Sonic.net

I've been using phpList for several years on Sonic's server. Since Sonic upgraded php two weeks ago, distressing things have happened to this otherwise well-behaved application.

The latest problem I've encountered is that the rate at which email messages are sent dropped like a rock. Previously, it took about an hour and a half to send all of the messages. Monday, I launched the message. By morning only 300 messages had been sent.

The phpList documentation discusses two methods for controlling that rate: throttling and batching. Both are implemented through the config file. They recommend throttling (which sets a pause between each send) of php-cgi implementations--which is what I understand Sonic to be.

Instead of annoying my list with a bunch of trial and error fiddling with the config file, can anyone tell me what the Sonic mail server might be happy with?

I can assure you we didn't upgrade PHP. (We did migrate people with MySQL4 databases over to MySQL 5.)

I took a look at our logs - nothing seems to be dropping, but I definitely recommend throttling, as that is fairest to all involved.

If you don't mind having an opt-in mailing list, you may want to consider setting up a list with us, which may solve some of the issues you are having.

Thanks.

Mailman is worth considering. However, the salient question is whether it will send any faster. If not, I don't see the incentive to learning and implementing a new application.

Do you know what the mailman send rate is?

Mailman is a discussion list server, and not well suited for broadcast only list traffic. PhpList, although I have never used it myself, is one of the applications that I'd recommend for things like newsletters. However, I believe that it is also known to be a bit on the poky side and poorly optimized. There are a lot of google hits for phplist and performance tuning.