Multiple and snagged posting issue
By Robin Duckett on Tuesday, 26 January 2016
Posted in Technical Issues
Replies 11
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Good afternoon again!

Last Friday I made an automated blog, and it posted fine: except that we had multiple postings. Many people including myself on home email received it three times ( e..g myself on home email: Friday 2252, Sat 0552 and Sat 0852). Also it seemed to get jammed in our server system (as reported by our website hosts).
So there are two situations to solve;
1) Why did it go out 3 times?
2) Why did it get jammed in our out-system?

Regarding (1) I hope you can investigate. My only guess is that it is picking up emails from several lists, and then not filtering out duplicates.
Regarding (2) , our system is set by the website hosts to cope with a maximum email rate of 250 emails per 30 minutes. The reason is that emails going out more quickly than this tend to be regarded as spam. I wonder if Easyblog is streaming them out too quickly for our servers system? With Acymailing, we can slow down the rate of emails, but I don't see how to do this with Easyblog.

Thanks, Robin
Hi Robin,

I am really sorry for the delay of this reply.

I am sorry but I'm a little bit lost here. Do you mean that most of your users receiving 3 email notifications for each of the blog post that get published?

our system is set by the website hosts to cope with a maximum email rate of 250 emails per 30 minutes.

I notice that you have set your easyblog to process 400 emails per cron as you can see from my screenshot here, http://screencast.com/t/xCgDAcpxKWp and you have set your cron interval at 5 minutes. Hence in total your server will process around 2400 emails in 30 minutes. However since you mentioned that your hosting are only capable of processing 250 emails per 30 minutes, it might cause the issue that you are facing here.

Perhaps you can try to lower down the email process value to 40 emails per cron and see how it goes?
Ezrul Fazwan
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016 16:14
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Hello Ezrul,
I am sorry but I'm a little bit lost here. Do you mean that most of your users receiving 3 email notifications for each of the blog post that get published?

Yes, that's exactly the case.

I notice that you have set your easyblog to process 400 emails per cron as you can see from my screenshot here, http://screencast.com/t/xCgDAcpxKWp and you have set your cron interval at 5 minutes.

Thanks for the check. Someone at your end kindly set this for us I think, so I need to familiarise myself with this.
I will do what you suggest. By the way, where is the 'cron interval' setting? Also, you've highlighted the 'sender settings' as blank: But actually it is filled in. did you complete it?
Robin Duckett
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016 17:25
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Hi Robin,

By the way, where is the 'cron interval' setting?

You can change the cron interval from your Cpanel page as you can see from my screenshot here, http://screencast.com/t/5wVp4T6Yl3m0 .

Also, you've highlighted the 'sender settings' as blank: But actually it is filled in. did you complete it?

I purposely hide the sender settings value in the screenshot above in order to protect your email privacy.
Ezrul Fazwan
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016 17:35
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Got it: thanks for that.

So are you thinking about our '3x send' question? I don't expect to be doing another blog item till Monday.
Robin Duckett
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016 17:44
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Hey Robin,

Hm, what do you mean by '3x send' question? Can you please elaborate more on this please?
Mark
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016 23:07
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Hello Ezrul,
I was referring to our problem of posts being sent 3 times to individuals, as below;

I am sorry but I'm a little bit lost here. Do you mean that most of your users receiving 3 email notifications for each of the blog post that get published?


Yes, that's exactly the case.


cheers, Robin
Robin Duckett
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016 23:46
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Hey Robin,

As Ezrul mentioned above, our initial observation is telling us that your "400 emails" per cron process is causing this. We cannot be 100% sure but high chances are that the cron takes time to process them and if the next cron kicks in to process, it will overlap.
Mark
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Thursday, 28 January 2016 00:17
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Hello Mark,
I changed the settings to slow down the send.

Are you saying that the problem (the high rate of send) actually resulted in email notifications going three times to recipients?

Could there be anything in the settings (e.g. here: http://screencast.com/t/xZgKjfCP ) which results in notifications being sent to the same email address multiple times?

cheers, Robin
Robin Duckett
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Thursday, 28 January 2016 00:28
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Hey Robin,

Our notification library ensures that no "duplicates" are being sent. To test this out yourself, you could check the emails in the email activities when you publish your next post and see if there are any duplicates.

Like I said, we are only suspecting that the cause was due to the cron settings. Imagine this:

1. First cron runs at 1.05 pm to send out 400 emails. Sending out 400 emails does not get complete in 5 minutes (I can guarantee that it would take longer than 10 minutes because Joomla needs to communicate with these mail servers)

2. Second cron runs at 1.10pm to send out the next 400 emails (This is where the problem most likely occurs). It overlaps with the first cron.
Mark
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Thursday, 28 January 2016 00:32
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Ah , I see, I think.
So the only real test is to wait till I do the next post? Robin
Robin Duckett
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Thursday, 28 January 2016 00:45
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Hi Robin,

Yes you need to wait untill you create the next blog post to see if the duplicate email notification issue still persist with the new cron settings. Keep us updated and see how it goes.


Regards,
Zue
Zue
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Thursday, 28 January 2016 12:02
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