Amazon SES Bounces Support 2021-03-19

[snoopy5]

There is no branding whatsoever in emails. I would not use it if there was. I did edit the email components according to my liking.

That is good to know. And you use DragonByte Mail addon in combination with Amazon SES and everything is working fine?

Does it differentiate between hard bounces and softbounces of Amazon SES?

 

[Alpha1]

Yes, it works fine with amazon SES SNS topics. Hard and soft bounces are differentiated. Complaints are handled as hard bounces.

 

[snoopy5]

We've been using this addon with SES. We're looking at upgrading to XF 2.3 but seems this addon isn't supported/updated.

I tried it now with one of my forums. It was an old XF 2.2.15 forum with this Amazon SES addon already installed. I upgraded from 2.2.15 to 2.3.7.

So far the emails get through. No errors.

I then tried to register a new user with a fake gmail account. The addon delivered a hard bounce within seconds as expected.

This free addon seems to work also with Xenforo 2.3.7

I can not tell you how it is with a fresh Xenforo installation. Maybe it would be smart to install first a Xenforo 2.2.x version, install this addon and then do an upgrade to XF 2.3.7 afterwards?

The PDF-manual I have written for this addon years ago, you will find in this thread on page 6. Download the latest one (22.6.2023, 8 am).

 

[snoopy5]

Yes, it works fine with amazon SES SNS topics. Hard and soft bounces are differentiated. Complaints are handled as hard bounces.

That is good to know. I will watch my upgraded 2.3.7 forum with this SES addon for a few days first and then I will decide whether I need to switch to dragonbyte mail.

 

[Alpha1]

Its much more than AWS SES alone. A major one for me is:
The email validation services in DBT Mail are very useful and will drastically lower bounce rate.

 

[snoopy5]

Do you have that many false registrations?

My main problems are rather full mailboxes and invalid emails after a few years - even while the same users are active in the forum on a daily basis.

It is also a question of costs. With around 40 different forums, the solution of DragonByte mail is a costly element for me.

If I go that route longterm, it has to create additional value vs. this free addon.

Since several years I asked for throtteling as a new feature for DB Mail. Many people asked for it at Xenforo. But no progress in this direction. THAT would be an important feature for my use cases.

I can not see what kind of important features have been added over the last 3 years which would save me money, time or make daily task easier for me to keep my old users in the forum. If you pay almost 40 USD each year for this addon, I would expect more innovation and more open mind for user's suggestions.

History has shown that DB Mail is what it is and you can not expect that within the next 3 years important features for my use cases will be added. So why should I spend my money there?

There are other email options like Sendy or Andy's addons or phplist etc., which I could check again too.

I do not say that I will never give DB Mail a try again, but my past experience does not motivate me to try it out asap, if I am not forced to do it right now

Maybe new developers see this as an opportunity to offer better Newsletter addons at a reasonable price with a roadmap for features over the next 12 months. Or an app for Xenforo.... who knows...

 

[Alpha1]

My main problems are rather full mailboxes and invalid emails after a few years - even while the same users are active in the forum on a daily basis.

I think you may misunderstand what email validation is. Its exactly for invalid mailboxes and similar bounces.

Thread 'Anyone have an easy way to sync invalid emails back from one of the mail checkers?'

Jun 2, 2025

I'm trying to clean my email list and then sync the status of bounced users back into xf. Is there an easy way to do that?

• fly
• Replies: 26
• Forum: Server configuration and hosting

AWS has reputation limits. If you breach them your account will be frozen. If you have a large old userbase then sending to old accounts is risky as you can easily hit those limits. By clearing your userbase (by email validation/verification) you are able to send to more users without hitting those limits.

 

[snoopy5]

Then this was a misunderstanding. I verified my old email addresses already years ago, when I started with Amazon SES.

Since then I have no problems with Amazon SES. Everything works fine including soft and hard bounces within XF, thanks to this SES addon. I do not see an added value of DB Mail regarding this point for me.

If this addon works with XF 2.3 longterm, I do not see what DB Mail offers me on top, which would be worth 40 US per year per forum.

I still have to send out over Amazon SES with DB Mail. So what is the advantage?

I use the Xenforo template, I have a header logo in my Emails and all unsubscribe links at the right place within the email.

If you look at phpList.org, there you can get really good ideas for valuable features!

 

[Alpha1]

PHPList... Now that's a blast from the past. I used this with vbulletin 3. They were slow with implementing suggestions back then.

But yeah, DBT Mail is not CRM nor a newsletter builder. That could be added to it by custom development. It does have list management, digests, inactivity mails.

 

[Mouth]

Since then I have no problems with Amazon SES. Everything works fine including soft and hard bounces within XF, thanks to this SES addon. I do not see an added value of DB Mail regarding this point for me.

I don't use any SES or related add-ons, and have had no problem with SES sending or XF processing bounces for years.

 

[snoopy5]

I don't use any SES or related add-ons, and have had no problem with SES sending or XF processing bounces for years.

View attachment 329750

How do you send the emails out? from which interface? Or do you use db mail?

 

[rdn]

How do you send the emails out?

Maybe he just uses the built-in Xenforo bounce handling, just like me.

 

[snoopy5]

Maybe he just uses the built-in Xenforo bounce handling, just like me.

View attachment 329768

The XF bounce system does not work out of the box with Amazon SES. That is the reason why JulianD developed this addon.

Did something change in XF 2.3 in this regard?

If you did not change anything in XF ACP for SES, you will only see the bounces of emails that were sent from your server, not from Amazon SES.

 

[rdn]

It works fine for me, though.

 

[snoopy5]

It works fine for me, though.

