Re-sending a campaign to rest of my list, between specific hours of the day (with phpList.com queue processing service)

ℹ️ Support
#1

Hi. I am new to phplist. Hoping someone can help me. I am not a coder.

The Background - I installed it to my Hostgator-hosted web server. I started by trying to send a campaign via the web GUI at https://<my_domain_name>.com/phplist_installation/admin using just my web browser. After a while I refreshed my web browser screen & found that I had been logged out of the above GUI. After checking logs It seemed that my browser had timed out and the processing of the campaign had stopped, with only a few of the email address in my list having been sent the mailing. After doing some web research, it seems this is a common known issue, and found phpList’s queue processing service" (Remote Processing) as a promising solution

I use the Scheduling page (Step 3 of the GUI’s Send a Campaign “Wizard” process) to set a time in advance (6am my time) for my campaign to start and also a “Stop sending after” deadline (11am my time) (my web host only allows email campaigns during their server off-peak hours).

The Problem - Even using the above “queue processing service” only a small proportion of my mailing list gets sent the mailing (before it stops due to the “Stop sending after” deadline I set, to keep to the above off-peak hours restrictions at my web host)

My Question - How can I get the same mailing out to the rest of the subscribers on my list the next day, keeping to the same “sending time window” ?

As I understand it, manually clicking the “Requeue” button that is next the the name of my campaign in the list of “Sent” campaigns (see screenshot) might simply start the process immediately and have no “Stop sending after” time (and also I don’t want to have to get up at 6am the next day to press it (to keep within my web host’s time restrictions))!

screenshot_2023-02-01_04.02.45PM
screenshot_2023-02-01_04.02.45PM1685×899 107 KB

For example, is there a way I could pre-set (in advance) the “queue processing service” to start the processing again at 6am (and “Stop sending after” 11am) the next day?

#2

If you have access to the cpanel for your Hostgator server, then you can setup a cron job to process the queue and bounces. With your own cron job, you can specify the hours/days that it runs, i.e. from 8 to 5pm on monday through friday… etc.

#3

Many thx for your reply danwaterloo! Yes, I have access to my cpanel, and I have just researched doing Chron jobs (never done anything like that) but it looks beyond my ability :face_exhaling:

Do you know a simpler way?

For example, would this work …?

  • manually click the “Requeue” button that is next the the name of my campaign in the list of “Sent” campaigns
  • manually Pause it immediately (suspend the campaign)
  • click the Edit button to get into the “Send Campaign Wizard”
  • in Steps 1 & 2, make no changes at all to Content or Format
  • in Step 3 (Scheduling), update my Date & Time settings (Date = Next Day, Embargoed until 6am & “Stop sending after” 11am)
  • in Step 4, make no changes (use same Subscriber List)
  • in Step 5, click “Place Campaign in Queue for Sending”

Result = ?? the “queue processing service” will resume the processing again at 6am (and “Stop sending after” 11am) the next day ??
The mailing will only be sent to the rest of the list (not the people who got it during the first run)?

#4

It would be possible to go in and edit the start and stop times every day… That should work to do what you want. The simpler way would be to setup a cron job for processing the queue, and configure the cron job to execute only in the time periods you want to send. Then it would be all automatic.

#5

Many thanks. Yes, that’s what I ended up doing - went in and edited the start and stop times every day. People didn’t seem to get the mailing twice and after a few days the campaign was completed (but only did about 250+ mailings every 6 hours, which was MUCH slower that I expected, I don’t know why).

I’ll try to do some Chron job config/testing with a view to having that method ready for next time