The module keeps sending the same message over and over...
I've created several newsletters and set cron (poormanscron) to run unlimited times in message settings under send mail.
But it has sent the same newsletter, the 1st one I created several days ago, over and over again...
I've now set cron to run 500 newsletters per run and will monitor, but in the recent log entries, I get strange reports...
As soon as I go back to my site, cron seems to run and I get 3-6 more newsletters in my inbox and the Referrer in the logs links to random pages I visit... Under severity it says debug...???
No other newsletters seem to be sent... and it still shows "Currently sending by cron" in 'admin/content/simplenews/sent'

What do I do to stop this?

Comments

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented
Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)

To stop: in the simplenews_newsletter table, set the s_status to 2 (sent) or (0) not sent, next empty the simplenews_mail_spool table.

List some of the log messages here.

Jack_Sparrow’s picture

Jack_Sparrow commented

OK, I did as you suggested...

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `simplenews_newsletters` (
  `nid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `vid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `tid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  <strong>`s_status` tinyint(2) NOT NULL default '0',</strong>
  `s_format` varchar(8) NOT NULL default '',
  `priority` tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
  `receipt` tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
  PRIMARY KEY  (`nid`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

--
-- Dumping data for table `simplenews_newsletters`
--

INSERT INTO `simplenews_newsletters` (`nid`, `vid`, `tid`, `s_status`, `s_format`, `priority`, `receipt`) VALUES
(8, 8, 1, 1, '', 0, 0),
(11, 11, 1, 1, 'html', 0, 0),
(22, 22, 1, 1, '', 0, 0);

I changed the s_status (which was 4) to 2 "`s_status` tinyint(2) NOT NULL default '0',"
(Don't know if you meant the Insert Into section???)

Emptied the simplenews_mail_spool table.

Deleted all newsletters... Added my 4 test email addresses... added 1 newsletter and sent it off just fine...
Received all 4 and no more... ;-) Seems to be working...

Deleted the newsletter and subscribed all 2500 email addresses, then re-did the newsletter...
Seems to be going fine, however, it's set to send 500 newsletters out per cron run every 30 min.
Does it follow the aplphabetical system or does it select randoms...

In the report section I see (for example) 'w'name@domain.com and then when cron finishes, an 'a'name@domain.com appears...??? Out of alphabetical order...

How can I check which subscribers received 'x' amount of the same newsletter, or at least which newsletter they received or was sent off too, who still needs to receive one...?

Must I wait for the current 2500 subscribers to all receive the same newsletter before creating a new one...?
Must I delete the current newsletter before creating a new one...?
(This won't help for "Previous Issues" tho...)

I've listed some logs below...

Type simplenews
Date Monday, 29 December, 2008 - 15:24
User Username
Location http://admin/reports/dblog
Referrer http://admin/reports/dblog?page=20
Message Outgoing email. Message type: node
Subject: [newsletter] We apologise!
Recipient: name@domain.co.za
Sent via Mime Mail
Severity debug
Hostname 196.35.158.183
Operations

Type simplenews
Date Monday, 29 December, 2008 - 15:26
User Username
Location http://admin/reports/event/29536
Referrer http://admin/reports/dblog
Message Outgoing email. Message type: node
Subject: [newsletter] We apologise!
Recipient: name@domain.co.za
Sent via Mime Mail
Severity debug
Hostname 196.35.158.183
Operations

Type simplenews
Date Monday, 29 December, 2008 - 15:26
User Username
Location http://admin/reports/event/29536
Referrer http://admin/reports/dblog
Message Outgoing email. Message type: node
Subject: [newsletter] We apologise!
Recipient: name@domain.co.za
Sent via Mime Mail
Severity debug
Hostname 196.35.158.183
Operations

Thanks again!!!

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented
Category: bug » support

The s_status value of 4 is NOT by simplenews. Perhaps you have some other module interfering with simplenews.

In the simplenews_mail_spool table you find the records which are pending or sent. The 'Mail spool expiration' determines how long records of sent messages remain in the table.
Simplenews can send multiple newsletter at the same time.
The log messages are perfectly normal. See 'Log emails' setting.

