Bulk eMail error Message 450

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R.V.Fagan
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Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

For a couple of years now we have been utilizing PowerChurch to send out weekly bulletins, and things seemed to go OK - that is until about a month or two ago.

Our email blast is to 292 addresses, and again this week I had 59 that failed, and the report indicates "450 Too many messages....." for each of the 59 failures. In past weeks that has been as high as 80. Typically, I will then paste 15-20 of these addresses at a time into an Outlook email client (Outlook for Mac Version 16.51) and send it using the same smtp server, which is hosted by Bell Canada, as part of our web hosting package.

In the past we did not have to utilize the advance email settings inside of PowerChurch, however, I have since tried several combinations, and today I had it set to send no more than 10 messages every minute. I have tried 20 in 5 minutes which pauses server logins for about 3+ minutes between sends. I have tried other combinations as well.

Today I spoke with Bell Canada, and because I can send 20 emails from the Outlook client, they believe it is the PowerChurch software.

I would welcome any support anybody could offer me, as this bulk email capability is key to our communications program within our parish.

NeilZ
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by NeilZ »

R.V.Fagan wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 11:21 am
For a couple of years now we have been utilizing PowerChurch to send out weekly bulletins, and things seemed to go OK - that is until about a month or two ago.

Our email blast is to 292 addresses, and again this week I had 59 that failed, and the report indicates "450 Too many messages....." for each of the 59 failures. In past weeks that has been as high as 80. Typically, I will then paste 15-20 of these addresses at a time into an Outlook email client (Outlook for Mac Version 16.51) and send it using the same smtp server, which is hosted by Bell Canada, as part of our web hosting package.

In the past we did not have to utilize the advance email settings inside of PowerChurch, however, I have since tried several combinations, and today I had it set to send no more than 10 messages every minute. I have tried 20 in 5 minutes which pauses server logins for about 3+ minutes between sends. I have tried other combinations as well.

Today I spoke with Bell Canada, and because I can send 20 emails from the Outlook client, they believe it is the PowerChurch software.

I would welcome any support anybody could offer me, as this bulk email capability is key to our communications program within our parish.
It may not be the Powerchurch client, as there are thousands using it without issue.

I suspect the 450 error you're seeing is NOT from your email host, but from the recipient's email host. I suspect that the emails are all going to a specific mail domain. Could you verify this? Since this began a month ago, and I know of no changed to the Powerchurch email client, I suspect a change on that receive side.

However, without an example of a complete bounce message, edited to take out the email name of course (EG: xxxxx@gmail.com). this is speculation.

Since you're using Outlook, is there any specific SSL/TLS setting used there, that is not setup in Powerchurch?
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

R.V.Fagan
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

The destinations addresses are across a number of domains (hotmail.com, gmail.com, yahoo.ca, easternhealth.ca, nf.sympatico.ca, etc….)

The only error indication I get is the “Bulk e-mail sent status” report from PowerChurch, after the email blast is complete. A sample error entry is “450 Too many messages on 2021/08/15 07:18:40 EDT ID (60C8945903172084) name@domain

To my knowledge, PowerChurch does not store/record the email bounce. When I log into the actual server that I have assigned inside the PowerChurch email setup, there are NO bounce messages. Had the errors come from the far end clients, I would expect to see all the emails that bounced come back as individual notification, and therefore I would be able to see the source header of the bounced email message, as in MS Outlook or other email clients.

As I mentioned earlier, if I use the MS Outlook client to resend those emails that failed, they all go through enmass. Also of note, the ONLY far-end smtpa server (bounce) messages I see is from the addresses with legitimate issues (invalid recipient, mailbox full, etc..)

Is anybody aware what drives Power Church to discern the messages it places in the report?

NeilZ
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by NeilZ »

R.V.Fagan wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:17 am
The destinations addresses are across a number of domains (hotmail.com, gmail.com, yahoo.ca, easternhealth.ca, nf.sympatico.ca, etc….)

