Email set up issues

Hi there:

I'm having an issue with the email settings: things partially work. Here's my issue:

emails get sent from OpenCart to external email addresses for things like order updates, new order, new user registration, and order confirmations. However, on the contact form, I always get the error "Notice: Error: RCPT TO not accepted from server!"

I did some researching and some debugging. The reply that I receive that causes the error is "553 5.7.1 : Sender address rejected: not owned by user info@kokabora.com". So I did a further test: in the contact form I entered info@kokabora.com and it all worked, but for every external email address it doesn't work.

so here's my set up:

Protocol: SMTP
store email and SMTP username are info@kokabora.com
SMTP host: mail.kokabora.com
Opencart version: 1.5.6

I"ve read that I need to use the MAIL protocol and I tried it. in that case absolutely no emails are sent. I don't get any error messages, but I also don't get any emails.

The question is: is there a way around it? Is there a way for the mail.php to distinguish when the email is sent from opencart or from the website?

Many thanks :-)

Not everything has been resolved yet, but here's an update:

the host noticed that there was a php.ini in the main directory of the opencart installation that was overriding the host php.ini file. After the removal the MAIL protocol began to work, but not all is solved and so far SMTP works better than MAIL.

so far SMTP doesn't work in two instances:
- Sending an email to the store through the contact us from the website. Aside from info@kokabora.com no other email works
- Sending the gift certificate to the recipient when the order status is changed to "Complete" AND when there's multiple items in the cart - in other wodrs a mix of regular products and gift certificates. Sending gift certificates from the back end and from order status updates when only gift certificates are present work.

MAIL doesn't work in seceral instances:
- Sending order updates
- Sending the gift certificates to the recipients from the back end
- sending the gift certificates to the recipients through order status updates (regardless of whether there's only gift certificates or a mix of products in the cart).

Now my host is trying to figure out what else is preventing the emails to be sent. I hope to get good news, but that still gets me worried if it will send the mail to the gift card recipients if I have a mix of products.

So it appears there was another php.ini throwing a wrench in the monkey works. This is the default php.ini that comes with a fresh opencart installation. This one is placed in the admin folder and that was causing the issues. Once removed mail started flowing.

Right now:
- MAIL setting does not work in sending an email to the gift certificate recipient when the customer orders a mix of regular products and gift certificates in one cart. Otherwise it works in all other instances.

- SMPT setting does not work in sending an email to the gift certificate recipient when the customer orders a mix of regular products and gift certificates in one cart AND sending email to the store owner from the contact form. Works in all other instances.

MAIL wins and that will be my setting. However, i do believe that there's a bug somewhere that prevents opencart from sending emails to the gift certificate recipients when the customer orders regular products and gift certificates in one cart. I'll log that as a bug. In the mean time as a work around I will have to manually send those gift certificates.