Jack_Sparrow’s picture

Jack_Sparrow commented

Which s_status do you refer to?
As you can see from the table above, I only pulled down the simplenews_newsletter table.
I've just checked the simplenews_newsletter table again and see that the line (as shown above inside 'strong' tags) is back to:
`s_status` tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',

Where should I place the '2'?

Subscribers are coming back saying that they have now received 2 emails, but the 4 email addresses I have set up for me are only coming in once...
I'm checking to see if there are duplicate email addresses, but that's not the case on some of them so far...

I have "Log Emails" ticked and am checking the "Recent log entries".
I have the Mail Spool settings set to "Immediate".

What shouold the correct cron settings be?
Should I keep the newsletters sent settings at 500 per cron run, or can I go higher...?
Currently I have cron running every 30min & 500 newsletters per cron run.

I'm hoping that it's working correctly now...

Thanks!
;-)

Jack_Sparrow’s picture

Jack_Sparrow commented

My emails in the newsletter subscriber list have now also received 2 newsletters...
So the system is still sending 2 newsletters...

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

duplicate emails may be the result of php execution time overrun (it takes too long to send the selected cron batch size). However with the latest 6.x-1.x-dev release this should not occur. Watch the 'x emails sent in y seconds.' message in your log. Try to reduce the batch size and increase the cron frequency.

momper’s picture

momper commented

hello

is there something like 'simplenews_mail_spool' in the version 5.x?
i changed the status in the middle of 'not' sending to '2' in the db - but before continue testing - should i delete another stuff?

thanks momper

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

No simplenews_mail_spool() in 5.x You may need to set the {simplenews_subscriptions}.s_status of all records to 0 (zero). But check the code to be sure!

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented
Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Closed (fixed)

No activity, closing the issue. Feel free to re-open of the original issue still needs support.

jptaranto’s picture

jptaranto
Primary language English
Location Sydney
commented

I'd like to reopen the issue.

Just had a pretty awful experience where 5900 emails were sent to 2200 people... oops! Some people were receiving the email 7 times or more...

Cron was running every 10 minutes with batches of 100 being emailed off, taking an average 2 or 3 seconds. At some stage, I was getting errors in my log where emails were being failed to be delivered, so naturally it kept on trying to deliver them. I guess they had already been sent and the system was saying no they haven't...

I've marked the newsletter to "2" so that experience is over for now.

Let me know if there is anything I can help with. I'm using simplenews 6.x-rc6 and mimemail 6.x-1.x-dev.

What can i do?

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

Are you using Poormanscron? What is you hosting's mail limit?

jptaranto’s picture

jptaranto
Primary language English
Location Sydney
commented

I wasn't using poormanscron, as per instructions. I was running cron from a different server though, and my web hosts limit is 2000 per hour. See below:

http://www.netregistry.com.au/support/kb/questions.php?questionid=125

SSzretter’s picture

SSzretter commented

I may have a similar issue - I updated simplenews and some other things in drupal 6, and now my simplenews_newsletters s_status field is being set to "1" where it used to be "2". It is causing all the newsletters since this started happening to be re-sent, so when they send a new newsletter it is currently sending the previous 5. There are dozens more that are not being sent, and I think it is because they are status '2'.

I do see in the simplenews_mail_spool there are a bunch of records, and they look like they are the same newsletters that have the issue. I can clear this out, but why are these stuck?

Delta Bridges’s picture

Delta Bridges commented

Well this has worked for me: set from 1 to 2 and then empty the spool. Thanks a bunch, I was having a serious headacke about this :):)
JJ

SSzretter’s picture

SSzretter commented
Status: Closed (fixed) » Active

So I have a manual method to make sure newsletters are sent once, by emptying the spool and setting status to 2, but can anyone help me figure out why drupal/simplenews is not setting the status to 2 and emptying the spool itself?

It is sending all the emails, it just leaves the spool and status as 1, so the next newsletter created is set out, so is the old one. This repeats, so if you dont empty the spool and update the status, you are sending several old newsletters out...

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

You have to debug the code which handles the sending of newsletters. Start at the simplenews_mail_spool() function.

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented
Status: Active » Closed (fixed)

No activity, closing the issue.

pavlos’s picture

pavlos commented
Status: Closed (fixed) » Active

Hello Sutharsan, I am still facing this issue. The setup is using Cpanel cron schedules to run it at specific intervals.