The only error indication I get is the “Bulk e-mail sent status” report from PowerChurch, after the email blast is complete. A sample error entry is “450 Too many messages on 2021/08/15 07:18:40 EDT ID (60C8945903172084) name@domain

To my knowledge, PowerChurch does not store/record the email bounce. When I log into the actual server that I have assigned inside the PowerChurch email setup, there are NO bounce messages. Had the errors come from the far end clients, I would expect to see all the emails that bounced come back as individual notification, and therefore I would be able to see the source header of the bounced email message, as in MS Outlook or other email clients.

As I mentioned earlier, if I use the MS Outlook client to resend those emails that failed, they all go through enmass. Also of note, the ONLY far-end smtpa server (bounce) messages I see is from the addresses with legitimate issues (invalid recipient, mailbox full, etc..)

Is anybody aware what drives Power Church to discern the messages it places in the report?

What is the 'name@domain' you have listed in the error, is it the email address you use to send them out? I'm assuming you're using v12.2 ... if not please let us know.
Neil Zampella

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R.V.Fagan
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

The ‘name@domain’ is the address of the outgoing email (our parishioner), which as noted earlier, are folks across many domains.

I only get a scattered bounce sent back to myemail@mydomain, which as I noted are one or two legitimate bounces. If I paste 20+ of the addresses reported inside the ‘Bulk email status report’ into MS Outlook using the same account is use inside PowerChurch, they all go OK. I do not use SSL, however, I use smtpa port 2225

I guess I could try changing the ‘outgoing email server (smtp):’ address to include the special port 2225. Also of note, PowerChurch will not accept the server address ‘smtpa.mydomain.ca’, but only ‘smtp.mydomain.ca’. It gives me the PowerChurch error message, ‘Error within Socket Connect DNS lookup failed’.

I will try ‘smtp.mydomain.ca:2225’ when I do the next email blast (this indicates a success when I run the ‘Test’ after I add the :2225

Zorak
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by Zorak »

R.V.Fagan wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 11:21 am
Today I spoke with Bell Canada, and because I can send 20 emails from the Outlook client, they believe it is the PowerChurch software.
I don't really understand the logic here, since you are probably copying 20 addresses into a single email, but even if you were sending 20 individual emails in Outlook, that is still a different process than the way that a bulk mailing system would be doing it.

In any case, the next thing:
R.V.Fagan wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:57 pm
Also of note, PowerChurch will not accept the server address ‘smtpa.mydomain.ca’, but only ‘smtp.mydomain.ca’. It gives me the PowerChurch error message, ‘Error within Socket Connect DNS lookup failed’.
A DNS Lookup Failed message indicates when the email components call out to a DNS lookup service online, it is coming back with that domain isn't registered. Are you entering the SMTP address as smtpa.yourdomain.ca or are you using smtpa.bellaliant.net? There is a registered MX record for smtpa.bellaliant.net, but there may not be a registered MX record for your domain with the smtpa subdomain.

R.V.Fagan
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

ZORAK - Your guess on Bell’s logic is as good as mine. I guess they believe they are not limiting the number of emails sent (I can send 20+ using Outlook, however, I get the ‘Too many messages’ error when PC sends them, while the PC option is set to limit 10 messages in one minute.

Which I guess would beg my next question - how does PC, as a bulk emailer, send the emails out to the server. I see it log on and off to the smtp server several times before it takes the timeout pause (countdown timer - the remainder of the one minute) before sending more email, again logging on/off the server multiple times. Does PC send the emails to one family member profile at a time (typically one email address, but some have two assigned), or does it send several email addresses at a time using a BCC format?

Also, technically, what does PC mean by it’s message, ‘too many messages’? Is it responding to a smtp server far-end message?

Re the DNS message issue, you just triggered a thought, and I discovered that PowerChurch was configured to use ‘smtp.allsaintsparish.ca’ (hosted by Bell Canada, using whatever the default port is), whereas I am using Bell’s direct client server inside Outlook (smtpa.bellaliant.net, port 2225).

I just tried sending a single email using ‘smtpa.bellaliant.net:2225’ inside PC, and it is fine. This coming Friday when I do the next bulk, I will try that server config.

