Isue with date calculation for "Stop sending after" when repeating campaigns

ℹ️ Support
#1

Hello,

I am using the repeating campaign functionality for a few years (mainly repeating every week and fortnight) and I’ve noticed that date calculation for “stop sending” has an issue because after a few repeatition the time gap between the embargo date and stop sending date is reducing and sometimes the stop date is before the embargo date (= campaign will not be sent …).
Did anybody experienced this issue ?

I am currently on V 3.6.7 / Debian 10 Operating system

Thanks for you’re help and advice

#2

@Miroslav Can you give an example?

When repeating a campaign the “stop sending” date is calculated using DEFAULT_MESSAGEAGE which I think defaults to 180 days. The embargo is calculated from the embargo of the original campaign by adding the repeat interval.

#3

Hello @duncanc

Sorry for the very late reply.

Here is a description of the issue and how to reproduce it

I had a first campaign (let’s call it Week1) with :

  • Week1 Start date : september 5th at 16:00
  • Week1 stop sending date : september 8th at 03:00
  • repeating campaign every : week
  • requeue every : no requeue

Once the campaign has been sent, the Week2 campaign has been automatically created with the following parameters :

  • Week2 Start date : september 12th at 16:00 → That is OK because the system added 7 days
  • Week2 stop sending date : september 12th at 19:50 → That is not what I have expected. It looks that the system has added the Week1’s sending time ( 3 hours and 50 minutes) to the “Week2 start date” (september 12th at 16:00 ) in order to generate the “Week2 stop date” ( “september 12th at 16:00” + “3hours 50 mn” = september 12th at 19h50) … I was expecting the system to simply add 7 days to the Week1 stop date (ie: september 15th at 03:00 ).

Furthermore, when I edit the Week2 campaign in order to edit the “Week2 stop date” manually, the time has suddenly changed from 19:50 to 19:00.

I’ve also had other weird calculations but let’s start with that one.

Thanks for your help

#4

@Miroslav phplist creates the next campaign when it has finished sending the current one. The stop sending date is calculated as the current time + DEFAULT_MESSAGEAGE

What value do you have in config.php for DEFAULT_MESSAGEAGE ? I am guessing that it is quite short, perhaps one week. If so, is there a reason for that? If you make it longer, say two weeks, then that should avoid the problem.

Your suggestion of calculating the stop sending date sounds reasonable but that’s not what phplist currently does.

#5

Hello @duncanc ,
Thanks for your reply.
There was no DEFAULT_MESSAGEAGE variable in my config.php file.
I’ve added the variable and will check how it works with next campaigns.
The calculation as you’ve described it will perfectly fit my needs.

Best regards