Sparkpost Service, Piece of Worthless Manure

[Rheddy]

Forgive the topic title (and ignore my current membergroup, I just renewed my license) but Sparkpost has turned into an unmitigated disaster for me. It took me about a month to figure out how to configure the service for my site and it worked fine for about six months. Then, all of a sudden, Sparkpost terminated my account for violating their service. The thing is, they never sent me an email indicating what I did to violate their service nor that my account was terminated. It was simply terminated with no warning and no message from their service that my account was terminated.

What I should mention is that I send out bulk mail messages once per month and I have about 1,100 messages that go out every month.

Then, I tried to set up the bulk mail without using Sparkpost or Mandrill and guess what? My webhost blacklisted my IP address for two hours because the internal bulk mail service sends out emails in one massive lot. Whatever happened to the default IPS bulk mail system sending messages where you could select how many bulk mail messages to send out per every hour? I know that this used to be a feature of that system.

Where it stands now, I have no method of sending any bulk mail messages to any of my members because there is no filter, even for the default forum bulk mail system. I'm not willing to switch to Mandrill because their system is even smaller than Sparkpost. I'm kind of stuck at this point and have no solution.

I'm hoping that someone or even IPS has a proper solution to this mess.

[Lindy]

That seems to be a common theme I'm afraid and we've received numerous complaints. In fact, one of our own company accounts was suspended - also without notification and warning. There was no reason provided and their compliance team, when contacted, asked for "list hygiene and sending best practices." Eventually, it was determined their automated system incorrectly caught the account and it was reactivated. 

When Mandrill announced discontinuation of service, we received many suggestions for Sparkpost and we obliged. This clearly isn't working out, however, so we are adding Sendgrid in 4.1.17. 

 

[LiquidFractal]

I will offer my two cents and say that in my opinion Sparkpost is terrible.

A while back I tried to configure my site to use it, ran into some difficulties and emailed them to ask for help.  I never heard back from them, and since using a mass mailing service isn't a big deal for me as my site is currently small I eventually got my SMTP details in order and email works fine.  Months later, a rep. emailed me and said "well we haven't heard back from you so we're going to terminate this request ticket" or something like that.

Sparkpost might even rival Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard for absolute worst customer service in history.

[Rheddy]

Thanks, Lindy. I thought maybe I was the only one. But, if I may suggest? Could IPS modify the default internal IPS bulk mail system so that administrators could dictate how many mail messages to send per hour? When Sparkpost failed on me (multiple times over two months, before I just found out that my account was terminated), I tried using the option "Do Not Use SparkPost", and the option defaults to the internal bulk mail system. However, what I discovered was that using that option sends all bulkmail messages all in one shot, overloading the resources of your webhost, which resulted in the IP address for my website becoming blacklisted by my webhost for about two hours.

Let's just say I panicked and my webhost ended up removing the blacklisted IP address. I know that before IPS switched us to Sparkpost, there used to be an option where we could select how many mail messages could be sent in an hour (which I always had it selected the system to send 15-20 per hour). However, for some reason, IPS removed that option for IPS4. It would be preferable if the "number of mail messages sent per hour" restriction could be placed back into the bulk mail system.

Even is Sparkpost fixes this problem, I'm sure that their system would keep flagging my Sparkpost account and it's a headache I don't need. But, it's a relief to know that IPS has been receiving complaints over Sparkpost and that IPS has also been on the receiving end of these account terminations.

[LiquidFractal]

1 minute ago, Morisato said:

there used to be an option where we could select how many mail messages could be sent in an hour (which I always had it selected the system to send 15-20 per hour). However, for some reason, IPS removed that option for IPS4. It would be preferable if the "number of mail messages sent per hour" restriction could be placed back into the bulk mail system.

+1

[Rheddy]

liquidfractal, that's all that I'm asking for. Just for the "bulk mail limiter" to be returned to the original internal bulk mail system. I've never been comfortable with Mandrill nor Sparkpost and they have been a disaster for me in trying to set up those services. I'm just not all that comfortable with external bulk mail services like Sparkpost.

[David..]

I had issues with SparkPost also so I just disabled it and started using local server to send emails and made sure all my emails are sent properly and comply with various sending rules. mail-tester.com

No issues so far since.

[The Old Man]

I've got to be honest, I use Sparkpost on my IPS communities and have never had a problem.  You have my full sympathy though.

