PHPlist, queueing, throttling and cronjobs

[steeveevee]

So I'm using PHPlist. I have 1050 names on one list. HostICan has a limit of 100 messages per hour. So I throttled PHPlist back to send only 90.

The problem is, the cronjob to serially process the queue doesn't seem to be working. At 36 minutes after every hour, it's supposed to re-process the queue, but it doesn't. Here's my cronjob line:

36 * * * * cd '/home/[myusername]/public_html/[mydomainname]/lists/admin/' ; php -q index.php -p processqueue > /dev/null ;


Can anyone shed light on this?

== Steve

[Scott]

If you have a VPS or dedicated server, you can login to SSH and run the command

cd '/home/[myusername]/public_html/[mydomainname]/lists/admin/' ; php -q index.php -p processqueue

and see what error you are getting.

Personally, I'd run a simple wget.

/usr/bin/wget -q -O /dev/null http://www.[mydomainname].com/lists/admin/index.php

I just don't know what you what switch you'd need to execute the "processqueue" part.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Scott

If you have a VPS or dedicated server, you can login to SSH and run the command

cd '/home/[myusername]/public_html/[mydomainname]/lists/admin/' ; php -q index.php -p processqueue

and see what error you are getting.

Personally, I'd run a simple wget.

/usr/bin/wget -q -O /dev/null http://www.[mydomainname].com/lists/admin/index.php

I just don't know what you what switch you'd need to execute the "processqueue" part.

Speaking of phpList, Scott, if you're expert at this, I might call upon you to migrate my lists over to it, but its instructions are a little obtuse. Not as horrible as Mailman, but I'd appreciate guidance -- or from anyone else skilled at this.

[Scott]

Def not an expert at mailing scripts. I just know a lil cron.

[mastinpe]

I am not sure if anyone who was having trouble with PHPList is still watching this thread, but in case you are, I have been able to set up an installation of PHPList on a shared hosting account that has SSH access. The part that I had the most trouble with (3 days!!!) was getting everything straight with the cron job. I finally figured out that with HostICan you MUST make sure that you are running PHP from the correct location and that you are using the correct user information from your PHPList installation. My cron command is pasted below. If you have trouble, send me an email and I might be able to help you out.

This is pasted into the timing section
minute: */15
the rest of them are *

This is pasted into the command part:
nice -n 15 USER=PHPLISTUSER; export USER; /usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAMEWITHHOSTICAN/public_html/paulandkatie/lists/admin/index.php -p processqueue

*I know that this is not technical cron format, but for the cPanel cron screen, this should do the trick.

[lnxcode]

Originally Posted by mastinpe

I am not sure if anyone who was having trouble with PHPList is still watching this thread, but in case you are, I have been able to set up an installation of PHPList on a shared hosting account that has SSH access. The part that I had the most trouble with (3 days!!!) was getting everything straight with the cron job. I finally figured out that with HostICan you MUST make sure that you are running PHP from the correct location and that you are using the correct user information from your PHPList installation. My cron command is pasted below. If you have trouble, send me an email and I might be able to help you out.

This is pasted into the timing section
minute: */15
the rest of them are *

This is pasted into the command part:
nice -n 15 USER=PHPLISTUSER; export USER; /usr/local/bin/php /home/USERNAMEWITHHOSTICAN/public_html/paulandkatie/lists/admin/index.php -p processqueue

*I know that this is not technical cron format, but for the cPanel cron screen, this should do the trick.

Hey man,

Thanks for letting us know how to do it!

[roger]

Venting: Just my personal opinion, but cron on the VPS servers is just horrible!
I have 2 right now and have given up on it. When it runs, there are almost always errors (or nothing happens at all). When I use a webcron service and give it the same identical command, things run no problem! The only place I've ever had cron problems is on these VPS servers. Ugh. There! Rant over... Move along... Nothing more to see here...