In the meantime, I would still like to understand how PC sends the bulk emails, and where/how the ‘Too many messages’ error report comes from.

NeilZ
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by NeilZ »

R.V.Fagan wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:03 pm
ZORAK - Your guess on Bell’s logic is as good as mine. I guess they believe they are not limiting the number of emails sent (I can send 20+ using Outlook, however, I get the ‘Too many messages’ error when PC sends them, while the PC option is set to limit 10 messages in one minute.

Which I guess would beg my next question - how does PC, as a bulk emailer, send the emails out to the server. I see it log on and off to the smtp server several times before it takes the timeout pause (countdown timer - the remainder of the one minute) before sending more email, again logging on/off the server multiple times. Does PC send the emails to one family member profile at a time (typically one email address, but some have two assigned), or does it send several email addresses at a time using a BCC format?

Also, technically, what does PC mean by it’s message, ‘too many messages’? Is it responding to a smtp server far-end message?

Re the DNS message issue, you just triggered a thought, and I discovered that PowerChurch was configured to use ‘smtp.allsaintsparish.ca’ (hosted by Bell Canada, using whatever the default port is), whereas I am using Bell’s direct client server inside Outlook (smtpa.bellaliant.net, port 2225).

I just tried sending a single email using ‘smtpa.bellaliant.net:2225’ inside PC, and it is fine. This coming Friday when I do the next bulk, I will try that server config.

In the meantime, I would still like to understand how PC sends the bulk emails, and where/how the ‘Too many messages’ error report comes from.
Powerchurch sends one email per email address ... using the standard SMTP protocol. The fact that you had Outlook set to use one server, but Powerchurch set to use other tells me that the issue lies there.

The too many messages comes from your ISP ... that's what the server is reporting back to the client.
Neil Zampella

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R.V.Fagan
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

NEIL - Just for clarity, I thinknwhat you mean to say is PC sends one email per family. If the family has two or more emails assigned, the email contains all addresses 2 or 3 addresses in the TO field. Which I guess implicitly articulates that if there are 290 emails, then PC logs onto the smtp server 290 times, and the limitation of 20 emails in 5 minutes means it will log on 20 times, and then pause until the 5 minutes has elapsed, and then start sending another 20 emails.

Re the 450 Error message coming from the far smtp server back to PC, I will follow up with Bell. Inside standard smtp messages, the transient code for too many messages is 421

Zorak
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by Zorak »

R.V.Fagan wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:32 pm
NEIL - Just for clarity, I thinknwhat you mean to say is PC sends one email per family. If the family has two or more emails assigned, the email contains all addresses 2 or 3 addresses in the TO field. Which I guess implicitly articulates that if there are 290 emails, then PC logs onto the smtp server 290 times, and the limitation of 20 emails in 5 minutes means it will log on 20 times, and then pause until the 5 minutes has elapsed, and then start sending another 20 emails.

Re the 450 Error message coming from the far smtp server back to PC, I will follow up with Bell. Inside standard smtp messages, the transient code for too many messages is 421
It sends one per email address that matched your original selection. If multiple people in the family meet your selections and have separate email addresses, they will each receive individual emails.

PowerChurch opens a connection to the server, sends X messages, disconnects from the server, then waits, reconnects, sends X messages, etc. in a loop until they are all done. This is outside of the Advanced Sending Options number of emails per minute that you specify. Click the ellipsis (...) button and you will see the fine tuning controls for PowerChurch's sending behavior. You don't normally need to change them, but that is an option, if you aren't able to get it figured out otherwise.

As Neil said, that "Too many emails" error status is the response that PowerChurch is getting from the outgoing mail server when trying to send those emails. It sounds like it accepts some emails, then starts saying "WHOA, TOO MANY". If Bell's rep says they don't limit the number of emails sent, it introduces another logic puzzle as to why the error status coming back from their server says they do.