[opentype]

6 hours ago, liquidfractal said:

I will offer my two cents and say that in my opinion Sparkpost is terrible.

A while back I tried to configure my site to use it, ran into some difficulties and emailed them to ask for help.  I never heard back from them, and since using a mass mailing service isn't a big deal for me as my site is currently small I eventually got my SMTP details in order and email works fine.  Months later, a rep. emailed me and said "well we haven't heard back from you so we're going to terminate this request ticket" or something like that.

Sparkpost might even rival Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard for absolute worst customer service in history.

This sounds to me that an email from the ticket system went out, but you never saw it (for whatever reason). And after a defined time, the ticket got closed – just as IPS does it with their support tickets. Unfortunate, but one lost email (without even knowing what caused it) certainly doesn’t justify the conclusion “worst customer service in history”. 

[The Old Man]

I've read negative comments about Sparkpost here before and have wondered in the past if it's a case of some people having problems highlighting them, whereas people who are using it fine don't create topics just to say so. You often read IPS saying the majority are fine with a particular aspect of IPS4 that on the forums appears to have been designed by Satan himself, and the minority take to the forums which doesn't reflect the full user base. 

If Sparkpost is so bad, why are so many major companies like a Twitter, PayPal and LinkedIn using it?

https://www.sparkpost.com/customers/

I'm not saying everything is rosey and that clearly sometimes things are going wrong for some of us, but I wonder how many people have no problems at all. Perhaps that's why Lindy mentioned adding Sendgrid but not that they removing Sparkpost.

[Kjell Iver Johansen]

I've had no problem with Sparkpost. I send about 4-5000 emails through their service each month. It's a free service after all..

I see that Sendgrid is not free - and that Mandrill actually is a cheaper solution than Sendgrid. I might be missing something.

[Rheddy]

TOM, obviously, IPS is receiving a lot of complaints over Sparkpost but while I think that third party bulk mail services need to be included with IPS, they also need to enhance or modify the internal bulk mail system in the IPS suite so that administrators can set how many messages can be mailed out per hour. This used to be an option before Sparkpost corrupted the IPS bulk mail system. What's also highlighted is that IPS has also ran into the problem of their own account being terminated with no followup from Sparkpost with the account-holder to fix the problem. The non-existant customer service with Sparkpost seems to be quite clear, form what Lindy has posted.

What I think should happen is that IPS return the bulk mail system default to the internal IPS bulk mail system and then allow administrators to switch to a third party system if they wish to enable it. Defaulting the bulk mail service to Sparkpost was a bad move to begin with but I'm kind of shocked that it hasn't been dealt with before now.

I just prefer to use the IPS default bulk mail system and that I don't want to mess around with worrying about a third party system that terminates your account on the first minor transgression. I fired off an email to Sparkpost about this problem that if Sparkpost is terminating accounts who use their bulk mail service just to drive up 'new premium account' acquisitions doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their company. After my experience with Sparkpost, I wouldn't recommend their service, even if someone paid me to. Mandrill is just as bad, allowing even fewer mail messages to be sent out.

I pretty much preferred IPS' bulk mail system and never used a third party system until it was forced upon us. The fact that when I used the internal bulk mail IPS system which resulted in my website IP address being blacklisted temporarily wasn't exactly a good thing either. When IPS was overhauling the bulk mail system tool, they forgot to include that 'bulk mail limiter' back into the system. The way it currently works, if you use the default IPS mail system tool, the system sends all mail messages in one batch, there is no option, currently, to limit how many messages get sent out per hour. I always had it set at 20 mail messages per month, to avoid any abuse of the system resources at my webhost. I've never ran into that problem until the switchover to IPS 4.x when that limiter was removed.

I'm referring to the feature as a limiter or message "filter" because I'm not sure how IPS refers to that mail message filter option. Most IPS license holders know what I'm talking about, I believe.

[opentype]

13 minutes ago, Morisato said:

What I think should happen is that IPS return the bulk mail system default to the internal IPS bulk mail system and then allow administrators to switch to a third party system if they wish to enable it. Defaulting the bulk mail service to Sparkpost was a bad move to begin with but I'm kind of shocked that it hasn't been dealt with before now.

…

I pretty much preferred IPS' bulk mail system and never used a third party system until it was forced upon us.

