Author Topic: First email goes out, then nothing  (Read 2041 times)

rwlms

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First email goes out, then nothing
« on: July 08, 2006, 04:54:30 am »
I've got a series of emails that are supposed to go out evey four days. The first email goes out as the welcome message. The others are all in sequence one with a delay of three. Problem is, only the initial welcome message goes out.

What have I done wrong?

DW

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2006, 02:18:33 am »
Sounds like an SMTP authentication error.  Can you successfully send email to a test list containing "remote addresses" (not on the same server) and receive the email?

Regards
Dean Wiebe
ListMailPRO Author & Developer - Help | Support | Hosting

rwlms

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2006, 03:17:58 pm »
The server successfully received and relayed the test message to a remote address.

This most likely means that SMTP is configured correctly.

DW

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2006, 09:53:05 pm »
Right, I should have thought about the scheduled cron task.  Have you set that up?

http://listmailpro.com/help/dailymail_cron.html

(If enabled) Do you receive a dailymail report each day?

The "/usr/bin/wget" system utility used in the task might not be available on your server.  You might try an alternative, ie (example for 12:20am daily):
Code: [Select]
20 0 * * * curl -o /dev/null http://example.com/mail/dailymail.php?pw=YourDailyMailPass 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null
If your host will not allow wget or curl and you have a dedicated internet connection you might run the task locally:
http://listmailpro.com/help/dailymail_local.html

Regards
Dean Wiebe
ListMailPRO Author & Developer - Help | Support | Hosting

rwlms

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #4 on: July 10, 2006, 05:07:57 am »
This is becoming a real nightmare.

My host won't allow me to use the smtp server, so I switched to the internal php script until I can figure out ths cronjob thing. I did set up the dailymail cron task, but it's not working.

And i just received this from tech support.

"If you want to pass variables to a PHP script the standard search argument syntax for passing $_GET variables will not work. You can use the format path/script.php variable1=value variable2=value2 (note the arguments are simply separated by a space)."

It's all Greek to me.

Curl doesn't work. Already tried that on the amember script. Running the task locally won't work either. I've got as Mac.

I'll figure this out eventually. Thanks for all your help.

Roger

PS: Are you working with Alexander on the amember integration? Yet another nightmare.

rwlms

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2006, 06:12:37 am »
Let me see if I understand this correctly. If I set dailymail to ***, it will check daily for my scheduled mesages and send only those that are scheduled for that particular day?

Or do I have to set a cron task for each scheduled email in the sequence?

Thanks,
Roger

BGSWebDesign

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2006, 07:46:34 am »
Hi Roger,

Quote
If I set dailymail to ***, it will check daily for my scheduled mesages and send only those that are scheduled for that particular day?

Or do I have to set a cron task for each scheduled email in the sequence?


That's right , it will check one time (the hour/minute that you have set the CRON at) every day, and then it sends out ALL followups that have passed the '0' on their DELAY date, this is important to keep in mind, because they go down to '0' first, the NEXT TIME (usually next day - early in the morning) is when those Users receive their followup...

For some really powerful features look at Cron-style Followups (on the Followups). I know this may sound confusing to you but what that does is allow you to setup Followups to ONLY GO OUT on very specific dates or days of the month, or weeks of the month, etc... I use this feature quite a bit - in fact I'm the one that asked for it and paid to get it added... it's very useful for me - it lets me schedule followups to go out to specific groups ONCE a month (on certain weeks of the month), and/or ONLY on days of the week that I want - for example I only want some of my Followups to go out on Monday-Thursday when I'm working and can deal with things in a more timely fashion.....  HTH, and makes sense, for more click on the Help button in the Followups section and look at: "Cron-style Followups".
Thanks,
-Brett
http://www.bgswebdesign.com/Contact-Us.php

*** I do custom List Mail Pro installations ***
Contact me through my website (above)

rwlms

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2006, 08:12:28 am »
Thanks for your clarification Brett. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, I can't use the cron-style follow up. My messages are set to go out every four days, not on specific days.

Roger

DW

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First email goes out, then nothing
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2006, 10:37:40 am »
Hey Roger,

Sorry about the delay - this one got lost in the mix.  Thankfully I've started going through all support a second time and moving it to the "Completed Support" forum when it's been verified as completed. :)
Quote
And i just received this from tech support.

"If you want to pass variables to a PHP script the standard search argument syntax for passing $_GET variables will not work. You can use the format path/script.php variable1=value variable2=value2 (note the arguments are simply separated by a space)."

It's all Greek to me.

Basically, they're encouraging you to run the PHP script from the "commandline".  This means not by 'browsing' to your web site, but by 'executing' the script from the server, like an .exe.  For this to work you might need to add a line to the top of dailymail.php to specify the "interpreter" (this is how a large number of "non- binary/compiled.exe" Linux scripts/programs work).  Do a search for "shebang" or just click here for the Wikipedia article.  Alternately you can run PHP first, calling your script, to omit the need for the shebang line.  ie "/usr/bin/php /path/to/dailymail.php". While your host may recommend this method I don't because command-line PHP settings can be different than 'browsed-to' PHP.  It's hard to explain.. :)
Quote
Curl doesn't work. Already tried that on the amember script. Running the task locally won't work either. I've got as Mac.

Well.. I can offer 2 or 3 cron tasks run on my servers for just $20/yr.  Alternately, you might find a friend or get another web host so you can run more web sites AND set up cron tasks.
Quote
Are you working with Alexander on the amember integration? Yet another nightmare.

I haven't had a chance to put my all into this yet, unfortunately.
Quote
Let me see if I understand this correctly. If I set dailymail to ***, it will check daily for my scheduled mesages and send only those that are scheduled for that particular day?

Actually the cron timing has 5 elements:
Quote
23 1 * * *

...means every day at 1:23am.
Here's another great Wikipedia article.

Please let me know if you need further assistance on this!

Regards
Dean Wiebe
ListMailPRO Author & Developer - Help | Support | Hosting