Send Mail problem - Soapbox / SMTP

[lefty]

I normally use Jan's One Stop Order Processing to send batches of emails to customers (e.g. shipped, payment outstanding) and it works fine through our Small Business Server SMTP setup (and going out through MS Frontbridge). I seem to be able to send as many emails as I like without any problem.

I have just set up the Soapbox product rating and review system (which seems pretty good so far) and am now creating batches of emails from Soapbox within Actinic itself that need to be sent using Actinic's Send Mail function.

The problem is that it will only send one or two emails before throwing up an error message saying that the web site is sending email at an excessive rate and is blocked. This is with exactly the same email setup as the Mole End One Stop which works fine (our server IP address as the SMTP server and correct authentication user and password).

I have also tried it using our normal web hosting provider's SMTP server relay.clara.net (I know - I will be changing the hosting to a dedicated server as soon as I can pluck up the courage and decide who to use) which we normally have uploaded to the web site in network settings and works fine for sending order confirmation emails and tell a friend emails one at a time and that gives me the same problem. Their support tell me there is no way I can send more than a few emails at a time through their relay without being flagged as a spammer and blocked and they have no paid service to allow me to do it.

Does anyone know of any particular quirks in Actinic SMTP setup that may be causing this problem? Are there any other Soapbox users out there who are managing to send reasonable batches of emails from Actinic OK? How are you doing it?

Any help or ideas will be much appreciated.

[pinbrook]

sounds like anti spam measures imposed by your host (quite rightly to)

2 things to do

ask you host what the restrictions are on sending bulk email ie how many emails can you send at once,

ask codepath how it is sending and how you can slow it down into acceptable batches

[lefty]

Thanks Jo. I have spoken to the host and they say that is IS anti-spam measures and I can't send more than a couple of emails in a batch without triggering a problem.

It is actually Actinic sending the emails - the Codepath product creates the emails in Actinic and it is the Actinic SMTP setup sending them, so I was hoping someone might know how to slow that down a bit (other than sending each email one at a time manually!) or some other way of working around it.

The Mole-End One Stop Order Processing product can do it without triggering problems using exactly the same email setup so it seems to be something lacking in the Actinic SMTP operation that is causing the problem.

[lefty]

Still got the same problem

I have had this on hold for a while as we have relocated our office and set up new computers, ISP etc and are now using Zen as our ISP. I have reinstalled Soapbox on the new system but still cannot get it to send anything more than very small batches of emails from Actinic.

I have spoken to Zen support and they confirm that they are stopping anything more than about 50 emails every 8 minutes. The same still applies to the smtp run by our web host.

Has anyone got any ideas on how to dramatically slow down the rate at which Actinic send batches of emails or any other way of doing this?

[guccij]

I have spoken to Zen support and they confirm that they are stopping anything more than about 50 emails every 8 minutes.

Which Zen package are you on? We're on Office 8000 and regularly send more than 50 emails via Actinic in one go and we've never had an error message.

[lefty]

Thanks Guccij - Interesting! We are on Office 80000 as well and I have spoken with Zen and they say that the problem is they DO put a restriction on outgoing emails numbers.

What are you using as your smtp setup in the Actinic network settings? I am using mailhost.zen.co.uk and have tried it with and without "User name and password required". It tests fine with a single email but the batches seem to cause a problem.

[guccij]

Our ISP is Zen; our hosting is with 1and1 (Bus. Pro package). So our smtp in the network settings is auth.smtp.oneandone.co.uk .

Looks like your host is Clara ?

[lefty]

Yes, we host with Clara,net, their UK Advanced package. I have tried using their smtp but it seems to have even lower limits than Zen.

I am still using Mole End's One Stop Order Processing to send out batches of emails for payment follow-ups and other issues and that works fine with large batches of emails. I now have that configured to use the same smtp email setup as Actinic, i.e. mailhost.zen.co.uk with username and password.

That seems to indicate that it is a problem with the way Actinic sends emails rather than the actual smtp server restrictions, but I am a bit lost by now!

Doers anyone at Actinic know anything about this? I will send a support email referring to this thread and see if anything comes up.

[Mike Hughes]

I'm not that surprised at the problem you're seeing. At least when using Zen.

With Zen, sending emails from your PC is fine as you are sending from your connection with them. Sending from Actinic is most likely a problem as the emails are originating from the server on Clara and are thus seen as '3rd party relaying' and most ISPs will throttle these back (if they allow them at all).

The solution should be to send them from the web host but it sounds as if Clara might have a tighter limit.

It is odd if one-stop can send out large batches of emails from Clara without any problem. Maybe they have a different throttle for server generated emails.

Mike

PS. To avoid any confuson and maybe help identify the problem. Actinic sends emails by transferring them up to the web server and sending them from there. Not from the PC.

[lefty]

Thanks Mike, that does clarify things a bit - I had wrongly assumed that "offline" Actinic emails were going straight to the zen smtp server and did not realise they were being uploaded to our web host first and then sent on from there to zen.

Like you, I would have thought that using a Clara smtp server setting in Actinic would solve that problem but it does not and I have had discussions with Clara support about it and they have verified that they do impose tight limits and they do not have a service available, even paid-for, that would allow me to do it.

There seems to be something different in the way Mole End's One Stop sends its emails - maybe they go direct to Zen smtp rather than via the web site? I know Jan sometimes monitors these forums - can you throw any light on this?

There must be a solution somewhere as this is a genuine business operation trying to send product support emails to customers who want to receive them!

[pinbrook]

There seems to be something different in the way Mole End's One Stop sends its emails

I would contact mole-end direct to get a quick answer.

i'm only guessing but it could be ME batches the emails and sends them so they are not perceived as being bulk. ie less than`50 emailsevery 8 mins (Zen's limit)

you also need to find out from soapbox/codepath how they are batching the send too. if they are batching more than 50 every 8 mins then you are still stuffed.

[lefty]

Just an update on prgoress and thak you all for your comments.

Have spoken to Jan at Mole End and she says they send the mail direct through the ISP without using the Actinic web site and they also program in a delay in sending emails - default is a 5 second delay between every 20 emails. She has added a request for a function like that from Actinic to the Wish List.

Her advice was to see if Codepath could send emails by another method rather than creating them in Actinic and I have asked about that.

I have also tried sending emails using our own smtp on our network server - just put the IP address 192.168.16.2 as the smtp server in Actinic. That sent emails OK but still ran into the same restriction and got blocked after 46 emails.

Interestingly, the "from" address in the emails is taken fro the offline business settings in actinic, not the ones uploaded to the web site (I tested it as I want to send these review emails from a different email address to the normal customer service one that we put on the website).

My IT support people have now advised that the restriction may be because we use Frontbridge (the Microsoft hosted spam filtering service, which is very good!) and it is also handling our outgoing mail and may be causing the problem.

We are currently setting up an rDNS record with Zen to allow us to send the mail direct from our smtp server avoiding Frontbridge and will test when it is done. I am told that if we are going to go live with it we should also set up a SPF record for anythingleft-handed.co.uk.

I'll keep you updated with progress and would appreciate any more input.