subscribers being unsubscribed at wrong time based on bounce settings.
Hello,
I have done some fairly extensive examination of logs and list settings for one of the lists hosted here, and I can't come up with a sensible explanation to tell a customer.
The list is set to not send messages when a person unsubscribes.
The bounce settings are set so that 2 warning messages are sent after the address is disabled and those messages should be 7 days apart.
A message was sent to the list on 11/1. I see in the logs that a substantial number of addresses reached the bounce limit and were disabled. So, based on the bounce settings, many of these should have been unsubscribed 14 days later. They were not.
However, on 11/24, there was a mass unsubscribe of addresses that had been disabled. Additionally, many (including some that turned out to have valid addresses) received unsubscribe notices.
I tend to think that these are not related, but are two issues that I have not been able to explain.
Many thanks,
Christopher Adams
On 11/30/2016 04:22 PM, Christopher Adams wrote:
I have done some fairly extensive examination of logs and list settings for one of the lists hosted here, and I can't come up with a sensible explanation to tell a customer.
What is in the logs. In particular, the entire 'bounce' log from 11/1 thru 11/24.
The list is set to not send messages when a person unsubscribes.
Do you mean admin_notify_mchanges is No, bounce_notify_owner_on_removal is No or something else. When cron/disabled removes a member, it always tries to notify the member. There's no setting for that.
The bounce settings are set so that 2 warning messages are sent after the address is disabled and those messages should be 7 days apart.
A message was sent to the list on 11/1. I see in the logs that a substantial number of addresses reached the bounce limit and were disabled. So, based on the bounce settings, many of these should have been unsubscribed 14 days later. They were not.
However, on 11/24, there was a mass unsubscribe of addresses that had been disabled. Additionally, many (including some that turned out to have valid addresses) received unsubscribe notices.
Was cron/disabled running between 11/15 and 11/24?
Were changes made to the list's bounce settings after 11/1. In particular, the number of notices (bounce_you_are_disabled_warnings) is set in the user's bounce info when deliverry is first disabled and subsequent changes to the list setting won't affect the number of notices for that user.
I tend to think that these are not related, but are two issues that I have not been able to explain.
Also what's in the subscribe log on 11/24. Where the 'unrelated' unsubscribes all done at the time cron/disabled ran (default 09:00)?
-- Mark Sapiro mark@msapiro.net The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Sorry if my reply doesn't follow the standards for reply, but gmail is not quoting messages as it usually does.
I tracked one of the disabled addresses that was unsubscribed. It is the same for all that were unsubscribed.
bounce.log-20161101:Oct 31 16:16:36 2016 (32252) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com current bounce score: 2.0 bounce.log-20161107:Nov 06 15:21:38 2016 (24109) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com current bounce score: 3.0 bounce.log-20161107:Nov 06 15:21:38 2016 (24109) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com disabling due to bounce score 3.0 >= 3.0 bounce.log-20161112:Nov 11 15:56:41 2016 (11544) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com residual bounce received bounce.log-20161117:Nov 17 09:04:35 2016 (58403) Notifying disabled member recipient@wherever.com for list: oebbmembers bounce.log-20161123:Nov 22 10:11:14 2016 (60465) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com residual bounce received bounce.log-20161125:Nov 24 09:16:14 2016 (35874) Notifying disabled member recipient@wherever.com for list: oebbmembers bounce.log-20161125:Nov 24 09:16:14 2016 (35874) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com deleted after exhausting notices
The cron/disabled ran every day during November at 9.
I think all of the unsubscribes were because of being disabled due to bounce settings. The "valid" addresses were also disabled and unsubscribed, but that is aside from this and something that the customer needs to deal with.
I learned something new - disabled and unsubscribed addresses receive a message regardless of the other list settings for receiving messages when unsubscribed. Thanks.
I am not sure if the bounce settings for the list were changed after 11/1. I don't suppose that logs reflect this. I will take it up with the customer. This seems to be the lone remaining question.
Thank you for the information, Mark.
On 12/01/2016 09:13 AM, Christopher Adams wrote:
I tracked one of the disabled addresses that was unsubscribed. It is the same for all that were unsubscribed.
bounce.log-20161101:Oct 31 16:16:36 2016 (32252) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com current bounce score: 2.0 bounce.log-20161107:Nov 06 15:21:38 2016 (24109) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com current bounce score: 3.0 bounce.log-20161107:Nov 06 15:21:38 2016 (24109) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com disabling due to bounce score 3.0 >= 3.0 bounce.log-20161112:Nov 11 15:56:41 2016 (11544) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com residual bounce received bounce.log-20161117:Nov 17 09:04:35 2016 (58403) Notifying disabled member recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com for list: oebbmembers bounce.log-20161123:Nov 22 10:11:14 2016 (60465) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com residual bounce received bounce.log-20161125:Nov 24 09:16:14 2016 (35874) Notifying disabled member recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com for list: oebbmembers bounce.log-20161125:Nov 24 09:16:14 2016 (35874) oebbmembers: recipient@wherever.com mailto:recipient@wherever.com deleted after exhausting notices
The cron/disabled ran every day during November at 9.
So, if those are the only bounce log entries for recipient@wherever.com, that member had delivery disabled by bounce on Nov 6 and was sent the first notice at that time. Then, I'm guessing, the delivery attempts on that message "timed out" after 5 days and the notice bounced on Nov 11. The second notice was sent on Nov 17 and that timed out and bounced on Nov 22. Then on Nov 24, the member was deleted after exhausting notices.
This can be explained if the list's bounce_you_are_disabled_warnings_interval was initially > 10 days and was subsequently reduced to 7 days. This would account for the second notice not being sent until Nov 17.
The only other possibility I can think of is cron/disabled encountered some error. One issue around this is that those errors are never seen because they are mailed by cron to the 'mailman' user, but the 'mailman' user address is the site list and if the site list is configured to discard or reject non-member posts, the error report is lost. There are two things here: the site admin.
- For various reasons, the site list should accept or at least hold (not reject or discard) non-member posts.
- Mailman's crontab should include a 'MAILTO=' to mail any output to
-- Mark Sapiro mark@msapiro.net The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
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