What? How was the system forced upon you? Of course the internal (PHP/SMTP) mailer is the default. It’s the only one that even works out-of-the-box. For Sparkpost you need to sign up an account and then enter the data in the ACP. No one is forcing you to do that. 

 

Quote

The fact that when I used the internal bulk mail IPS system which resulted in my website IP address being blacklisted temporarily wasn't exactly a good thing either. When IPS was overhauling the bulk mail system tool, they forgot to include that 'bulk mail limiter' back into the system. The way it currently works, if you use the default IPS mail system tool, the system sends all mail messages in one batch, there is no option, currently, to limit how many messages get sent out per hour. I always had it set at 20 mail messages per month, to avoid any abuse of the system resources at my webhost. I've never ran into that problem until the switchover to IPS 4.x when that limiter was removed.

You are mixing things up here. Blacklisting happens on the side of the receiver and connected services. Your host’s limits to send out mass mails through your mailbox is a completely different thing. 

[LiquidFractal]

12 hours ago, opentype said:

This sounds to me that an email from the ticket system went out, but you never saw it (for whatever reason). And after a defined time, the ticket got closed – just as IPS does it with their support tickets. Unfortunate, but one lost email (without even knowing what caused it) certainly doesn’t justify the conclusion “worst customer service in history”

But if it were actually closed, I see no reason why someone would contact me months later just to verify that it was...closed?  I don't pretend to know what happened, but the entire process smacked of "right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing" organization.

[LiquidFractal]

11 hours ago, The Old Man said:

If Sparkpost is so bad, why are so many major companies like a Twitter, PayPal and LinkedIn using it?

My assumption with 21st century companies and corporations is always that Big Names (who likely pay for additional support) are going to receive preference over the small fry who use their free services, and who will be the first to fall by the wayside if something happens.  Obviously this isn't the experience of everyone who uses their free services, but it was enough to send me off Sparkpost for good - especially since it was optional for me to begin with.

[Rheddy]

OpenType seems to be under a misconception. The default bulk mail tool seems to be Sparkpost. Looking at the bulkmail options, everything seems designed to force you to use Sparkpost. The problem I ran into when I opted to switch to the IPS bulk mail tool? It ended up forcing my webhost provider to actually ban the IP address they assigned to my website/account.

OpenType is talking about something he doesn't even know about. Sorry, but this isn't meant as an insult but to illustrate the problem. When I used the internal IPS bulk mail tool (NOT Sparkpost or Mandrill), the system sent all 1,200 mail messages at one shot. It caused a resource conflict with my webhost provider and my webhost ended up banning my website's IP address they assigned to me. Before you try to say something in conflict with what I just posted, my IP address was temporarily banned because they is no bulk mail limiter included in the bulk mail system since IPS 4 was released.

Prior to IPS4, when you used the bulk mail tool, IPS allowed you to set the range on how many mail messages to send per hour. The system would always recommended between 15-20 so you wouldn't hog the resources of your hosting provider. However, this bulk mail limit option was removed (for some odd reason) when they made the move to Sparkpost because they probably saw the internal bulk mail system to be a useless feature that was replaced by Sparkpost.

What those of us are saying is that we want the bulk mail limit option returned to the IPS bulk mail system (third party services only send out 15-20 messages per hour when you're configured for their services) but this feature IPS left out of its own feature. It's definitely not a good thing when using the IPS suite and your own hosting provider bans your IP address for your website.

IPS is now considering a new third party service but that isn't going to solve the current problem with the bulk mail tool. I don't know what it's referred to as, but I call the option the "IPS bulk mail limiter" because I don't know what everyone called it. I do know that it was originally removed by IPS when the switch to Sparkpost was made but I don't think IPS realized what kind of problems removing that option/limiter would create when it was removed.

[EmpireKicking]

he's my topic that I made

 

[Tracy Perry]

This is just one reason I prefer running my own MTA.  yes, it's a pain to maintain.  yes it's a pain keeping the reputation clean.  But I know that I have control over it.

Luckily I have the knowledge and the server horsepower needed to do this. I even - to select users - offer site branded email with a web interface.

[Charles]

3 hours ago, Morisato said:

OpenType seems to be under a misconception. The default bulk mail tool seems to be Sparkpost. Looking at the bulkmail options, everything seems designed to force you to use Sparkpost. The problem I ran into when I opted to switch to the IPS bulk mail tool? It ended up forcing my webhost provider to actually ban the IP address they assigned to my website/account.

