[support] simplenews - Bouncing emails, Background colour & other issues

Sat Aug 30 06:45:27 UTC 2008

Only one instance of cron can run at a time. If a second instance of
cron starts before the previous one is done, it will stop. So in your
case, if an instance of cron takes more than 8 minutes to run and the
next one tries to start, it will instantly stop and have a 0 sec run
time. Regular cron displays a log message stating something like only
one instance of cron can run at a time. I don't know what poor man's
cron does in this situation.

The bounce messages will have some text describing the reason they
were bounced. Some system messages are more useful than others. With
that many messages you have a good chance of finding a clue.

The error in your point 4 is bizarre. With that error I wouldn't
expect any mail to get through at all. Since you described test mail
getting through, this is either happening selectively or perhaps is an
old error. As Hans pointed out, you'll want to check the individual
bits along the mail path to insure they're working.

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 2:38 AM, KOBA | Hans Rossel <info at koba.be> wrote:
> I would certainly look into that error with mimemail because your html mails
> are send via mimemail, so you want to be sure mimemail gives no errors.
> Check mimemail settings, sendmail path and permissions. Does the normal
> emailing of lost password functions normally on your site? Check logs,
> reinstall mimemail if necessary. I never had errors with mimemail.
>
> Did you use poormanscron? There is a setting for poormanscron which will log
> cron progress which you should turn on to be able to check what is
> happening.
>
> While sending you can only check which subscribers have received their
> newsletter by looking at the database: in the table simplenews_subscriptions
> the s_status column shows 1 when the newsletter has arrived at this user and
> 0 when not yet. They are reset at 0 when they all are sent. This way of
> checking how many mails have been sent is of course not userfriendly and I
> talked about it to the maintainer of simplenews and his arguments not to
> make this value visible as a progress bar is that admins might send several
> newsletters simultaniously and then the values are not correct anymore. I'm
> not sure about this and think it is not so common to send several
> newsletters at the same time, but you never know.
>
> Hans
>
>
>
>
> 2008/8/28 geniekids <ratadi2 at gmail.com>
>>
>> I tried my second newsletter with painful results - it seem to have NOT at
>> all got delivered - atleast to most emails.
>> 1. My database is 9000+ strong.
>> 2. When i did a test - everything seemed fine (i did test on two email -
>> gmail and yahoo - to each was fine.
>> 3. Cron throttle was set to 50 with the poormanscron set to trigger every
>> 8
>> minutes (making it 350-400 emails per hour (less than 500 limit that my
>> host
>> puts)
>>
>> i "sent" the newsletter to the whole list at 17:45pm (approx)
>>
>> the watchdog shows an entry at 18:35 showing at cron run -
>>  "Executed simplenews_cron via poormanscron, took 4 sec."
>>
>> the watchdog shows a "newsletter message " notice at 17:54
>>  Newsletter Programs for Parents could not be sent to gbs at xxxxxx.com
>> (this looks like a bounced email
>>
>> so far so good
>>
>> i get 10 "bounced message like above at 17:54
>> and a whooping 48 bounced messages at 18:02 (which would have been the
>> next
>> cron throttle after 17:54)
>> 38 bounced messages at 18:10
>> only 4 bounced messages at 18:18
>> 3 bounced messages at 18:26
>> 6 bounced messages at 18:35
>> 24 bounced messages at 18:43
>> 4 bounced messages at 18:51
>> and surprising no further error messages
>>
>> When I checked the newsletter status in night – around 21.00 hrs – it
>> showed
>> "sent"
>> Which obviously means that it has not sent further emails than 18:51 –
>> because to send 9000+ - t should have taken more than 24 hours!!!
>>
>> The watchdog shows cron running every 8 minutes – but shows the following
>> for newsletter
>> "27 Aug 2008 - 19:00 Executed simplenews_cron via poormanscron, took 0
>> sec.
>> which would mean that there were no further emails sent after 19:00 hrs
>>
>> My Questions:
>> 1.      Why did it stop sending emails after some 8 cron throttles?
>> 2.      2. How will I know how many?
>> 3.      Why did it show the "sent" status when in fact it did not send the
>> same?
>> How do I know - for sure – in future - that delivery has been done – to
>> all
>> emails – because a mere sent is not telling the right story!
>> 4.      Which other errors should I look at? Php? I get the following
>> error which
>> I was getting in my first newsletter sent also – but at that time emails
>> were delivered
>> QUOTE
>> mail() [ function.mail function.mail ]: Could not execute mail delivery
>> program '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i' in
>> /home/genie/public_html/modules/mimemail/mimemail.module on line 279.
>> UNQUOTE
>>
>> Any guidance would be most welcome
>>
>>
>> geniekids wrote:
>> >
>> > Description
>> >
>> > I tried my first email newsletter with simplenews.
>> >
>> > 1. How does simple news handle bounced emails. I am mailing to 7000+
>> > emails. Surely many emails will get bounced. But i did not get any email
>> > in the sender email box. Is there a way to check that and get the list
>> > of
>> > bouncing emails ids. (to clean up the list)
>> >
>> > 2. I have set Cron throttle to 100 and set Initial send time: 2seconds
>> > (default value)). Cron using poormanscron is set to run every 10
>> > minutes.
>> > Ae these appropriate settings?
>> >
>> > 3. Also while composing i had not put any background colour and
>> > formatted
>> > the html email in TINYMCE. During delivery - only to yahoo email ids -
>> > it
>> > is adding a ugly background colour which is making it almost impossible
>> > to
>> > read the email. This is not happening in gmail or hotmail! What could be
>> > causing this?
>> >
>> > 4. Also fundamentally is simple news the "right choice" for emailing
>> > something to a large number like 7000+ emails. Should i be looking at
>> > some
>> > other module or any other mailing package - any recommendations - is
>> > mailman a better choice. Though i love the integration of simple news
>> > into
>> > the drupal website and ease of subscribing offered to the visitors.
>> >
>> > thanks in advance
>> >
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context:
>> http://www.nabble.com/simplenews---Bouncing-emails%2C-Background-colour---other-issues-tp19101811p19207554.html
>> Sent from the Drupal - Support mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>> --
>> [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
>
>
> --
> Hans Rossel
> KOBA Webdevelopment
> Kerkstraat 228
> 9050 Gent
> 09-334.52.60
> 0472-79.32.16
> www.koba.be
> info at koba.be
>
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