Utilities: List Settings: Automatic Maintenance: Error Mail Handling

Lyris ListManager by default handles all error mail, including bounces. However, the error mail settings must be correct for your list in order for it to function properly.

By default, Lyris ListManager will try to send a message 3 times--one initial send, and two retries. If a mail server reports that an address is permanently non-deliverable, ListManager will only attempt to deliver to it once for that mailing. This kind of bounce is a hard bounce. A message that is undeliverable for other reasons (e.g., mailbox is full or mail server does not respond) is a soft bounce. If an address is undeliverable for the initial send and all the retries, it is considered to have bounced once.

Even if a mail server initially accepts the message and later determines that the user does not exist, Lyris ListManager will be able to record that address as having bounced. In this situation, the receiving mail server will reply to Lyris ListManager with error mail. This error mail will go to the bounce email address and will contain the user’s unique member ID number, so Lyris ListManager will be able to track it back to the particular address unable to accept mail.

Hold Users

This option determines whether members who bounce a great deal of mail have their membership automatically "held" by ListManager so it does not continue to send mail to them.

By default, this setting is set to Yes. It is recommended that you retain this setting so Lyris ListManager holds users who bounce email.

When people's email addresses go bad (for instance, they change to another Internet Service Provider), each email message sent to their old address bounces back to ListManager. By default, ListManager will analyze the bounces and determine who is causing them. If a member's email address appears to be invalid for several days in a row (based on your Bounce Reset and Bounce limit settings), ListManager automatically disables their membership so that ListManager no longer sends them mail.

In most situations, automatic holding of users is a desired feature. In some situations, such as with internal mailing lists, where email address problems can be temporary (or must be repaired by a email system administrator) you can disable this feature. ListManager will then never put a membership on "hold".

When a user is placed on hold, ListManager can send the user an email message indicating that this has occurred as well as a copy of the most recent error message ListManager received from this user. This notification message, if the user receives it, can be very helpful to the user in determining why their email was being rejected by their mail system, and allows them to "unhold" their membership.

Bounce Reset

Determines the number of days an address needs to be bounce-free in order to have its bounces reset to zero. What this number should be set to depends on how frequently you post. The Bounce Reset number should be greater than the interval of days between postings.

Lyris ListManager doesn’t simply limit users to an absolute number of bounces before putting them on hold. Often, there are transient problems sending to a particular email address that are soon resolved. If Lyris ListManager never reset the bounce count for an address, that address would be put on hold, even if the bounces occurred months, or even years, apart.

The default Bounce Reset setting for your list was determined by the frequency you selected when you created this list in Utilities: Administration: Lists: New List. You may want to change this number if you post infrequently to your mailing list, or if you have changed your posting frequency. For example, if initially thought you'd post twice a month, but you actually post once a month, you should change this setting to 35.

We recommend the following settings:

Bounce Limit

Determines how many messages a member can bounce before being put on hold. The lower the number, the more quickly bad email addresses will be set to hold—and the greater chance that someone with transient server problems will be inadvertently held.

ListManager counts one bounce per day, per member. As the person's bounce count is incremented, the "Bounce Days" setting determines the threshold at which the person is put on hold.

For a mailing list with daily postings, the number "5" means that the person will need to bounce five times before being put on hold. The Bounce Reset setting means that if the person does not bounce for 5 days in a row, they will be reset back to 0 bounces.

The default Bounce Limit setting for your list was determined by the frequency and type of list you selected when you created this list in Utilities: Administration: Lists: New List. You may want to change this number if you'd like to be more conservative or aggressive about getting rid of bad email addresses.

If you want your members to be placed on hold immediately if they bounce any messages at all, you can set this number to 1. Setting Bounce Limit to 1 is strongly recommended if you are using old data with many bad email addresses.

  We recommend the following settings:

Redirect All Bounces to Email Address

If blank, ListManager handles all bounced mail for you. If you don't want ListManager to handle your bounce mail, specify an email address to where all error mail should go.

This option is provided for advanced users, and it should be left blank unless you are prepared to handle the bounce mail at another address.

Any email address you specify here will replace the Mail From: header in your outgoing mail message. Normally, the mail transaction Mail From: address is the error handler of the server, and error mail is defined by Internet standards as going to this address.

If you change this setting ListManager will no longer receive error mail and will no longer be able to automatically process bounces, error messages, bad deliveries, etc.

It is STRONGLY recommended that you do not modify this setting.

Notifying Users of Their Held Status

When a member bounces too much email, their status can be changed to "held". That means their email address has been declared as "invalid" or "inoperational" and they no longer receive list postings.

ListManager has the capability to send a notification message to people on hold, to tell them about their status and give them the option of un-holding themselves. A member can unhold themselves by sending email to "unhold@…" at your ListManager.

If you choose to "never notify" the member will receive no notification, ever. Thus, they will not have a real opportunity to "unhold" their membership.

Although it is possible to inform users that their membership is on hold because of bounces, it is not recommended; since the address is bouncing mail, a hold notification would likely bounce as well. Notifying users of their held status can greatly slow down the performance of your ListManager server.

Notify How Often

This setting determines the frequency at which ListManager notifies held members. You can choose to never notify held members, notify them every night, every few days or whatever interval you choose.

By default, your list is set to not notify held members.

Notify for How Many Days

This setting determines for how many days a member who has been placed on hold should receive a notification message. This setting does not directly correlate with how many notifications the member will get; it only means that the member will receive notifications for a specific duration.

By default, your list is set to never notify held members.

Thus, you can determine how many notifications someone will get if you divide the Notify for How Many Days value by the Notify How Often value, and drop the remainder. For example, if your "Held Notify Days" is set to 11 and your "Held Notify Interval" is set to two, you would divide 11 by two, and drop the remainder. These settings result in five notifications.

More

1.   Utilities: List Settings: Automatic Maintenance

1.   Utilities: List Settings: Automatic Maintenance: Error Mail Handling

2.   Utilities: List Settings: Automatic Maintenance: Purging Inactive Members

3.   Utilities: List Settings: Automatic Maintenance: Purging Archives