Moved to HostGator, can't get mail() to work

[WebDevel]

Last week I finally got fed up with my old hosting company and switched to a reseller account at HostGator. I do, however, want to keep my domains and email accounts set up on my old server so I have the IP address (A record) set to my HostGator account and I left my mail server (MX record) to still use my old host.

So I thought everything was working fine. My email works, my sites work...that is until I realized none of the email forms on my sites are working.

Is there any way to keep my old host for domain registration and POP email but still allow PHP mail() on my actual websites to work again? I have a lot of email accounts already set up on the old host and it would be a pain in the a$$ to move all of them over to HostGator.

Thanks so much for your help!

[joemailey]

Change the Nameservers of your domain not the a record.

you have 2 name servers which you should have recieved in your welcome email.

change current name servers to the hostgator ones.

[Goddess Dix]

Originally Posted by WebDevel

Is there any way to keep my old host for domain registration and POP email but still allow PHP mail() on my actual websites to work again? I have a lot of email accounts already set up on the old host and it would be a pain in the a$$ to move all of them over to HostGator.

Thanks so much for your help!

doesn't matter who you register your domain with, so long as the nameserver info and various connected records are correct.

i'm a little confused as to why you want to maintain a second hosting account just for your mail. is the old host cpanel? the transfers are usually pretty easy if that's the case.

i'm not as good with the dns stuff yet, so i'm not going to speak to that directly. but if your email forms aren't working, i'd also be poking in the scripts looking for an anti-spam or anti-relay section, basically. probably a script security issue. and it's probably there for a reason. often, a good reason.

but personally, i'd rethink the plan to keep email and the web for the same domain on different servers. yes, it's work to move, but it sure simplifies things having those together. not to mention that weird email and dns setups make it a lot more likely you email could be identified as potnetial spam, depending on where it's going to and what security setup the recipient host or isp has in place.

[rmatt]

I am also interested in keeping mail services on a different server.

My reason is that I want some addresses forwarded to multiple addresses. Our church has an address set up for each key committee.

Is there a reasonable alternative that allows this if I keep everything on HG?

Thanks.

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by rmatt

Is there a reasonable alternative that allows this if I keep everything on HG?

Yes, with the forwarding functionality, you can forward an email address to as many other emails as you'd like.

[rmatt]

Originally Posted by slapshotw

Yes, with the forwarding functionality, you can forward an email address to as many other emails as you'd like.

Sounds good. I have found the relevant sections.

I tried to change the MX record back to the default, but that has no effect. Tech support is trying to help.

[idano]

I am having the same problem. I have a website that I am doing that the company hosts their email in-house with MS Exchange. I host the site here at Hostgator and support changed my MX Record to point to their email server's address. The website works and the email works.

What does not work are my PHP email forms on their site. The emails would never make it to their mail server. I created an account for the "From" address and the mail was getting bounced back from Hostgator's server saying "This user does not exist".

I logged into the cpanel and created the "To" email address in Hostgator's email. The bounce went away and the email gets trapped in Hostgators email - it never makes it to the customer's email server.

It seems that internally the web server is not reading the MX Record and is just automatically forwarding to HG mail server.

I called support and they said that this is the way that it is setup and that they cannot change it. Has anybody else experienced this? If so did you get it working?

[gwyneth]

As Dix said, this sounds like much more of a script issue than a DNS or MX problem.

Which sendmail do you have the script using? It will have to use the one on the server with the script (i.e., HG's)...and you should look on your cPanel server info to find the correct path for it.

[idano]

Actually if I used any other email address to send to other then one from that domain it would work. I actually found a possible solution here and have a ticket into support right now to make the switch -

How do I change my sites MX record to point mail to another server or domain?

Down at the bottom it states:

Note: If you ever send mail from any sites that's on the same server where your site is hosted your external mail server will not receive the mail. The reason for this is that a server will always try to send locally before it tries what the actual DNS zone points to. The way to fix this is to e-mail support@hostgator.com saying "Please remove my domain ****.com from /etc/localdomains and add it to /etc/remotedomains". Only we are able to make this change for you. After the change is completed, this problem should be fixed.

Let's hope that works.

[slapshotw]

Yes, the /remotedomains problem is one that gets many, many people. Some versions of cPanel "automatically" place domains with external MX in that list--but I always check manually anyway.