PHPList to 3.3.4-RC2 is not working

ℹ️ Support
1

I just upgraded to 3.3.4-RC2, and I started with a fresh short config file. It successfully sent 300 emails. When it was done, I told it to send to more lists. It sent 5 emails, then it said, “Database error 2006 while doing query MySQL server has gone away” over and over. My ISP recently upgraded to 7.2.6 and a new maria mysql (mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.2.16-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1). I have been going back and forth with my isp on limits. I had trouble with exceeding “entry processes” but he reset them and they seem normal now. I keep resubmitting the send, and it keeps failing after 5. But now it just stalls on the “Processing queued campaigns” page. no errors messages.

I keep resubmitting, and it generally fails after 5. Once is sent 262 emails before failing. Now it back to failing after 5.

I have been playing with the batch settings in the hope to get in under one of the php or mysql limits. Or maybe there is something wrong with the beta version?

Here is the latest event log.
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Started
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Sending in batches of 200 messages
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] This batch will be 195 emails, because in the last 2,400 seconds 5 emails were sent
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Processing has started,
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] One campaign to process.
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Report of processing will be sent by email
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Processing campaign 428
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Looking for subscribers
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:50] [69.137.137.169] Found them: 2374 to process
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:51] [69.137.137.169] Processed 5 out of 2374 subscribers
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:51] [69.137.137.169] Script stage: 5
[Wed 22 Aug 2018 10:51] [69.137.137.169] 5 messages sent in 61.07 seconds (294 msgs/hr)

I really need to fix this as soon as possible. I am considering downgrading back to 3.3.3 but I am not sure if that would solve the problem. Any ideas?

If I do downgrade, do I have to revert to mysql backups?

Jeff

2

I have been playing with the throttle speed, and it seems to be failing after 61-62 seconds. Lowering the throttle to 1 second is now allowing it to send 50 emails before it stops. Before the throttle was sent to 12 seconds, and it failed after 5 (which also takes 60 seconds).

3

It seems to be working now. I have the config file set to define(‘MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE’, 100);
define(‘MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD’, 1000);
define(‘MAILQUEUE_THROTTLE’, 0);

I don’t know if lowering the throttle to 0 helped or if my ISP did something. We’ll see if it lasts.

4

I changed the throttle to
define(‘MAILQUEUE_THROTTLE’, 1);
And it again failed after around 60 seconds. When the Throttle is > 0, it seems to send as many as it can in 60 seconds, based on how I set the Throttle, then it stops sending. When set to zero, it seems to work running in batches of 49. It did fail after about 3 hours but that may be because my computer went to sleep. I set the throttle back to 0 and it is working again, running in batches of 49 in 500 seconds. I don’t know how to proceed. I would like to go back to using the throttle instead of the batches. My ISP was not aware of any limits that were changed, and they suggested that because it is a shared host, I probably couldn’t change them anyway. I still don’t understand why the first 300 worked this morning with the throttle set to 12 seconds. I upgraded to the 3.3.4-RC2, I started with a fresh config.php, and my ISP updated php and mySQL. So there are a lot of things that have changed and I have no idea how to figure out how to fix this. Is this something related to the beta version, or should I work with my ISP to get this fixed? I appreciate any help you can give to me. Thanks.

5

FYI @Suela
Post must be at least 20 characters

6

I still haven’t resolved this. I have been going back and forth with my web host (westhost) and so far they have not been helpful. There is one thing that makes me wonder if it is a problem with phplist instead of a limit at my host. First, I send roughly 300 emails to our high-priority recipients, with the throttle set to one email every 12 seconds, and it worked. If there was something wrong with the host installation, why would this have worked?

I have always wanted a feature to be able to control the order of the send so that high priority clients get our emails first. To get around this, I send to the high-priority recipients, then when it is done, I add more lists and resubmit to the queue. I wonder if this may have done something that caused the send to fail?

