Sending out multiple times?

edited September 2012 in Newsletter plugin
I have a problem. I jsut send my first mail to a list of approx. 3600 members. After sending the amount sent was over 7000 and after watching the export I noticed some members got the mail 2x, or even 3x!

How could this have happened? And how do I prevent this from happening in the future?

Comments

  • 14 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up1Vote Down
    Thank you for your post mediaweb.
    I think we replied to a ticket regarding this but I'll put the answer here for others to see.

    The duplicates could be caused by multiple cron schedules running at the same time or overlapping one another. The cause of this is a high number of emails per interval so the first schedule runs and before it can finish the second schedule starts running and so they overlap. Here is what you can do to prevent this:

    * Use the server cron job as it is more reliable and accurate than the WordPress cron job.
    * Reduce the number of emails per interval being sent out.
    * Replace the function cron_hook() in the wp-mailinglist/wp-mailinglist.php file with this code: http://pastebin.com/d3fHBKjU (copy from the RAW Paste Data at the bottom please)

    Let me know if this helps you solve the problem!
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Hi,

    Thanks for your answer. Can you explain what changed in the cron_hook() you want me to replace?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    edited September 2012
    Thank you for your reply.

    There is a $checkemailquery that has been added to prevent the duplicates.

    $checkemailquery = "SELECT `id` FROM `" . $wpdb -> prefix . $Email -> table . "` WHERE `eunique` = '" . $eunique . "' AND `history_id` = '" . $email -> history_id . "'";

    And it's IF statement :)

    Let me know if it solves the problem for you.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Hi mediaweb,

    I'm just following up to find out whether your issue has been resolved?

    If so, we would appreciate it if you would kindly post a reply here for the good of the community explaining how it was resolved, and also mark this thread as SOLVED by editing the title as explained in the sidebar on the right.

    Kind regards,

    Phil
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Hi Phil,

    I'm very sorry (and quite upset) to find out today that this issue still hasn't been resolved. Today our client send out 12000 mails, while the list is only 4000 members. Each member received the mail 3 times, resulting in a lot of complaints. I'm really displeased with this. How can I make sure this will never, ever, happen again!?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Thank you for your response.

    I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused.

    Can you please submit a ticket so that we can investigate for you?
    Please quote this forum thread in the ticket so that we know what it relates to please.

    We look forward to your response!
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Hi mediaweb,

    I'm just following up once again to find out whether your issue has now been resolved? Perhaps in a support ticket?

    If so, we would appreciate it if you would kindly post a reply here for the good of the community explaining how it was resolved, and also mark this thread as SOLVED by editing the title as explained in the sidebar on the right.

    Kind regards,

    Phil
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    DCTDCT
    edited April 2013
    Hi Guys,

    Duplicate post - showed an error on submit.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Hi Guys,

    I'm experiencing the exact same problem with only server cron chosen and only one cron job setup.

    Is the above code still valid?
    The code in the original file is only 79 lines, but the new code is over 200. (different spacing or much longer code?)
    Will this code be rolled into an update, or will it need to be re-entered on any future updates?

    I'm trying to send 40 emails every 5 minutes. Is there any difference in server load between that and say 20 every 2 minutes?

    While I'm at it (I know I should create a new topic, but...) Any way to add the ability to sort active/inactive subscribers? It would make pruning the list much easier.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Hi DCT,

    Thanks for your post.

    We have a shiny new version of the Newsletter plugin which is due for release within the next few days, and I suspect it might resolve the original issue of this post. If it's very urgent I could send the new build to you via Dropbox? You would gave to submit a support ticket at http://tribulant.com/support/ though so we could have your email address.

    20 Emails every 2 minutes should generate a higher server load than 40 every five minutes, but hosts often have their own way of looking at and defining things. It might be worth checking with them.

    There is currently no built-in way to sort your subscribers according to active or inactive, unfortunately. If you don't mind a quick workaround, you could prune your list as follows:
    1. Export only all active subscribers (Newsletters > Import/Export).
    2. Sort your subscribers (in the plugin dashboard) according to date, descending.
    3. Starting from the first page, delete all subscribers EXCEPT for the first x number of inactive subscribers (since they might not have had a chance to confirm yet).
    4. Re-import the list of active subscribers that you exported earlier.

    That could work for now. I'll suggest that we add a way to sort by active/inactive to our development list.

    Please let me know if this helps at all, will you? I look forward to your reply.

    Regards,

    Phil

  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Phil,
    I like shiny! Hopefully you'll release it soon and I can update after the weekend.

    I was thinking that sending a smaller amount at shorter intervals would result in more frequent, but less intense, server spikes.

    The work around isn't ideal. Hopefully we'll see that ability in a soon to be released version.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Today I experienced the same issue, with some of my subscribers receiving the same newsletter 5 times! Obviously I can't keep doing this and keep them subscribed. Is there a workaround yet?

    According to "Status" under Sent & Draft Emails, it was sent 498 times. The only thing that kept me from doing that was that I'm using the free version and it capped out at 1,000 emails for the month.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Now we're up to 509 time, the damned thing is still trying to send emails! I'm sitting here thinking that if I had bought the pro version with unlimited emailing, I'd have completely lost my email list by now.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    I just found that there are people it's trying to send emails to who aren't on my subscriber list. Have I been hacked?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    @"Terance Schmidt"

    We replied to your support ticket earlier.

    I'll post your reply in this thread.

    The reason for this would be if emails are in the email queue and each time the plugin sends an email, it doesn't get a TRUE response from the mail server, thinking it wasn't sent while it possibly was. We've seen this happen before with a misconfigured mail server or email limits reached.

    Are you using the local mail server on your hosting?

    Regards
    Marietha
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