]

Are they all on Bluehost? Over the years, I have lost all hope that Bluehost knows what they’re doing. This problem would be reported by lots of websites if it were a core problem. As far as shared hosting, I’ve found SiteGround to be excellent. Their technician know what their doing. Does anyone know if the temp/test sites you can spin up concrete.com have the capacity to test this?

[ConcreteOwl]

You could try setting up your form using the ‘Legacy Form’ instead of the ‘Express Form’
Its a long shot I know but maybe the Bluehost server doesn’t like something in the express form and is rejecting it.
I would echo @mhawke statement that the Bluehost support is terrible and not to be trusted!