Limit on Emails

What is Dreamhost thinking on blocking email being sent from your website?

I was sent a message yesterday saying all email is disable from being sent from my site as I have violated a rule of sending no more than 200 emails per hour.

So no wonder they can offer all this extra space and bandwidth. How can one run and grow a site when it can't even send out email?

I've submitted a support ticket, however, its been over 24 hours and still no reply or help. All email still being blocked. Sales lost. No way to email my client base. Etc... Etc.. Etc..

In most cases, someone sending more than 200 emails per hour is spamming. If you are operating some sort of mailing list, I recommend that you send emails out in batches of 200 each hour. Once you've got it set up, update your support ticket to let the DreamHost team know you have sorted out the problem.

If you are spamming, I recommend you walk into the path of an 18-wheeler.

I agree about the email limitations. I run a forum of over 1400 members and there are times I need to blast out a message to them... that would take 7 hours to do!!!

I'm not pleased with the email limitations either.


-Steve

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I agree about the email limitations. I run a forum of over 1400 members and there are times I need to blast out a message to them... that would take 7 hours to do!

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I can't think of any specific reason why this might be necessary, unless there was some calamity (meltdown, earthquake, eruption, etc.). If you really need things to be quicker, I would recommend seeking an alternative solution, like an announcement list, for example.

With the amount of database problems on dream host this past week alone, it would have been nice to be able to notify my users of the major issues the site was having. Besides this, just general newsletters to my users, etc. The functions are built into my forum software for a reason, but I can not use them, and that's annoying.

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With the amount of database problems on dream host this past week alone, it would have been nice to be able to notify my users of the major issues the site was having. Besides this, just general newsletters to my users, etc. The functions are built into my forum software for a reason, but I can not use them, and that's annoying.

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I haven't experienced any database problems on any of my sites, so I imagine the problems were isolated. You should contact the creators of your forum software. Having some sort of "email everyone" option without being able to control the flow of outgoing email is a bit silly really.

Simon,

I believe Dreamhost is the one stepping out in front of an 18-Wheeler here.

Completely disabling the ability to send out email without notice is no way to treat a customer. Right now my site is useless because of this.

It isn't like I am sending out 200 emails each hour every hour. I send one mailing of about 1,000 emails once per month. Otherwise, confirmation notices and such are sent at a rate of maybe 5 emails per hour. Now everything is blocked going on 48 hours without help from Dreamhost. I don't see how this can be justified.

-Garrett

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Completely disabling the ability to send out email without notice is no way to treat a customer.

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If you are in violation of the agreement you made with DreamHost, they reserve the right to act accordingly.

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I don't see how this can be justified.

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This is a shared hosting environment. If DreamHost's mail servers get flagged as being the source of spam (and heavy volume email can do this), the result is that we all get our email blocked until DreamHost can resolve the issue. The 200-per-hour limit is there to protect everyone in the shared environment.

Sending out 1000 emails to warn people of database problems is a strange thing to do anyway. Your mailer has to access the buggered database to get the list of addresses, thus adding to the problem. It would be far better to have some sort of "status" area on your site.

Another way of doing it is this. Have your forum software send the warning email one by one as a user attempts to access the forum. That way, users who are not accessing it don't get a pointless email about it.

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If you are in violation of the agreement you made with DreamHost, they reserve the right to act accordingly.

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True. However, DH has been limiting emails blasts to 200 on all accounts over the past few months. Even accounts which did not have this limit in the agreement. Contacting support can result in them upping it to 1000 (if your account is older than that policy change.)

That said, my original agreement does not even have a 1000 limit cap, or a notice that the agreement can be changed without notice.

> In most cases, someone sending more than 200 emails per hour is spamming.

What an utterly absurd assertion.

Even if it were true, where's the justification in disabling someones site email for exceeding an UNDECLARED limit?

You're not alone...I had my email services shut down with the same warning today and I've never used any domain-based email accounts ever. Something seems to be wrong here.

> If DreamHost's mail servers get flagged as being the source of
> spam (and heavy volume email can do this)

Again, nonsense.

> The 200-per-hour limit is there to protect everyone in the shared environment.

If it really was just a limit, and DH throttled the flow accordingly, then it might be tolerable. But it is not. It triggers a total shut-down of site's outgoing email, for goodness knows how long.

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> If DreamHost's mail servers get flagged as being the source of spam (and heavy volume email can do this)

Again, nonsense.

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It isn't nonsense. It has happened on several occasions. We have all found ourselves on somebody's blacklist because one of us has either spammed, or allowed their account to be compromised. Some poor blacklist agencies will put a mail server on one of their lists simply because of heavy volume.

There has been a recent upsurge in the number of customers who have had their accounts compromised, so it seems only sensible to set some sort of limit. Now, that limit may have been set too low (I think so, anyway), but it still seems sensible to have some kind of limit.

>>>DreamHost's mail servers get flagged as being the source of spam
>>>(and heavy volume email can do this)

>...has happened on several occasions. We have all found ourselves on
> somebody's blacklist because one of us has either spammed,
> or allowed their account to be compromised.

No bait and switch, please.

> Some poor blacklist agencies will put a mail server on one of
> their lists simply because of heavy volume.

And idiot can brand DH a source of spam just because they don't like the DH logo.

> There has been a recent upsurge in the number of customers
> who have had their accounts compromised

Again I see no evidence of that.

>, so it seems only sensible to set some sort of limit.

Not one that causes totaly disablement of outgoing mail. And not one that is undeclared.

We have all accepted, and paid the declared price of, DH terms and conditions to keep our service free of the collateral damage of spammers. We should not have to pay again because DH are branding legit volume email users "spammer".