Page 1 of 1

Sending Bulk Email

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:53 pm
by rklockner
I have a cron job set to alert users of an upcoming conference call (with call instructions/details). When I run test with just my account, I recieve the email and text message. At the end of the script, it also adds an entry to a table noting the successful date and time that the notifications were sent.

As I said, all works well testing with 1 account receiving the notifications.

I did a test on roughly 1500 users and according to the database, the script ran successfully, however, the emails weren't received until 12 hours later (even though the date/time in the db was correct). I am just using the simple mail() function as the email is literally, "Conference Call Today at 3 PM. Call 555-555-5555 and enter the code xxxxxx to log in."

Right now, the mail function runs for each user and sends an individual message. Since it appears that the script runs successfully, I am assuming that the mail is getting hung up on the server somehow/somewhere.

My only thought is to try sending one email and "BCC"ing all the recipients, but I'm not sure if that would still process as 1500 emails, or if it is treated like one...

Any thoughts?

Re: Sending Bulk Email

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:01 pm
by buckit
it will still process as 1500 emails because its 1500 emails. it will never be 1 email unless it goes to 1 email address.

you need to get in-touch with your mail server admin to work it out. sending 1500 emails at one time is a LOT of email. your server needs to be configured to handle it. as well as other infrastructure items that should be considered... no offence to anyone on this board... but leave programming to you and leave infrastructure to the admins. I have been on both sides for YEARS. programmers always think they understand infrastructure perfectly and infrastructure guys always think they understand programming.

Re: Sending Bulk Email

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 8:06 pm
by josh
Post relevant MTA [mail transfer agent]* logs please

* Usually sendmail