Problems using ar_mailer (mass mailing in rails)

As luck would have it, I just got done implementing ar_mailer functionality into an app I'm working on.

Your problem is that ar_mailer, by default, uses the Email class to interact with the email table it creates to store emails. So it's trying to use your Email < ActionMailer::ARMailer class to interact with the database and it's trying to call methods that are defined in ActiveRecord::Base.

It's a simple fix really. The easiest thing to do is just let ar_mailer work the way it wants to and rename your classes. You first should have a basic ActiveRecord class named email to interact with the email database table.

like so:

class Email < ActiveRecord::Base
 # no need for any methods in here
 # this is just the model to interact with the emails table
 # and it gets all the methods it needs via ActiveRecord::Base
end

and then you'd create a separate model that inherit from ActionMailer::ARMailer (named something other than Email) with your email methods like so:

class NewsletterSender < ActionMailer::ARMailer
  def newsletter(mail_info)
    # Email header info MUST be added here
    @recipients = "xxx@gmail.com"
    @from = mail_info["to_address"]
    @subject = "Newsletter"
    @headers["reply-to"] = "xxx@yy.com"
    content_type "text/html"
    # Email body substitutions go here
    @body["mail_info"] = mail_info
  end
end

hope that makes sense.

.phil.

I just realized I posted a reply in my original thread instead of this one. So here's what I wrote over there.

-------

Well, I haven't tried it myself, but in theory I think it should be possible.

Glancing at the ar_mailer documentation (http://seattlerb.rubyforge.org/ar_mailer/), the ActionMailer::ARSendmail class exposes a public instance method named deliver which accepts a collection of email objects as it's only argument and then sends those emails using the SMTP settings you've set in your environment file. Basically, when you run the ar_sendmail command (either from cron or the command line or whatever) it I'm pretty sure it eventually calls the deliver method to do its dirty work.

So, you could have a callback (i.e. after_create) that would call the deliver method manually only on the emails you want to send immediately. Make sense? Be sure to send a collection of emails (even if the collection is only one email long) to the method, because that's what it expects -- it uses methods like Array#shift which will throw an error if called on something other than some sort of collection.

Anyway, I haven't actually tried this, I'm just theorizing here, so your mileage may vary. Let me know what you figure out, and if I get some free time I may dig a bit deeper and test what I've just suggested to you. Also, check out the documentation to see if it's of any help.

Okay, here's the deal. I got to thinking about this, and there's very little reason to even use ar_mailer the times you don't want to. You should just fall back on ActionMailer to do it for you.

Here's what I mean.

ar_mailer saves messages to the database when you call, for instance, MyMailer.deliver_xxx. The only reason ar_mailer takes control is because your server settings tell it to when you set ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :activerecord. So, all you have to do to send email without saving it to the database first is temporarily change the delivery method.

# grab what the delivery_method is currently set to so you can change
# it back when your done and not ruffle any feathers
original_method = ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method
# set the delivery_method to :smtp or whatever other option you want to use
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
# deliver that message of yours
NewsletterSender.deliver_my_message
# and put everything back like you found it so no one gets mad
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = original_method

That ought to work just fine, but I do wonder how brittle it would be...

The other option is to go about it similarly to how I first suggested. You would first have to create a collection of emails and then send that to the deliver method of ARSendmail. Try this:

class NewsletterSender < ActionMailer::ARMailer
  def newsletter(mail_info)
     # Email header info MUST be added here
     @recipients = "xxx@gmail.com"
     @from = mail_info["to_address"]
     @subject = "Newsletter"
     @headers["reply-to"] = "xxx@yy.com"
     content_type "text/html"
  
     # Email body substitutions go here
     @body["mail_info"] = mail_info
   end
  def self.get_some_emails(mail)
    emails =[]
    mail.destinations.each do |destination|
      emails << @@email_class.new( :mail => mail.encoded, :to => destination,
                           :from => mail.from.first )
      end
    return emails
  end

Okay, that get_some_emails method is just a tiny variation on the ARMailer#perform_delivery_activerecord method, so it uses the @@email_class variable defined in ARMailer, so this method should be in your class that inherits from ActionMailer::ARMailer to have access to that variable. Anyway, here's how you would send an email immediately, skipping the database.

