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As of 24 Nov 2017 this modification has been withdrawn.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 Derek Chai

Wait, how does the quene work? I heard you need visitors? What do you mean by manually? If I click run now it says processing etc.

Yes, the vb cron system requires that you actually have people visit your site.

Originally Posted by Battle_Ring

When you send an email shouldnt it send the first batch right then, then the next bath at the tim you input. As of right now it doesnt send any when you first send it waits for the first que time to come around.

Its working correctly, thats what a cron job is, it runs every 10 mins.

[Battle_Ring]

i need mine to run every 1 hours as i can only email 200 times per hour

[Paul M]

No you dont. Please actually read the notes.

[obmob]

i have a 800 limit, but my webhost told me to use a 200 queue per hour, i'll try to set this up, awesome idea, must be part of vb 4.0

[Mr-Mo3ath]

i have a proplem
i have to forums in my server the firs forum its sendeing aotumatic good
the secund forum when i doing send hes not send only manually and i update to 3.8 and the proplem its strel hes not send auto like the first form

[Paul M]

Sorry, not really sure what you are asking.

[Mr-Mo3ath]

for example in admincp the queue its 60000 user its not changed auto only Manuel
But in other site in same server its workinge good and i cheake the confige for email and evry tink

[Mr-Mo3ath]

???

[Sworm]

Hi all, for first, this mod is GREAT.....i've clicked installed!
I'm not expert ,
and i don't understand well the en language,
my forum can send 400 emails in 1 hour , for send 300 mails in 1 hour,
is correct if i go in my AdminCP/Vb Options/Email Options/
and set the Number of emails to send per batch at 5?
Without touch the delay option (set to "0" like default)?

Thats correct?

Please help me.

Thanks

[Paul M]

Set it to 50, not 5.