@duncanc Just an interim update while we’re still running Exim 4.94: Sending with 3.6.1 installed on the other domain and timeout set to 10 secs, works now. But it took 39 seconds to send 4 emails – each one, as well as a test one, takes close to the full 10 seconds. Since I’m not overriding choosing PHPMAILER6, it seems I still have the same super-slow behavior. So this isn’t viable for sending to 40k subscribers.
My server is still on cPanel (not DirectAdmin) and my webhost is resisting rolling back. With cPanel, a rollback is likely to be problematic since it likes to control everything. Any suggestions/ideas? Maybe abandon PHPMailer? If so, any ramifications I should be aware of?
Thanks.
@BaliDave All sending is through phpmailer. The only other path is sending using the php mail() function instead of an SMTP server. Just comment out the PHPMAILERHOST line in config.php.
Also, found a much older instance of this error. In that case it was to do with misconfigured DNS records
@duncanc Sending via php mail() works quickly and without problems, at least on a bit of testing I’ve done. Is there any downside to sending this way?
I’m not using subdomains on any of my sending, so I don’t think DNS is the issue. And certainly no DNS records have been changed in a long time. But I am wondering why I seem to be the only one with this issue.
My webhost is checking to see how to revert Exim without creating other problems due do cPanel’s way of handling the system. Hopefully we can revert and stay that way until perhaps the next release of Exim will perhaps fix this issue.
Anyhow I’ll upgrade my main domain to using 3.6.1 and use php’s mail() if we can’t revert to Exim 3.93.
Thanks again
@BaliDave In my case of CPanel-based shared hosting there doesn’t appear to be any real difference between sending through an SMTP server, which is the same as the web server, or through the php mail() function.
The received emails visually appear the same, and DKIM and SPF tests pass for both.
@duncanc OK, same here. We just sent out our 40k emails and no issues AFAIK. DKIM & SPF all the same and they do go thru our SMTP server. And emails went out at normal speed. What a relief!
So at least ir and until Exim is rolled back to 4.93 (or forwards, and if that works) I’ll change all domains’ phplist to use php mail() instead of PHPMailer. This was a pretty bizarre problem and at such a low level. Thanks again for your great support.