bulk e-mail errors

[bjwhitson]

I've tried to find a similar post with this problem but haven't seen one that is recent. This is a lengthy post -

We use PC+ (version 11.1 - updated MR on 4/10/12) to send weekly emails to our membership. Up until about 3 weeks ago, we were able to send 150+ messages with no errors. Recently, I've started getting error messages that read like the following - this is what I got just 15 minutes ago -
"A socker error occurred in a call to Send(); [W/32:0x00002745:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.] - (15 email addresses)
AND
"No extended error information is available" -(5 addresses)
AND
"Successfully sent to server" - (115 addresses)
AND
"The SMTP server reported an error code 74;232.17.139 has too many connections (2) on frfwmhc01" - (1 address)
AND
"The SMTP server reported an error code 74; 232.17.139 has too many connections (2) on frfwmhc03 - (2 addresses)
AND
"The SMTP server reported an error code 74;232.17.139 has too many connections (2) on frfwmhc04 - (1 address)
AND
"The SMTP server reported an error code 74; 232.17.139 has too many connections (2) on frfwmhc05 - (2 addresses)

So each email that I send out usually has a larger number of addresses with the "socker" errors, fewer errors with the extended info and the SMTP errors, with the majority of addresses being sent successfully. Our ISP is AT&T, and my email address is a bellsouth.net one. I called the Tech Support at AT&T and they suggested that this was a PC+ issue.

Based on other posts, I went to Perferences, System Set-up Options, E-mail, and checked the Advanced sending options to send no more than 50 messages every 5 minutes. When I sent out a test message, it generated the errors listed above. The outgoing email server is "mail.bellsouth.net". The box is NOT checked where it says "Outgoing email server requires authentification".

Because of my experience in trying to maintain multiple databases, and keep them in sync, I have been using PC+ as our vehicle for keeping current email addresses and not MS Outlook. I do use Outlook for small numbers of emails, but not for bulk messages.

Thanks for any assistance in getting this resolved. I have a lot of faith in the PC+ family of users!
Betsy

[NeilZ]

I
Based on other posts, I went to Perferences, System Set-up Options, E-mail, and checked the Advanced sending options to send no more than 50 messages every 5 minutes. When I sent out a test message, it generated the errors listed above. The outgoing email server is "mail.bellsouth.net". The box is NOT checked where it says "Outgoing email server requires authentification".

First off, I hope you meant the 4/10/2013 MR, and that's probably a socket error you're seeing, not socker.

That said, I would look at reducing the number of emails to 25, at an every 15 minute spacing. The errors I see could be caused by too many emails being sent and flooding the SMTP server.

Limiting the number and spacing out the sending may help.

[bjwhitson]

Hi Neil,
Yes, you're right - it is 4/10/2103 and a socket error I changed the settings to 25 messages and 10 minutes and everything went thru. Guess that was the problem.
Thanks for your suggestion.
Betsy

[NeilZ]

Hi Neil,
Yes, you're right - it is 4/10/2103 and a socket error I changed the settings to 25 messages and 10 minutes and everything went thru. Guess that was the problem.
Thanks for your suggestion.
Betsy

Great to hear ...

[pbumc]

Wanted to document another set of circumstances where this error occurs.

Using PC 11.55 with a recent Maintenance Release, the admin twice got errors sending bulk email with an attached PDF newsletter. The second time, she printed the Bulk e-mail sent status report, which clearly says:

"A socker error occurred in a call to Send(); [W/32:0x00002745:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.]"

Got a chuckle from the "socker" error (a typo in the PC error message). Don't know if our admin got all the other errors described in the original post.

The difference in our situation is that we run our own SMTP server on another (server) computer, so normally there is no need to throttle messages from the PowerChurch computer to the server. However, there was some issue on the server causing a general slowdown of network connections. Apparently that also caused PowerChurch to get a socket error. After rebooting the server, the network seems to be functioning normally again, so we'll have to try a re-send.

As feedback to PowerChurch Software: how about if a socket error is detected, queue the remaining messages and allow the user to try again? It would be quite a chore to have to manually select the 80 or 100 individuals who did not receive the first message. We may just have to send it to all recipients a third time, apologizing for duplicates and triplicates.

[NeilZ]

Mark,

I'd send that idea to wishlist@powerchurch.com. That'll make it get noticed faster and possibly added to the list.

[pbumc]

Thanks Neil, I've sent in that suggestion.

Still got an error after network connectivity fixed, although more messages got through this time. Will have to try throttling next month.

There's one email address that is generating an odd "5.5.2 Need recipient" message, though I can't see anything wrong with the individual's record.

[NeilZ]

Thanks Neil, I've sent in that suggestion.

Still got an error after network connectivity fixed, although more messages got through this time. Will have to try throttling next month.

There's one email address that is generating an odd "5.5.2 Need recipient" message, though I can't see anything wrong with the individual's record.

Without the full error its hard to figure out, but it does sound like there's something missing in the email address.