How likely is it that sendmail fails?

I am using a shopping cart based on php and mysql. Orders are sent via sendmail to my email address. Is it possible that only sendmail fails, so that I won' t be notified of an order? How likely is this?

Can you prevent this from happening, like checking sendmail status - if down no order submission possible? Do you recommend this or will this lead to other problems (eg 50 % of my customers would not be able to order, because sendmail status shows downtime - I have often seen red lights on server status pages ...)?

 

 

 

 

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