PHP mail() loop problem

awesome_aims

Hi I recently created a very simple mailing list script that just uses a while loop to send a certain E-mail to all my site's members, the first few days it was working fine, until it hit 49 members, ever since then, it just mails the first 49 (ex. "Message was sent to 49 of 611 members") here's what i have:

......
$x = 0
while($i >= 0) {  // ex. $i = 611
	// gets variables from current row ($i) in DB
	$name = mysql_result($result, $i, "first");
	$email = mysql_result($result, $i, "email");
	$id = mysql_result($result, $i, "id");
	// set variables to mail
	$subject = $title;
	$body = "<html><head></head><body>" . $greeting . " " . $name . ",<br><br>" . $message . "</body></html>";
	$headers = "From: webmaster@awesomeaims.com\r\n";
	$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO_8859-1\r\n 
                                      Content-Transfer_Encoding: 7bit\r\n";
	// sends the email
	if(mail($email, $subject, $body, $headers))
		$x++;
	else
		$x = $x;
	$i--;
}
$display = "The message was sent to " . $x . " out of " . $rows . " users.";

is there some kind of limit on how many times it can loop, or is it just getting ahead of itself with all the mailing

one last thing, about 75% of the time the mail goes to the user's bulk, or spam folder, how can I aviod that?

LordShryku

I doubt it's a problem with the loop so much as it may be failed mail.

Try setting a failure variable too, like $y = 0; Then check for failures instead of just skipping past silently.

    if(mail($email, $subject, $body, $headers))
        $x++;
    else
        $y++;
    $i--;
}
$display = "The message was sent to " . $x . " out of " . $i . " users. (".$y." failures)";

Also using $i as the variable in your aoutput since that's what you're looping on.

awesome_aims

Changing $rows to $i wouldnt make sense, since after the loop is over $i always = 0, but this is what I used

if(mail($email, $subject, $body, $headers))
		$x++;
	else
		$y++;
	$i--;
}
$display = "The message was sent to " . $x . " out of " . $rows . " users. (".$y." failures)";

this is what I got:
"The message was sent to 51 out of 592 users. (541 failures)"

now, my numbers werent exactly right at first but i was close.
What it did was mail the message to the first 51 users in the database, when it got to 52 it started failing to send it, i know for a fact that at least 95% of the addresses in the database are valid emails. something happens after the 51st loop that causes it to mess up, and I have know idea what, could one invalid email address (#52), cause the rest of them to fail? up until I had 51 members, it would be 51 of 51. so yea, i have no clue. thanks.

LordShryku

Well, I wouldn't think it would be an invalid address causing problems. You should check the system logs to see what's happening. Whatever mailserver you're using should log somewhere.

tony_l

It could be your mail server has a limit of outgoing mail. I have heard of hosting companies limiting outgoing emails to like 100/hour to prevent spammers from robbing them of bandwidth.

Otherwise, I agree with the above- look at the logs, it should let you see what's going on.

OwenTheSamoan

Here's a simple script that I use to notify members of my site that they have messages waiting for them on my site. I have used this script where it has looped up to 13,000 times with no problems. Hope this helps.

$query = mysql_query("SELECT distinct sentto, email_address from table_mail where something='$something'") or die (mysql_error());
$numrows=mysql_num_rows($query);
echo "<h2>Here are your results.</h2>\n".
"$numrows emails are being sent out!";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
{

$sentto = $row["sentto"];
$email = $row["email_address"];

$subject = "You have mail at MySite.com";
$message = "Hello $sentto,

You have mail waiting for you at MySite.com

//This is where the body of my message would be

Thank you,
MySite.com

This is an automated response, please do not reply.";

mail($email, $subject, $message, "From: MySite.com <admin@MySite.com>\nX-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion());