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I'm not sure the part about not being able to find the SMTP server is correct, but the part about php.ini is. In php.ini the timeout setting by default is only 30 seconds. That is not nearly enough time to send email to my 600 users, much less 12,000.
The problem is that the script that does the looping to send email to all the selected users does so in a single execution of the script. If it's not done in 30 seconds (or whatever your php.ini says) it fails. Even worse, you won't know who actually got the email and who didn't.
Another problem: If you use shared/virtual hosting for your website (most do) you'll have a hard time convincing the system admin to change the default timeout period to much more than 30 seconds. The reason is because the php.ini applies to ALL the hosted accounts, not just yours. A few runaway scrips would cripple their server.
The only solution is to rewrite Xoops' email script, so that it sends a few emails and then calls itself, looping until all emails have been sent. Each time it calls itself it sends a few more emails, with a new 30 second timeout period within which to do so. Somehow it would have to keep track of who has already received the email and who has not.
Unless there is an existing solution I'm going to have to do this for my own websites. Has anyone else discovered a solution to this timeout issue?
-SuperGeek