[Resolved] PHP, SQL, and problem sending multiple emails

rastem

Hey all,

I've recently been coding a page that sends an email to addresses on a MySQL database, and it was working fine. But as the database of emails grew, the form started having trouble: taking a long time to process, etc. I was wondering if anyone has found a solution to this problem or a similar one. The page basically has a while loop that sends the mail for every email it pulls from the DB. Is there another way that won't stall? How can I be sure the emails are sent?

Thanks in advance to all reading.

Ras.

superwormy

No experience, but I've heard that the problem with the mail() functoin is that it opens and closes a socket on each call. SLOW. Using the smtp functions you can open a socket once, send all the meails, then close the socket.

You might also try CCing or just putting a comma delimeted string of emails in the To: part of the mail() function.

rastem

Thanks for the post, superwormy.

That has got to be the problem with the mail() function. My knowledge of the email world is limited, so I'm not sure how to set up a SMTP connection w/ PHP. I searched their site and didn't find much. Any help?

I'm hesitant to bcc the information because I heard that PHP has a bug dealing with bcc's. I shouldn't cc or to the info because that would disclose people's email addresses and I personally don't like that.

Again help is appreciated and super-needed!

superwormy

Try this: http://www.php.net/imap

I dont' have any experience with it, so I really can't provide any examples.

I thnk there's an IMAP or SMTP class on PEAR.PHP.NET too, you might check that out.

rastem

I'll have to check with our host to see if they can compile this. Until then, it may not even be an option. I read an article on the subject by Kevin Yank where he said that:

BUG ALERT: There are two apparent bugs in the PHP mail function, which I've observed as recently as PHP 4.1.0, that you must be aware of. First, the Cc: header must be typed 'cc:' (as above) or 'CC:', that is, in either all-caps or low-caps. The mixed case version (Cc: ) should work, but it doesn't. Secondly, on Windows servers, the Bcc: header does not work as it should.Bcc: recipients do get a copy of the message, but the Bcc: headers are not stripped out of the message during sending, so recipients can see the Bcc: receivers by looking at those lines in the headers.

having the bcc header show the email addresses is a problem. I know there's got to be an answer. Again the goal:

To send emails using PHP from emails on a MySQL DB as fast and completely as possible.
Avoid timeouts when sending the messages.
To keep people's emails protected for their privacy.

The problems:

mail() is slow, and has timed out while sending to a list.
bcc: will show emails to anyone reading the headers. to: and cc: headers will not hide emails at all.

As far as pear goes, they do have a class that one can use, and I'll be looking into that as well. I've been searching the net for an answer with just PHP, but all I find are proprietary programs that do this stuff (for 1,500 dollars no less) and services where you pay per use.

rastem

New day and still haven't found the answer. Any help out there?

mattotto77

how about if you try limiting the number of emails sent at one time, perhaps get it to calculate the amount of email address it has to send it to say 1000 divide it by 10.

send it to the first 100, then the next 100 and so forth, of course you would have to know how long it took to send the 100 emails,if you can calculate how long it takes you could maybe implement some sort of count(sleep) function at the end of the loop.

superwormy

Sometimes what I end up doing for tasks that run for a long time, is to make the script do like a few steps of the task, and then exit.

BUT make sure your HTML document has a meta refresh tag, so that it automatically refreshes in 0 seconds, to do the next few steps of the task.

Over, and over, and over again until the whole task is complete.

rastem

Not a bad idea, superwormy, dovetails with the post mattotto77 put up. Thing is that I don't know how the meta-refresh will work w/ the php. Building on the idea, perhaps a while loop that references the same page again but with a GET variable, something like www.email.com?email=1. I'll post code for this as soon as I cook it up (next day or so). What do you guys think?

Ras.

Sxooter

Look at adding the -q switch to your sendmail (assuming it's using sendmail here). which will tell sendmail to queue the emails up without waiting to see if they can actually be delivered. Otherwise, a call to mail() results in waiting on the sendmail program to check the mail dns records and all that stuff to get it sent off. If you're on unix/linux use 'man sendmail' to see how to set the option. you can toss the switch into php.ini to make it a standard thing if all you really do is send a lot of email with this box.

rastem

Thanks for the post Sxooter. I'm hosting w/ another company and I don't think I have access to php.ini, as it may affect anyone else hosted on the box (it's not dedicated last I checked). What do you recommend in this situation? (other than shell out cash for dedicated serving, or my own box and pipe to the net 🙂 ).

Ras.

Sxooter

Nah, you can pass additional parameters in mail(). Look up the docs, it's the last argument you can pass in that lets you put a -q in there.

rastem

Aah! see I've been looking for those additional parameters and they're nowhere on php.net, though you're right that in the documentation it does show that you can pass parameters on.

So the php loop for sending the mail would look like this?

while($a_eboxes = mysql_fetch_array($result))
	{mail("$a_eboxes[email_address]", $subject, $msg_body, $mail_headers, -q);}

Oh, one more thing, is there a place on the net that has a list of these additional parameters? Reading through the user comments on php.net but no one makes a reference to a listing of these parameters.

Thanks again for all your help guys!

Ras.

Sxooter

assuming you're on a linux box, 'man sendmail' should do it.

Note that it's preferred to quote string args, so it would look like this:

mail("$a_eboxes[email_address]", $subject, $msg_body, $mail_headers, "-q");

rastem

Score! And now the trial by fire... My next group emailing will be out early next month. I'll give it a shot then with the updated code (funny how this whole problem could apparently be solved by adding 2 characters and 2 double quotes: "-q"). I'm resolving the thread, but if this doesn't work I'll post again referring to this threat for bg. Thanks to all who helped, and here's hoping this thread helps others.

Ras.