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();
        }
    }

Solution 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',...

Solution 2

try removing tls encryption by setting it to

'encryption' => '',

i had a similar issue, and the tls was it.