# compile your TMail objects
tmails = NewsletterSender.create_newsletter
# this will return an array of Email objects which can
# then be sent to the ARSendmail deliver method
emails = NewsletterSender.get_some_emails
# deliver those puppies
# note that deliver is an instance method so we must first
# instantiante an ARMailer object and then we can call deliver on it
ActionMailer::ARMailer.new.deliver(emails)

a lot of typing there, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a typo in there somewhere, but I think you get the idea. Let me know if that helps.

Hi every body,

I'm trying to user ar_mailer with gmail, I have followed the  instructions given in this posts  and got the following error :

Unhandled exception 530 5.7.0 Must issue a STARTTLS command first a2sm2577290pyi
(Net::SMTPAuthenticationError):
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:577:in `auth_plain'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:571:in `__send__'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:571:in `authenticate'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:411:in `do_start'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/smtp_tls.rb:29:in `send'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/smtp_tls.rb:29:in `start'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/smtp_tls.rb:19:in `start'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/action_mailer/ar_sendmail.rb:362:in `deliver'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/action_mailer/ar_sendmail.rb:443:in `run'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/action_mailer/ar_sendmail.rb:440:in `loop'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/action_mailer/ar_sendmail.rb:440:in `run'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/lib/action_mailer/ar_sendmail.rb:311:in `run'
        c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ar_mailer-1.2.0/bin/ar_sendmail:5
        c:/ruby/bin/ar_sendmail:18:in `load'
        c:/ruby/bin/ar_sendmail:18

To sum up here's what I have done :

* install ar_mailer 1.2

* create a model :

class Email < ActiveRecord::Base 
end

* create a mail notifier :

class UserNotifier < ActionMailer::ARMailer
  def send_to_friends(user, name, recipient, message)
    @recipients  = "#{recipient}" 
    @from        = "#{user.email}" 
    @sent_on     = Time.now
    @body[:url] = "http://#{SITE_URL}" 
    @body[:recipient] = "#{recipient}" 
    @body[:user] = user
    @body[:message] = "#{message}"
    @body[:name] = "#{name}"
  end
end

* in environment.rb :

require 'action_mailer/ar_mailer'

* in config/environments/development.rb :

require "smtp_tls"
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
    :address => "smtp.gmail.com",
    :port => 587,
    :authentication => :plain,
    :domain => "xxx.com",
    :user_name => "xxx@gmail.com",
    :password => 'xxx'
} 
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :activerecord

* add a template :

Hi <%= @recipient %> !
<% if !@message.nil? or @message.blank? -%>
<% if !@name.nil?  -%>
  <% @sender = "#{@name}(#{@user[:email]})"-%>
<% else -%> 
<% @sender = "#{@user[:login]}(#{@user[:email]})"-%> 
<% end-%>   
<%= @sender-%> have send you the following message : 
"<%= @message-%>"
<% end -%>

* and finally call the send method in one  of my controllers:

 
UserNotifier.deliver_send_to_friends(current_user, params[:mail][:name], recipient, params[:mail][:message])

peburrows do you have any idea what's wrong ?

Tnaks so much in advance.

Addam

PS : I have also modified the file /lib/smtp_tls.rb such as indicated in http://blog.pomozov.info/posts/how-to-s … ilcom.html and works great without ar_mailer

Last edited by addam (2007-06-23 01:05:21)

I was having this exact problem and this solution worked great, it's now saving emails. One thing though where do I trap errors for empty email fields from a form?

Last edited by cherring (2007-12-11 00:01:08)