Thread

Hi All,
I’ve just attempted to send an email to the Members group using the Communicate tab and received the following error:
‘’‘’‘’
MySQL ERROR:
Error Number: 1153
Description: Got a packet bigger than ‘max_allowed_packet’ bytes
‘’‘’‘’‘’‘’‘

The site now has more than 60,000 ( sixty thousand ) members. I received a couple of the emails as I’ve got a couple of dummy accounts set up on the system however the Communicate tab is not showing the email having been sent (ie its not listed in the Previously Sent Email list).

Anyone seen this error before?

I should also say that I’ve set up the system (Admin>Sys Pref>Email Config> ) to “Use Batch Mode” and send 100 emails Per Batch. The emai protocal is PHP Mail

Thankyou,

EE 1.6.8 Build:  20090915

Hi, C Campbell. Did you see this thread: http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/173041/

It describes a similar issue, and how to fix it. Does that help?

Thanks Sue. I did see that thread but failed to read it fully :( sorry! I’ve contacted the hosting company I( they dont allow shell access) and asked the appropriate questions. I’ll let you know how I got on. Some of the emails definetly went out from the Communicate tab but I have no way of knowing how many?? Thanks again.

Hi, my host tells me that I can alter the max_allowed_packet size by adding a php.ini file to my site. I’m assuming I add a directive to this as yet empty php.ini file along the lines of:

max_allowed_packet = 32M

When I upload this to the site root and then phpinfo() it does look like the new ini file is loaded (shown next to “Loaded Configuration File”). It looks as though this new ini file replaces the default one, in that it is not loaded in addition to the default php.ini file. 

The hosting company said the custom php.ini file should be “located alongside the execution path of the affected script”. Anyone know if it should be in the Root of the site or some other location deeper into the EE install?

Thanks again for your help.

My usual sites are in ASP/MSSQL Server hence the lack of knowledge…Feel like a bit of a newb!

:red:

C Campbell,

you will probably need to confirm with your hosting company to be sure again but try putting it inside your system folder

Hi Thanks for your reply.
This is just a progress update on my issue -

If I SQL the DB via phpMyAdmin and run the following:
SHOW VARIABLES LIKE ‘max_allowed_packet’ I get a vlaue of 4194304(bytes) (4MB)

If I try to change the value by running SQL (phpMyAdmin):
[SET GLOBAL max_allowed_packet=16*1024*1024,] ie set the value to 16MB I receive the following :
“#1227 - Access denied; you need the SUPER privilege for this operation”
This I presume is due to shared hosting environment etc.

I have again contacted the host for further guidance.

thanks again

C Campbell,

Thanks for the update. Hopefully you have not run into a limitation of your hosting and they can shed more light on it.

Hi, thought I might update this thread and say that I gave up attempting to sort this out with the host in the end. We now use a well known third party system to handle our mail campaigns with an ee extension pushing member data into the external system. Bit of a cop out I know… 😉

Glad to hear you got it sorted out, even if it wasn’t through the originally intended method. Let us know if we can be of more help, C Campbell.