Variables and email headers always get nothing in Rails3 ActionMailer

Recently, I am working on sending email in my rails project. I use AWS SES (Amazon Web Services - Simple Email Service). But except some specific settings, others usage should be the same.

And I follow the official user guide:

	...
	UserMailer.welcome_email(@user).deliver
	...

I don’t know what’s going on. But it just doesn’t work.

The work one: UserMailer.welcome_email(@user.name, @user.email) Passing all parameters you’re going to use, in Primitive type. (eg. String, Integer, Boolean)

If you use Objects (including Models). It cannot get your attributes. And Email headers (From, to, Subject) may stay blank. Than encounter this error:

	Completed 500 Internal Server Error in 1392ms
	AWS::SES::ResponseError (InvalidParameterValue - Missing required header 'To'.):

The reason is that ActionMailer is Observer. It creates a new process to run on. But objects can’t be accessed in difference process. So you should only pass Strings, Integers.

So you may found that in rails console, the line UserMailer.welcome_email(@user).deliver works. but not in web.

Here’s a workaround: Encapsulate Mailer in to a Model:

	MailModel.welcome_email(@user)

	class MailModel
	 def self.welcome_email(user)
	 UserMailer.welcome_email(user.name, user.email)
	 end
	end

	class UserMailer < ActionMailer::Base
	 def welcome_email(name, email)
	 @name = name
	 mail(:to => email, :from => "system@yourdomain.com", :subject => "Welcome!")
	 end
	end