保存设置不适用于opencart版本1.5.6.4

I really need expertise that can help in solving these two challenges.

It's been a while I logged into the admin back-end and couple of days ago, I logged in to change some values and noticed the following.

1) When I change any value under the settings page of the opencart admin panel, The page does not get saved, instead, the page is refreshed after clicking save. I have manually updated everything from the database. Funny enough, the cancel button works well. What could be wrong and how do I get this resolved.

2) I noticed the emails are not working anymore. Initially, we get emails from the contact page but not anymore. Also, if a customer places an order, It's simply not sending any email to the customer. I have used various protocol -fme@domain.com , -Fme@domain.com , and I used the "Mail" protocol.

I also changed the following values under system/library/mail/php

Changed:

echo $header .= 'From: ' . '=?UTF-8?B?' . base64_encode($this->sender) . '?=' . '<' . $this->from . '>' . $this->newline;

To:

$header .= 'From: ' . $this->sender . ' <' . $this->from . '>' . $this->newline;

I also inserted emails in the extra email alert. nothing seems working

I'll appreciate your assistance

Am on OC (Version 1.5.6.4)

Thanks