OpenType is talking about something he doesn't even know about. Sorry, but this isn't meant as an insult but to illustrate the problem. When I used the internal IPS bulk mail tool (NOT Sparkpost or Mandrill), the system sent all 1,200 mail messages at one shot. It caused a resource conflict with my webhost provider and my webhost ended up banning my website's IP address they assigned to me. Before you try to say something in conflict with what I just posted, my IP address was temporarily banned because they is no bulk mail limiter included in the bulk mail system since IPS 4 was released.

Prior to IPS4, when you used the bulk mail tool, IPS allowed you to set the range on how many mail messages to send per hour. The system would always recommended between 15-20 so you wouldn't hog the resources of your hosting provider. However, this bulk mail limit option was removed (for some odd reason) when they made the move to Sparkpost because they probably saw the internal bulk mail system to be a useless feature that was replaced by Sparkpost.

What those of us are saying is that we want the bulk mail limit option returned to the IPS bulk mail system (third party services only send out 15-20 messages per hour when you're configured for their services) but this feature IPS left out of its own feature. It's definitely not a good thing when using the IPS suite and your own hosting provider bans your IP address for your website.

IPS is now considering a new third party service but that isn't going to solve the current problem with the bulk mail tool. I don't know what it's referred to as, but I call the option the "IPS bulk mail limiter" because I don't know what everyone called it. I do know that it was originally removed by IPS when the switch to Sparkpost was made but I don't think IPS realized what kind of problems removing that option/limiter would create when it was removed.

Actually opentype is correct

You are not required to use Sparkpost or Sendgrid (or any other third party services we may include in the future as alternatives). You can use regular PHP mail or an external SMTP provider.

If you are having specific issues with sending bulk mails please submit a ticket so we can understand your specific issues and address the problem.

Back to the original topic: yes, we have issues with Sparkpost too and are adding Sendgrid as another option and may add additional services in the future. Even without special integrations though you can always use SMTP directly.

[Saurabh Jain]

How about adding Amazon SES ?

[Rheddy]

Good grief. I received an email from Sparkpost that appears to be the same response they sent IPS regarding their account. That their automated service flags spammers and that my account was terminated accidentally and that they restored my account. But, I'm still not comfortable with a service that randomly terminates their customers with an automated service. I would expect that such services would have safeguards built in to stop this kind of action from happening.

[Charles]

1 hour ago, Saurabh Jain said:

How about adding Amazon SES ?

There is really nothing to "add" to use Amazon SES. Just put in the SMTP information they provide and it will work.

[Rheddy]

Lindy, thanks for the suggestion. I received a temporary solution to the problem behind the bulk mails per cycle issue.

I'm hoping that bulk mail option for the default mail tool will be returned but that Marc Stridgen responded to a request I made.

define( 'BULK_MAILS_PER_CYCLE', 100 );

Simply adding that line to the constants.php file would solve the bulk mail send restriction for the default internal bulk mail system tool. He said that you could adjust the number of the bulk mails per cycle to whatever number you needed. I'm hoping that the option to change how many emails are sent will be restored to the bulk mail system tool with upcoming releases. That way, administrators wouldn't have to worry about editing the root file on their server.

[LiquidFractal]

1 hour ago, Morisato said:

Lindy, thanks for the suggestion. I received a temporary solution to the problem behind the bulk mails per cycle issue.

I'm hoping that bulk mail option for the default mail tool will be returned but that Marc Stridgen responded to a request I made.

define( 'BULK_MAILS_PER_CYCLE', 100 );

Simply adding that line to the constants.php file would solve the bulk mail send restriction for the default internal bulk mail system tool. He said that you could adjust the number of the bulk mails per cycle to whatever number you needed. I'm hoping that the option to change how many emails are sent will be restored to the bulk mail system tool with upcoming releases. That way, administrators wouldn't have to worry about editing the root file on their server.

Morisato, I think I will find this useful as well.  But since I'm a n00b with this stuff could you kindly tell me how long a "cycle" is?  Is this 100 emails every hour?  Minute?

[The Old Man]

On 28 November 2016 at 2:38 AM, David.. said:

I had issues with SparkPost also so I just disabled it and started using local server to send emails and made sure all my emails are sent properly and comply with various sending rules. mail-tester.com

No issues so far since.

That's what Hillary said to the FBI! 

Too soon?

Sorry I love Hillary but couldn't resist!