Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Cron based e-mail sending

As of 24 Nov 2017 this modification has been withdrawn.

In default vBulletin, if you send a large number of e-mails, vbulletin either puts them in it's queue and attempts to send them as each user visits a page, or just simply tries to send them straight away (as is the case when you use the Administrators email users inteface).

The result of this can be that your server can gets seriously overloaded very quickly - or on many hosts, you get banned for exceeding their e-mail sending limits. This can make sending several thousand e-mails (like a newsletter) very difficult.

This modification does two things ;

1. The processing of the mail queue is set-up as a vbulletin cron item.

2. Allows you to add a small delay before each e-mail is sent (between 1 and 9 seconds).

3. E-mails from the ACP inteface are sent to the mail queue, not straight to the mail system.

Use option 2 carefully, otherwise you will slow your e-mail system right down.

For this to work, you must turn on e-mail queuing in the ACP options - set 'Use Mailqueue System' to 'Yes', and 'Number of Emails to Send Per Batch' to a realistic value (based on the cron setting, as below).

There are two options for the cron job, you can either set it to run every minute, and set the items to be processed to something small (like 10), or you can do what this modification does by default and set it to run every 10 minutes, and set the items to be processed to something larger (like 100).

Remember, 10 per minute = 600 per hour, 100 per 10 minutes is also 600 per hour. The numbers really depend on how quick you want large queues processed, and how much your mail server can handle in one go.

Once working, when using the ACP mail users inteface, remember you can set it to process 9999 at once (not 500 or whatever) as the mails will now go into the queue, not be sent directly.

Note: This modification will affect any queued e-mails such as subscription e-mails. It will not affect registration e-mails as they bypass queuing anyway.

This modification includes the code by Antivirus that displays the current size of the mail queue.


History:

v3.8.001 : First Release for vB 3.8.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by vitrag24

I've enabled mailqueue and it's also showing in logs but not showing any option named mailqueue quick stats in admincp.

Then I have no idea. There is no reason for it not to appear.

[need2fart]

Very nice thank you. I like your hacks.

[need2fart]

Hey Paul does this disable reporting posts in vB?

When I received a vB Database error when a user tried reporting a post I received a problem.

So I tested it myself to see the error, here is what I got.

Database error in vBulletin 3.8.3:

Invalid SQL:

			SELECT text, languageid, special
			FROM phrase AS phrase
			LEFT JOIN phrasetype USING (fieldname)
			WHERE phrase.fieldname = 'frontredirect'
				AND varname = 'reportthanks' AND languageid IN (-1, 0, 1);

MySQL Error   : MySQL server has gone away
Error Number  : 2006
Request Date  : Monday, December 14th 2009 @ 08:53:21 PM
Error Date    : Monday, December 14th 2009 @ 08:54:33 PM
Script        : http://ds-forums.info/report.php?do=sendemail
Referrer      : http://ds-forums.info/report.php?p=255051
IP Address    : *.*.*.*
Username      : Kyle
Classname     : vB_Database
MySQL Version :

Does this hack disable "report post" ?


Thanks!

[Log on]

I don't have mail queue stat in my c panal ?

what is the problem ?

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by need2fart

Hey Paul does this disable reporting posts in vB?
.
.
Does this hack disable "report post" ?

No it doesnt.

Mysql gone away is a timeout error - I would guess you have a very low timeout value and are trying to send too many e-mails in one go.

Originally Posted by Log on

I don't have mail queue stat in my c panal ?

what is the problem ?

No idea without access to your system.

[need2fart]

Originally Posted by Paul M

No it doesnt.

Mysql gone away is a timeout error - I would guess you have a very low timeout value and are trying to send too many e-mails in one go.


No idea without access to your system.

Alright thanks I'll see if it can be fixed. =)

[Log on]

Originally Posted by Paul M

No idea without access to your system.

what do you mean by accessing my system ??

the problem is clear

I don't have this

[Paul M]

I know what your problem is, but without admin access to your system I have no idea why, nor anyway of finding out.

[Log on]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I know what your problem is, but without admin access to your system I have no idea why, nor anyway of finding out.

Unfortunately .. my system in Arabic langauge

[Log on]

I solved the problem ...

now if the queue stacked and nothing goes out and the queue increased day by day .. how I can push the mails to go out of the queue?

regards