It just keeps sending the emails and we've stopped sending newsletters till this is sorted out cause the users have got many duplicate emails. Sorry for re-opening the issue but I can't make it stop sending. Any other way to stop the sending process?

Thanks in advance,
Pavlos

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

The crude way to stop is to clear the simplenews_spool table.

Do you use the latest 6.x-1.x-dev release? If not, I am very interested in what the cause of the problem is.

pavlos’s picture

pavlos commented

6.x-1.0 (sorry for the wrong version) on a project not developed by me. But on a closer look, it seems a cron timeout might also be the cause of this.

Thanks for the quick reply!

** EDIT: The problem is how to stop it once it gets the duplicates sent out again. Strangely it happens with both entries in simplenews_newsletters set to status 2 and the simplenews_mail_spool table empty... It just keeps sending out...

pavlos’s picture

pavlos commented
Version: 6.x-1.x-dev » 6.x-1.0
sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

@pavios: use 6.x-1.x-dev instead. If the spool table is empty Simplenews does not send emails. It can't.

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented
Status: Active » Closed (fixed)

No activity, closing issue.

jgoodwill01’s picture

jgoodwill01 commented

It doesn't seem to me like this has been resolved. I ma experiencing the same problem. Cron is never changing the s.status of the newsletter to "2" it just keeps stetting at "1" unless I manually change it. Has anyone found a resolve for this surely everyone isn't experiencing this or else there would be a ton of issue requests.

jgoodwill01’s picture

jgoodwill01 commented
Status: Closed (fixed) » Active

It doesn't seem to me like this has been resolved. I ma experiencing the same problem. Cron is never changing the s.status of the newsletter to "2" it just keeps stetting at "1" unless I manually change it. Has anyone found a resolve for this surely everyone isn't experiencing this or else there would be a ton of issue requests.

I hate to open up this ticket again. But I have yet to see anyone with a solution to resolving this issue.

Drupal 6.14
Simplenews 6.x-1.1
Simplenews Multiple Signup Block 6.x-1.x-dev
Simplenews Template 6.x-1.0-beta3
Mime Mail 6.x-1.0-alpha2
Poormanscron 6.x-2.2

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

you need to find the cause of this problem before it can be fixed.
See http://drupal.org/node/777854 fir a more general approach.

grub3’s picture

grub3 commented

I can confirm this issue with 6.x-2.x-dev.

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

Without any of you debugging the code to find the root cause it can not be fixed. I need your input!

Delta Bridges’s picture

Delta Bridges commented

From my personal experience, I have this problem now and again: it is usually created by an invalid email address (that has a dot at the end for example: myemail@hotmail.com.)
When the problem occurs, I follow advice given in #1 and then remove the invalid email and then everything is ok until the next time an invalid email is entered in my mailing list.
Of course, one way to avoid this would be to enable the email confirmation: then only valid emails can be subscribed. I have chosen to disable this confirmation because it confused the users who would register on the site, having to confirm the registration and the subscription to the newsletters.
Hope this helps :)
JJ

iibob’s picture

iibob commented

I've have had this problem too.

I did what #1 poster said; in the simplenews_newsletter table, set the s_status to 2 (sent), next empty the simplenews_mail_spool table.
- and it worked!

But I noticed what might be the problem.
I my logs it throws an error for each mail being sent; "Unknown column 'error' in field list" and tries to set "error = 0"
Looking in the database, in the simplenews_mail_spool table, it does not have a Field named "error".

It appears it's trying to update a field that isn't there. And maybe that's the cause?

Do you think it would be a good or bad idea, just to add a 'empty' field in the table manually?

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

iibob, did you run update.php when you updated simplenews the last time?

iibob’s picture

iibob commented

I could have sworn I did!?
..but obviously I didn't.

Ran update.php just now and the 'error' field is in the table now.

Thanks!

beulette’s picture

beulette commented

If anyone has this problem :

Had the same problem, and the update didn't solve it.

I just forced the update by selecting the 6009 version on the Simplenews module, that's the version that added the 'error' field ;)

beulette’s picture

beulette commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

husztisanyi’s picture

husztisanyi commented

I had the same problem, one dot at the end of an email address.