PHPList Bounce Rules?

Question

I'm trying to get PHPList 3.3.1 to process email bounces and to "unconfirm" or delete users based on email bounces to them. I have the following settings in my PHPList config file:

define ("MANUALLY_PROCESS_BOUNCES",1);
define('USE_ADVANCED_BOUNCEHANDLING',0);
$bounce_unsubscribe_threshold = 2;

I have "Processed Bounces" and PHPList dutifully reads the bounced emails, adds them to the database, and deletes the emails.

However, it doesn't seem to mark users as unsubscribed, even after 2 bounces.

Do I need to add advanced bounce rules? If so, can you provide me with a good basic list of rules to use?

I did try the "Generate Bounce Rules" option and it created 1100 rules (yes, one thousand one hundred rules) - yikes! Seems like there should be something like 5 or 10 rules that would cover most bounces.

Little help?

Answer 1

This is still a relatively undocumented part of phplist. We have a sophisticated list of regex expressions we use but currently not public.

I suggest you start here: PHPList Bounce Rules? to find expressions to track the kind of phrases you want to capture and also the doc itself includes some starting rules: https://www.phplist.org/manual/ch040_bounce-management.xhtml

What is not so documented, or I haven't found at least, is the differences between some of the actions you have available but with a bit of work and time you can fine tune based on your traffic and more important... your customers MTAs.

Further to this questions I started a thread on PHPlists forum than might be of help: https://discuss.phplist.org/t/please-help-clarifying-advance-bounce-processing/4077/4

Answer 2

if you're still having difficulty with the rules. Be sure they are ACTIVE and not in the CANDIDATE section. Sometimes, with so many created rules the system won't let you just tag them all and change to ACTIVE as it freezes. You can always go to your phplist database and use the following:

UPDATE `TABLEPREFIX_bounceregex` SET `status` = 'active'

Where TABLEPREFIX should be the same as yours. Hope it helps so many years later.

Consider, as well, installing the Housekeeping plugin » https://resources.phplist.com/plugin/housekeeping