What do you mean exactly? What works? I have the feeling we are talking about two different things.

Do you use the normal email feature of Xenforo out of the box with no transfer through Amazon SES ?

 

[DragonByte Tech]

@ mods; if this post is not allowed, please feel free to remove it

It is also a question of costs. With around 40 different forums, the solution of DragonByte mail is a costly element for me.

With that level of volume I'd be happy to work with you to ensure you wouldn't need to renew 40 licenses every year

If I go that route longterm, it has to create additional value vs. this free addon.

Mail is the next addon on my list to review all existing feature requests, and I know @Alpha1 has logged a fair number of them that interface with AWS - I'm hoping they are possible without having to setup complicated developer credentials on Amazon's end

Since several years I asked for throtteling as a new feature for DB Mail. Many people asked for it at Xenforo. But no progress in this direction. THAT would be an important feature for my use cases.

Throttling is a feature just now, but it's on my list to improve (the suggestion @ my site will be flagged as Approved as soon as I start going through all the old suggestions) and will be updated in the next version

I can not see what kind of important features have been added over the last 3 years which would save me money, time or make daily task easier for me to keep my old users in the forum. If you pay almost 40 USD each year for this addon, I would expect more innovation and more open mind for user's suggestions.

What's an important feature varies from person to person of course, but I hear you. I am committed to eventually reviewing all suggestions made for all my XenForo addons, it will just take some time. DB Mail is, as mentioned previously, next now that Donate has been updated.

History has shown that DB Mail is what it is and you can not expect that within the next 3 years important features for my use cases will be added. So why should I spend my money there?

You could say that for any other addon to be fair, and I think history will also show that I have kept the addon up-to-date with both bug fixes and updates for new XenForo versions.

Then this was a misunderstanding. I verified my old email addresses already years ago, when I started with Amazon SES.

Since then I have no problems with Amazon SES. Everything works fine including soft and hard bounces within XF, thanks to this SES addon. I do not see an added value of DB Mail regarding this point for me.

Amazon recommend you re-verify emails every 6 months. DB Mail will keep track of the last time an email account is verified since install. Recently I've added support for multiple 3rd party verification tools (since the old, free, "SMTP connection on port 25" trick is blocked now) and also made it so whenever the forum sends an email to a user, their last validation date is also updated such that your validation costs are kept low.

If you never send out mass emails to your entire user base (minus banned accounts etc) then this might not have much value to you, but it can be quite important should your server ever suffer a security breach and you need to email people a new password (or at least a notice to change it). Ask me how I know (it was CyberPanel).

If this addon works with XF 2.3 longterm, I do not see what DB Mail offers me on top, which would be worth 40 US per year per forum.

I know this is semantics but renewals are not subject to the full cost. For DB Mail specifically, the renewal cost is fixed at €27.45 at the time of writing

I still have to send out over Amazon SES with DB Mail. So what is the advantage?

I would say if you have no need for sending limitations (e.g. X mails per hour - a feature that will be improved in the next version to allow for more fine grained control) and you have no need for newsletters that users specifically subscribe to or digests that are automatically generated based on your forum's popular content, then the main benefit would be the ability to re-validate your existing user base.

While re-validation can get costly, especially with the number of forums you own, it can potentially be worth it to avoid a situation where you have to explain to Amazon why you sent 20k emails and 4000 of them bounced. From personal experience their support staff have been helpful and understanding, and I've actually been given three or four chances - I don't know if I would risk it a fifth time I have also read anecdotes @ this site of users who have been hit once and never got their account unblocked.

Amazon support staff very explicitly said that SES is not a mailing list validation service and without any kind of tracking for when the last time you emailed a given user, you really have no way of knowing whether that email address is still "good".

 

[snoopy5]

The throtteling feature would enable you to sell significantly more licences to small forum owners, who all use shared servers. This is a huge market.

To get an overview, what kind of different throtteling features could be useful, see the open source phplist.org newsletter.

I know that one feels like 200 years old, but you can make individual filters and combine them, it is unbelievable. Not just time intervals and quantity, also by domainname/mail hoster etc.

IMHO that is the future for mailinglists, because the Email providers with their filter algorithms will make our life harder every year.

As long as there is no xenforo app, which would eliminate the gatekeeper of the Email providers, this flexibility is really needed for all of us to get users back and keep them active.

 

[Alpha1]

I plan to file some new suggestions for newsletter content. IMHO DBT mail offers great infrastructure to email our members, but the tools to create newsletters (Email content and layout itself), take advantage of various mailing opportunities, as well as enhance Activity Summary / Digests, leaves room for useful and very welcome enhancement.

 

[Mouth]

How do you send the emails out? from which interface? Or do you use db mail?

No add-on, just base XF SMTP functionality at /admin.php?options/groups/emailOptions/

The XF bounce system does not work out of the box with Amazon SES. That is the reason why JulianD developed this addon.

Did something change in XF 2.3 in this regard?

If you did not change anything in XF ACP for SES, you will only see the bounces of emails that were sent from your server, not from Amazon SES.

Incorrect, I've been using SES with XF for many years, even prior xf2 and it works fine with base XF functionality, again with base bounces email address at /admin.php?options/groups/emailOptions/

 

[snoopy5]

Incorrect, I've been using SES with XF for many years, even prior xf2 and it works fine with base XF functionality, again with base bounces email address at /admin.php?options/groups/emailOptions/

Base bounces is not enough. Without this SES addon complaints are not automatically processed.

You do not want to get blocked by Amazon just because you did not cover all kinds of negative responses to your bulk emails

See page 1 & 2 of this thread