If you want more info, I have copied the event log below from the session where it kept failing. Off to the right, I added some notes to explain what I was attempting to do when it failed.

Here is a summary of what I was doing duriing this session.

At the top, it send the first 295 throttled one every 12 seconds - no problem.

Below that, I resubmit to send to 2672 more, and it fails after 5.
I try again a few times,same result.
Then I speed up the throttle, it sends more (11) but still stops after roughly 60 seconds.
Then I set the throttle to 0, it sends 50, then fails in 60.77 seconds.

At the bottom, I tell it send in batches of 49 every 500 seconds and it works after that.

Any ideas why a re-submitted send might fail after 60 seconds when throttle set > 0? And why batches of less than 50 works?

entered page entry
8/22/2018 7:00 processqueue Processing has started,
8/22/2018 7:00 processqueue One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 7:00 processqueue Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 7:00 processqueue Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 7:00 processqueue Found them: 295 to process
8/22/2018 8:00 processqueue Processed 295 out of 295 subscribers
8/22/2018 8:00 processqueue It took 59 minutes 57 seconds to send this message
8/22/2018 8:00 processqueue 295 messages sent in 3598.71 seconds (295 msgs/hr) <<< first I sent to 295 people and that worked
8/22/2018 8:00 processqueue Finished this run
8/22/2018 8:03 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 8:03 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 8:03 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 8:03 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 8:03 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 8:03 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 8:03 pageaction Found them: 2672 to process <<< then I told it to send the same email to 2672 more
8/22/2018 8:04 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2672 subscribers
8/22/2018 8:04 pageaction 5 messages sent in 61.15 seconds (294 msgs/hr) <<< it sent 5, then stopped, as if that is what I asked for
8/22/2018 8:04 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 8:04 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 8:14 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 8:14 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 8:14 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 8:14 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 8:14 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 8:14 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 8:14 pageaction Found them: 2667 to process <<< I tried again, resubmitting
8/22/2018 8:15 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2667 subscribers
8/22/2018 8:15 pageaction 5 messages sent in 60.95 seconds (295 msgs/hr) <<< failed again after sending 5 in 61 seconds
8/22/2018 8:15 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 8:15 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 8:20 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 8:20 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 8:20 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 8:20 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 8:20 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 8:20 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 8:20 pageaction Found them: 2662 to process
8/22/2018 8:21 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2662 subscribers
8/22/2018 8:21 pageaction 5 messages sent in 60.76 seconds (296 msgs/hr) <<< failed again after sending 5 in 61 seconds
8/22/2018 8:21 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 8:21 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 8:24 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 8:24 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 8:24 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 8:24 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 8:24 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 8:24 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 8:24 pageaction Found them: 2657 to process
8/22/2018 8:25 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2657 subscribers
8/22/2018 8:25 pageaction 5 messages sent in 60.92 seconds (295 msgs/hr) <<< failed again after sending 5
8/22/2018 8:25 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 8:25 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 8:26 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 8:26 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 8:26 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 8:26 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 8:26 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 8:26 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 8:26 pageaction Found them: 2652 to process
8/22/2018 8:27 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2652 subscribers
8/22/2018 8:27 pageaction 5 messages sent in 61.16 seconds (294 msgs/hr) <<< failed again after sending 5
8/22/2018 8:27 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 8:27 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 8:38 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 8:38 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 8:38 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 8:38 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 8:38 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 8:38 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 8:38 pageaction Found them: 2647 to process
8/22/2018 8:39 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2647 subscribers
8/22/2018 8:39 pageaction 5 messages sent in 63.43 seconds (283 msgs/hr) <<< failed again after sending 5
8/22/2018 8:39 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 8:39 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 9:09 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 9:09 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 9:09 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 9:09 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 9:09 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 9:09 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 9:09 pageaction Found them: 2642 to process
