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.

[axi]

thanks!

[NathanLedet]

I'm just a little confused on which numbers to change...

Cron Email set to 10 minutes

in ACP > Email Options > Number of Emails to Send Per Batch = 80

Users > Send Email to Users > Emails to send at once = 800 (I have less than 800 users)

So, i type in the message that is to be sent...and click "Submit", and it confirms that all e-mails have been sent (or, sent to the queue)

Every 10 minutes, 80 e-mails get sent....Is this correct????

Thanks!

[Nathan2006]

I have been getting bounced emails from yahoo saying that I have sent the limit of 100 emails to them within 1 hour.

If I set "Number of Emails to Send Per Batch" to 1 would it send out 10 emails every 10 minutes?

So it would be 60 every 1 hour?

Thanks for any help

[Paul M]

Nope, it would send 1 e-mail every 10 minutes.

[txsbmw]

I just updated to 3.6.8 (previously 3.6.7pl1 or whatever it was, lol) and this mod is no longer working. Host company just shut down the forums because I exceeded the 200 per hour limit.

Trying to remember, but this mod required php file edits right?

[Paul M]

Yes it does require edits.

[txsbmw]

Thanks, I applied the updates to those PHP files so everything should be working fine now.

[Nathan2006]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Nope, it would send 1 e-mail every 10 minutes.

Thanks for that Paul,

They have increesed my emails to 500 per hour

[Masiello]

This mod is just what I need for my hosting server configuration, when I send mass emails the server go in overload and stop sending giving me database error in Admin Control Panel, with this mod I am able to set the sending in queue and for sure all email finish at destination!
Thanks Paul, I'll try this later
I always say that the Paul M and Cybernetec Mod's are the best!

[Masiello]

Hello Paul, I've not touch any setting in the CronJob and setting Number of Emails to Send Per Batch to 6, this presume that process sending 6 email per minute, it is right? Also this working when I send users email to all users? And when sending the email for all users, for example 600 users, it is possible to close my session from admincp to finish the sending process or I have to waiting logged in total time?

Thanks in advance for the clarify