receiving blank forms and captcha errors (missing on server messages)

Hi, I'm new at this but did manage to set up formmail for a large 'order' form (and if anyone has a better way to set this up please feel free to advise me!). URL is: https://www.siopagaeilge.ie/siopaorder/order.htm - we want to be able to weigh the books and put on accurate postage, then advise customer of total cost and process payment ourselves rather than through a payment gateway (i.e. PayPal etc).

Unfortunately we seem to be having two problems with the form - blank orders sent through and error messages for the captcha - "FormMail : img_verify Error=Your entry did not match the image" plus "The following error occurred in FormMail : verify_failed ********** Error=Image verification string missing. This is probably a fault on the server. "

Could someone please advise me on how to improve the form? I want to stick with using FormMail but reduce the amount of error messages and am pretty sure it is something that I've done wrong! I'm not that technically minded so small words please.....

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Originally Posted by donegalwebit

Unfortunately we seem to be having two problems with the form - blank orders sent through and error messages for the captcha - "FormMail : img_verify Error=Your entry did not match the image"

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so formmail has a feature where it emails the owner (you) when a user makes a mistake. thats wot this message is

in formmail's config section, u can set ALERT_ON_USER_ERROR to false and these messages will stop.

the idea is to leave it on (true) to help u debug ur form, then switch it off (false) when ur happy all is OK

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plus "The following error occurred in FormMail : verify_failed ********** Error=Image verification string missing. This is probably a fault on the server. "

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if this correlates with ur testiong, then that's not a good sign. it means ur server has a problem with PHP sessions.

but if u get a few of these at random times, it can mean two things:

1. spam bots are hitting ur copy of formmail (so no need to worry). u can stop these messages by setting ATTACK_DETECTION_IGNORE_ERRORS to true
2. users are taking too long to fill in ur form and the session is expiring. in this case ur system adminstration may need the increase ur PHP session length on the server. alternatively, switch to use reCaptcha beause it doesn't use PHP sessions.

Thanks Crabtree for your advice. I think it could possibly be the second possibility as any time I tested the form to send in an order I've never received any errors - possibly because I'm not taking as much time as a 'real' user. Forgive my ignorance but I have a captcha on at the moment - what's the difference between it and the reCaptcha? The one I have on I put on using directions from this forum so would it be a similar process and where would I find it??

yeah, i took at look at ur form and it's pretty big.

recaptcha is just naother captcha system, supplied by google.

here are the instructins: http://www.tectite.com/fmhowto/recaptcha.php

That's great - I will have a look, and thanks again. I'm being greedy here but would you have any advice on how I could make the form more workable?

well, u start with asking the question: wot's wrong with it?

if ur not sure, why not ask a normal user wot's wrong

once u have a list of answers to that question, u can be specific about wot u need to change