8/22/2018 10:16 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 10:16 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 10:16 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 10:16 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 10:16 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 10:16 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 10:16 pageaction Found them: 2379 to process
8/22/2018 10:17 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2379 subscribers
8/22/2018 10:17 pageaction 5 messages sent in 60.88 seconds (295 msgs/hr) <<< failed again after sending 5
8/22/2018 10:17 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 10:17 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 10:50 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 10:50 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 10:50 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 10:50 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 10:50 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 10:50 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 10:50 pageaction Found them: 2374 to process
8/22/2018 10:51 pageaction Processed 5 out of 2374 subscribers
8/22/2018 10:51 pageaction 5 messages sent in 61.07 seconds (294 msgs/hr) <<< failed again after sending 5
8/22/2018 10:51 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 10:51 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 10:55 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 10:55 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 10:55 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 10:55 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 10:55 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 10:55 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 10:55 pageaction Found them: 2369 to process
8/22/2018 10:56 pageaction Processed 11 out of 2369 subscribers
8/22/2018 10:56 pageaction 11 messages sent in 61.50 seconds (643 msgs/hr) <<< I told it send the emails faster, so it send 11 instead of 5, but still failed after roughly 60 seconds.
8/22/2018 10:56 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 10:56 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 11:01 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 11:01 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 11:01 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 11:01 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 11:01 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 11:01 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 11:01 pageaction Found them: 2358 to process
8/22/2018 11:02 pageaction Processed 12 out of 2358 subscribers
8/22/2018 11:02 pageaction 12 messages sent in 61.98 seconds (696 msgs/hr) <<< failed again
8/22/2018 11:02 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 11:02 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 11:08 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 11:08 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 11:08 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 11:08 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 11:08 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 11:08 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 11:08 pageaction Found them: 2346 to process
8/22/2018 11:09 pageaction Processed 12 out of 2346 subscribers
8/22/2018 11:09 pageaction 12 messages sent in 61.93 seconds (697 msgs/hr) failed again
8/22/2018 11:09 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 11:09 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 11:11 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 11:11 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 11:11 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 11:11 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 11:11 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 11:11 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 11:11 pageaction Found them: 2334 to process
8/22/2018 11:12 pageaction Processed 50 out of 2334 subscribers
8/22/2018 11:12 pageaction 50 messages sent in 60.77 seconds (2961 msgs/hr) set the throttle to 0, sending at full speed, so it sent 50 instead, but still failed after roughly 60 seconds.
8/22/2018 11:12 pageaction Finished this run
8/22/2018 11:12 pageaction Less than batch size were sent, so reloading imminently
8/22/2018 11:17 pageaction Processing has started,
8/22/2018 11:17 pageaction One campaign to process.
8/22/2018 11:17 pageaction Please leave this window open. phpList will process your queue until all messages have been sent. This may take a while
8/22/2018 11:17 pageaction Report of processing will be sent by email
8/22/2018 11:17 pageaction Processing campaign 428
8/22/2018 11:17 pageaction Looking for subscribers
8/22/2018 11:17 pageaction Found them: 2284 to process
8/22/2018 11:18 pageaction batch limit reached: 26 (26)
8/22/2018 11:18 pageaction 26 messages sent in 30.03 seconds (3117 msgs/hr) <<< started sending in batches, not to exceed more than 49 emails per 500 seconds

Sending in batches < 50 worked.

As always, I appreciate your help.

7

@phpvdn When you process the queue through the browser then phplist limits the elapsed time to 60s, which is what appears to be happening in your event log.

But if you are trying to process over a long period of time then you should use a cron job to process the queue instead. That doesn’t have the 60s restriction.

1 Like
8

Thank you. That is interesting. I think the first batch of 300 was done with a cron job so I guess that is why it worked.

Is this a new thing? I have been using phplist for years and never had this problem before. Why did it work before?

9

@phpvdn That’s a good question. Is it the case that queue processing became slower for you, for the same campaign and recipients, in phpList 3.3.4 vs previous versions? If you could test that, it would be useful to other users.