The notify module processes only the first 50 or so users, then either creates error entries in the log for the remiander of the users (about 120) or else quits running (apparently). Also, on some days, multiple notify jobs appear to be initiated and run together. Am using Drupal V4.7.3, poormanscron.module V1.17 2006/01/16 01:15:04, notify.module V2.57.2.2 2006/08/11 19:52:18. Notify is configured to run once a day.

Comments

kthagen’s picture

kthagen commented

What are the error entries you're getting, specifically?

pswhitten’s picture

pswhitten commented
Title: Only first 50 or so users processed successfully » A specific entry

Type error
Date Friday, December 22, 2006 - 14:08
User Lori Whitten
Location http://lighthousegang.org?/home/lighthp2/public_html/cron.php
Referrer
Message Notify: User Lori Whitten (ljwhitten@sbcglobal.net) could not be notified. Mail error.
Severity notice
Hostname

pswhitten’s picture

pswhitten commented

Some progress has been made. I introduced a 90 second delay between email sends, and they are all sent successfully. This is more than 120 sends in each run, so it takes longer than 3 hours. A delay of 60 seconds was not quite enough but did help enough to show that I was on the right track. We need to elimiante the delay.

My current thought is that maybe the hosting service has their email system throttled back to prevent their servers from being used to send spam. I need to locate the code for the !user_mail procedure and determine what non-Drupal external service it is calling. The hosting service might need to know this when I inquire about possible thottling.

pswhitten’s picture

pswhitten commented

The problem of multiple cron runs at the same time has been resolved by no longer using the poormanscron module and configuring the server's cron service instead.

kthagen’s picture

kthagen commented

Host throttling sounds like a likely culprit to me.

drupal_mail just invokes the standard php mail() routine, so your hosting company ought to be familiar with its operation.

kthagen’s picture

kthagen commented

For the benefit of anyone else who may be stuck using poormanscron with notify, there is a patched version that appears to fix the multiple-execution problem. I haven't tried it myself, but it appears to work.

RobRoy’s picture

RobRoy commented
Title: A specific entry » Not all users are notified on cron
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

Sounds like this is not our problem.

pswhitten’s picture

pswhitten commented

Everyone with prior input on this problem was correct. The host (Bluehost.com) allows only 50 emails to be sent by a domain per hour. Upon request and convincing that you are not a spammer, they will raise this to 500 per hour. This change has been made for the domains I support, the delays in the notify module have been removed, and the 120 emails are sent each night within 2 minutes. Thanks everyone for your input as I worked through this issue.