phplist 3.2.6 – 4X send speed increase on Amazon SES, list preferences retained after unsubscription and accessibility overview

ARCHIVE

This release contains security fixes – you should upgrade as soon as possible

4X Send speed increase with Amazon SES API

Delivering campaigns using the Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) API as a sending backend for phpList is now much faster. API connections are now used for multiple messages (instead of one message per connection), increasing the number of messages that can be sent through the API at one time. This results in up to four times faster send speeds for Amazon SES users. Thanks to Duncanc for contributing this performance improvement, and to Dan Waterloo for reporting the issue. See the issue.

List preferences retained after unsubscription

When a subscriber unsubscribes from your lists, their list preferences, as they were at the point of unsubscription, will be maintained in their subscriber profile. This will allow greater analysis of which lists have a greater unsubscribe rate, for example.

Additionally, if the subscriber re-joins your lists in the future, their original preferences will be maintained for them, including any private lists you had included them in. This means that sending based around their specific profile can resume seamlessly. Thanks to nychris for this suggestion. See the issue.

list-prefs

Improved MySQL compatibility, statistics, and embargoes

The default settings of the MySQL Database server (Community Edition) changed significantly in its most recent major release, version 5.7. Specifically, the following modes became incompatible with some phpList queries: ‘ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY’ and ‘STRICT_TRANS_TABLES’. All queries known to be incompatible with these modes have been updated.

These changes have the additional benefits of improving the accuracy of statistics on the ‘User Clicks’ page, fixing one issue causing inaccurate email embargo times, and another issue experienced by some users when connecting to recently updated MySQL databases. Thanks to Duncanc for submitting these improvements. See issues one and two.

Accessibility overview

We have conducted an overview of phpList to make sure the software is compliant with Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology by The United States Access Board.

In this release we have made an improvement to help visually impaired and colour blind users and subscribers, which is to add an asterisk to the mandatory field notes on subscribe pages. See the issue.

accessibility

Convenient contextual links

Clearer support links in error messages

Where there is a link to documentation provided in an error message, the link will now be highlighted so it is clearer where to find relevant support. See the issue.

Link to plugins settings

If a plugin has settings in the Config > Settings page there is now a link to the page from the plugin. See the issue.

link-to-plugin-settings

Admin emails links fixed

A bug leading to links being duplicated in admin emails has now been fixed. Your bounce processing report mails now look squeaky clean! See the issue.

Security

Email obfuscation on preferences pages

On unsubscribe and preferences pages the email address of the subscriber is now obfuscated. This provides a greater degree of privacy for subscribers. Additionally, this address will no longer be editable on subscribe pages.

email-obfuscation

XSS bug fixed

Thanks to LukasReschke from the NextCloud community for spotting and fixing an XXS vulnerability. See the issue.

Other fixes

Page load speed issue resolved

A fix is included to resolve an intermittent page loading speed issue caused by the new community news feed.  See the issue.

Colour-coded statistics on ‘Subscriber Lists’ page switched

The Green, Orange and Red colours introduced in the last version to highlight the unconfirmed and blacklisted totals has now been changed to be clearer, the red is the blacklist and the orange is the unconfirmed. See the issue.

traffic-lights

Install earlier release of plugin bug fixed

A bug causing problems installing plugins with a url including dots has been resolved. Thanks to Duncanc for finding and fixing this issue. See the issue.

Support

Need help upgrading your phpList server to version 3.2.6? Ask the community at discuss.phplist.com. Professional support from community experts, as well as manuals, source code, and developer resources, can be found at phplist.org. Report bugs to the bugtracker!

Want to focus on campaigns and forget hosting headaches? Sign up at phplist.com for an account with everything included. Send from 300 free messages to 30 million messages per month.

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