PHPMailer FAQ

Q: I'm using the SMTP mailer and I keep on getting a timeout message - well before the X seconds I set it for. What gives?
- A: PHP versions 4.0.4pl1 and earlier have a bug in which sockets timeout - early. You can fix this by re-compiling PHP 4.0.4pl1 with this fix: - timeoutfix.diff. Otherwise you can wait for the new PHP release.
Q: I am concerned that using include files will take up too much - processing time on my computer. How can I make it run faster?
- A: PHP by itself is very fast. Much faster than ASP or JSP running on - the same type of server. This is because it has very little overhead compared - to its competitors and it pre-compiles all of - its code before it runs each script (in PHP4). However, all of - this compiling and re-compiling can take up a lot of valuable - computer resources. However, there are programs out there that compile - PHP code and store it in memory (or on mmaped files) to reduce the - processing immensely. Two of these: APC - (Alternative PHP Cache) and Afterburner - (Win32 download) - are excellent free tools that do just this. If you have the money - you might also try Zend Cache, it is - even faster than the open source varieties. All of these tools make your - scripts run faster while also reducing the load on your server. I have tried - them myself and they are quite stable too.
Q: What mailer gives me the best performance?
- A: On a single machine the sendmail (or Qmail) is fastest overall. - Next fastest is mail() to give you the best performance. Both do not have the overhead of SMTP. - If you have you have your mail server on a another machine then - SMTP is your only option, but you do get the benefit of redundant mail servers.
- If you are running a mailing list with thousands of names, the fastest mailers in order are: SMTP, sendmail (or Qmail), mail().
Q: When I try to attach a file with on my server I get a - "Could not find {file} on filesystem error". Why is this?
- A: If you are using a Unix machine this is probably because the user - running your web server does not have read access to the directory in question. If you are using Windows, - then the problem probably is that you have used single backslashes to denote directories (\). - A single backslash has a special meaning to PHP so these are not - valid. Instead use double backslashes ("\\") or a single forward - slash ("/").

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