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.

[Paul M]

Why not read the first post.

[Peejay]

Another Host Gator user here who is very happy with this hack as it saves me having to worry about the mass mails that go out from the site automatically for innactive users etc...

Many thanks

[gbox master]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Why not read the first post.

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).

thats the problem otherwise i would not ask
i dont understand what it say
i dont see any settings
so maybe there should be a good howto for all these hacks and mods
then we would not have to ask so many questions

[zlos]

Hi Paul

My mail processing stopped this night. I have checked database - everything seems to be fine (mailqueue and datastore tables are repaired and returned OK). I see no error logged in apache log. I see no error while trying to invoke scheduled task manually. Mailing works just fine (registration emails and bad posts reports are being sent).
Where to dig now? Over 50.000 mails are waiting in the pipe...

EDIT: I have found erroneous record in mailqueue (partly cut text). Truncating mailqueue helped.

[gbox master]

now i see some mail thing in the admin pannel see atachment

why not a good howto for this hack please
so we can use it and edit the settings
and some explanation where the settings are located


if there is any member who knows these things please pm me so i can get in touch with some one who knows how this thing works :up:

[Icy]

This is because you have installed Antivirus's plugin, which shows queue stats on Admin Control Panel. There is no settings for this. It will just show your mail queue stats. However you can edit two options.

1. Admin Control Panel > vBulletin Options > Email Options

2. Admin Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks > Scheduled Task Manager

[NeutralizeR]

I'm glad i found this hack, thanks Paul!

Btw, i also have this hack installed. Does it have anything to do with yours?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=123719

Another question...

Let's say i sent 100.000 emails to my members using "Send email to users" function and i have the default settings (600 emails per hour) enabled. It'll take about 7 days to finish sending emails? In the mean time, users won't receive "password reminder" emails till the queue is free, will they?

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by NeutralizeR

Let's say i sent 100.000 emails to my members using "Send email to users" function and i have the default settings (600 emails per hour) enabled. It'll take about 7 days to finish sending emails? In the mean time, users won't receive "password reminder" emails till the queue is free, will they?

Yes, it would take 7 days at that rate. As for password reminders, I suspect they are not queued, but I don't know for sure without looking at the VB code. Subscription emails would be delayed.

[mabe38]

Originally Posted by Antivirus

Great modification Paul, really helps with sending out emails to large amounts of members. I found myself wondering how many emails were in the queue quite often however, and I got tired of manually running a SELECT query in the console to find out how many emails were remaining in the queue... so i coded the attached add-on for your mod which adds the quantity of remaining emails in the mail queue to the AdminCP page.

You can see a screenpic of what it does in the attached "screenie.gif" image. I just thought I would share it with everyone who's using this mod, makes life a little easier.

Where can I see that option???

[Icy]

Originally Posted by mabe38

Where can I see that option???

In Admin Control Panel Index (./admincp/index.php). Above the Administrator Notes.