Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Cron Based E-Mail Sending

This modification is no longer available or supported.

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

As a result of this your server can become seriously overloaded very quickly - so sending several thousand e-mails (like a newsletter) can become very difficult (hours spent clicking 'next' in the ACP) - as a result of these problems, this very simple modification was born.

This modification does two things ;

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

2. The processing of the mail queue is set-up as a vb cron item.

Obviously 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 realisitc 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 (v3.7.002 onwards).

Version 3.7.003 has the option to add a small delay before each e-mail is sent (between 1 and 9 seconds). Use this option carefully.



History:

v3.7.001 : First Release for vB 3.7
v3.7.002 : Added mail queue size display code.
v3.7.003 : Added option for a delay between the sending of each e-mail.

[Erosantica]

Hi Paul M, how to view the table in VB mail queue?

[Paul M]

Same as you view any table in mysql, phpmyadmin or the ACP are the most common ways.

[dtommy79]

Hi,

set it to run every 10 minutes, and set the items to be processed to something larger (like 100).

Where do I have to do the settings?
Can I check the progress of the sending somewhere?

Thanks

[420]

Mine is set to 0 (ZERO), what does that do?

vBulletin Options > Email Options > E-Mail Send Delay

[Paul M]

Sends them without any delay, zero is the default and prob fine for 99% of forums.

[420]

cool, thanks paul!

i think i found my problem, by the way.
in email settings in vb admin control panel, there is a setting for using smtp for your emails, instead of the web based mail... you are apparently not supposed to enter the user name and password for the email account being used, when the email server and web server share the same infrastructure... (not sure if that is the correct word or not)... when i removed the user name and password, the bottle necking and slowness stopped during email blasts and everything is back to normal... the servers are still hanging for some reason, probably a faulty add on we need to locate, but the email blasts are back to normal...

by the way, i notice i can see the mail queue in vb admin control panel now, is that a feature of vb 3.73 or is that a feature of your add on?

thanks again for your valuable time, energy and support brother!

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by 420

by the way, i notice i can see the mail queue in vb admin control panel now, is that a feature of vb 3.73 or is that a feature of your add on?

From the main post ;

This modification includes the code by Antivirus that displays the current size of the mail queue (v3.7.002 onwards).

[420]

thanks paul!

[muhakeme]

Thanks.

[shacow]

Thank you so much!