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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

ZORAK - I was reading you latest reply, and I had a peek inside the ellipse settings under the advanced tab. I see CONNECT PAUSE of 750 - is that 750 ms between sending emails to the smtp server? I see PER CONNECT of 5 - does that mean it sends 5 emails each time it connects to the smtp server? And I see SEND PAUSE of zero - does that mean no pause between the 5 emails being sent? Because I have the ADVANCED SENDING OPTIONS set to 10 messages in 1 minute, does that mean only 2 connections per minute (5 x 2)?

I also had a look at the list of emails before I hit the final send, and of course they are all alphabetical as per the option I selected. My question is that when I look at the PowerChurch failure report, I had 38 of the "450 Too many messages...", however, they were not all alphabetical as I would have expected. The first error was on email number 103 (ger*@gmail.com), while the next failure was email number 220 (pam*@sunlife.com), and the third was email 290 (vim*@yahoo.ca). Then the next was ele*@hotmail.com, followed by amy*@gmail.com. My point is there is no pattern to the sequence of the messages.

I am prepared to go back to Bell Canada support, but I am just wondering about tweaking PowerChurch's PER CONNECT value from 5 to 15. Comments?

Zorak
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by Zorak »

Connect Pause is how long to wait (milliseconds) in between connections (750ms)
Per Connect is the number of emails to send in each connection (5 emails)
Send Pause is how long to wait (milliseconds) in between sending each email (0ms)

The default settings have worked very well over the years for most email providers, but there have been a couple that have required massaging those numbers to work around problems, which is why the settings are exposed in the software at all.

Using the main Advanced Sending Options to send 10 messages in 1 minute would connect, send 5 messages, disconnect, wait 750ms, reconnect, send 5 messages, disconnect, then sit and wait for the remaining 55 seconds to tick down.

You can try increasing the 5 to 15 to see if there are fewer errors, but with the frequency of those errors in the log data you emailed me (the errors are happening every few seconds) I would also consider trying 1 email per connect instead. Set the Connect Pause to 1000 (1 second). Unfortunately, it will just take some experimenting.

R.V.Fagan
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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

This problems continues with no resolve. It started originally while using our domain email server, and we have since tried it using another email server, and then finally using a Gmail account, which of course PowerChurch then becomes an "authorized" application when one clicks the "AUTHORIZE" link on the preferences page, or when one send the emails.

Short of sending you our database for you to do your own test bulk email on your own hardware using your own email provider, I'm not sure where to turn. I can try it from another physical location, using another physical computer to see if the results are the same. Sadly, it's only a once a week email blast, and I don't want to needlessly pollute our parishioners' inbox with test runs.

The number of failures is not always constant. Any more suggestions?

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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by R.V.Fagan »

My problem still continues when sending bulk email through Power Church (the 450 error message on 35-70 of the 300 emails in the blast. I use the same smtp server (and account) inside MS Outlook, and I can load and send 300 emails with no errors. My (hopefully) temporary resolve was to export my parishioner email addresses to MS Excel, and paste them into the BCC address field of MS Outlook.

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Re: Bulk eMail error Message 450

Post by Zorak »

My last post suggested tinkering with the advanced sending options that you see when clicking the ellipsis button, trying more emails per connect and fewer. It's clear you're still having the issue, but not clear what you have tried and with what result since that last post.

There is another tool available that will help in testing this without cluttering up your church members' inboxes. When sending the group emails on the step labeled "Your sending email account settings", click the Advanced link to show the full email setup options that are being used. At the bottom of the screen is a checkbox option labeled "Send email as a test and log results (messages will not be delivered)". This will change all of the receiving email addresses in the list to an @powerchurchsoftware.com address. So that actively sends the emails through your outgoing mail server, but the emails are all pointing to our old web host account instead of your parishioners' emails.

Unfortunately, the old web host on that domain has ended the support for catch-all email addresses, so the internal email address that we are using to receive all of those dummy@ email addresses can't actually receive the emails anymore. The end result will be a bunch of bounced/undeliverable emails, but the sending report you run at the end of the group email process will show that they were successfully sent through your server. So, as a test run without changing any of the settings that you currently have, you should see 35-70 rejections out of the 300 coming back from your server with error 450 or 421.

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