Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Cron Based E-Mail Sending

This modification is no longer available or supported.

This is a 3.6 specific port of the 3.5 Modification.

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.


Upgrading from the 3.5 version.
If you have the 3.5 version installed then you don't need to upgrade - however if you decide to upgrade then you need to delete the current cron job in the Scheduled Tasks Manager and then import the product xml via the ACP Product Manager. The file edits do not need to be changed.


Queue Size

Antivirus has posted a nifty little addon that displays the current size of the mail queue here.



History:

v1.12 : First Release for vB 3.6.

[dtv100]

I try this on our site and seding 50k emails dont overload the server any more thanks .

[Budweiser]

Thank you for writing this Mod. I just downloaded it and will be installing it soon. I have been using the YABB forum for several years and just installed VB and VBadvanced. I was never able to use the YABB email system and thought I would have the same problem with VB (untill I found your Mod). If anyone is curious... I use aplus.net and their mail limitation is 500 per 1/2 hour.

[kylek]

Originally Posted by SVTCobraLTD

Yea it sucks having vB on hostgator site and can only send 200 emails a day. This is the perfect fix for that. Props to Dr Pepper Addict :up:

SVT

HostGator has changed the email limits to 500 per hour now.

http://forums.hostgator.com/showthread.php?t=26795

[gbox master]

is there a how to use for this modification
where are the settings
how to adjust the settings
etc etc etc etc:confused

it would save noobs like me hours of searching in the thousends of settings of the vB

[SVTCobraLTD]

Originally Posted by kylek

HostGator has changed the email limits to 500 per hour now.

http://forums.hostgator.com/showthread.php?t=26795

That is great news. Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by gbox master

is there a how to use for this modification
where are the settings
how to adjust the settings
etc etc etc etc:confused

it would save noobs like me hours of searching in the thousends of settings of the vB

AdminCP > vBulletin Options > Email Options > Number of Emails to Send Per Batch

SVT

[gbox master]

Originally Posted by SVTCobraLTD

AdminCP > vBulletin Options > Email Options > Number of Emails to Send Per Batch

SVT

thnx m8 and the time inteval
and is this all
so i can start sending my members a update on some things ?
no longer i need to stay up for a couple of hours just to push the button 1000 times

[SVTCobraLTD]

Originally Posted by gbox master

thnx m8 and the time inteval
and is this all
so i can start sending my members a update on some things ?
no longer i need to stay up for a couple of hours just to push the button 1000 times

If you put 25 in there, it will send out 25 emails every 10 minutes resulting in 150 per hour.

SVT

[zlos]

1. BUG: when using mysql slave server there is an SQL error while importing the product (it tries to issue UPDATE command to a slave server)
2. GREAT MOD: I have 220.000 users in newsletter and it took me 10 minutes to batch the newsletter. You saved 3 hours of my time, which I can now consume on drinking the toast to you

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by zlos

1. BUG: when using mysql slave server there is an SQL error while importing the product (it tries to issue UPDATE command to a slave server)

This does not run any SQL commands when its installed (unless vbulletin itself runs some, in which case thats a generic vb bug).

[gbox master]

so the time is preset to 1 min??
if so why not a how to with the files that explains some things