Summary
SMTP sends dozens of emails to each recipient
Description of the issue
I have Filemaker Pro 10 (trial version). When I send emails to a group of people, every recipient receives about as many emails as the number of email addresses in the list. For example if I have 20 emails in the list, every recipient receives at least 20 emails. I set up small database with names, telephone numbers and email addresses. In the Send Mail Dialog Box, I entered the following: Send via: SMTP Server Create: (*)Multiple emails (one for each record in found set) TO: TABLENAME::FIELDNAME (where values are picked from the appropriate table name and fieldname). (checked) Collect addresses across found set.OK When I click OK, there is never any message that indicates the progress or how many emails are actually sent. Many of the emails in my list are my own emails or those of associates. So for those, we know how many are received. All email recipients receive at least as many emails as there were email addresses in the found set. Further, the first email to each recipient only show a single email to the one recipient. All additional emails show the addresses of all recipients (which was not desirable). Does anyone else have this issue? When I called tech support, they only directed me to Knowledge Base article 6991, which only states the obvious instructions. It is not the solution to the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this was one feature that I needed in the package. TksRay
"Is anyone else successfully sending individual emails to a found list of addresses?"
Probably not; because nobody is using it because of the garbage content problem.
Unmark this checkbox:
"(checked) Collect addresses across found set."
I have tried unchecking the checkbox (use records across found set) already.
And I just opened Filemaker fresh again and did it. If I leave the checkbox unchecked, I get an error window that says: "Email(s) could not be sent successfully."
If I leave the field where I browse for the table and field names and check the check box, I also get the error "Email(s) could not be sent successfully."
I am only able to send emails when both the field for the table::fieldname has data AND the check box is checked to use records across the found set. Then I get all the multiple emails to every recipient.
I've read many online reviews of this new Filemaker 10 and they all state positive comments about Filemaker's use of its new internal SMTP component. But apparently they are only reading the advertisement on the label. From everything that I have seen, it doesn't work!
OK, it does seem to work. The error noted before appeared to be due to some "email" fields being blank. So it did appear to send emails to the records with valid email addresses, even though we got the immediate error message indicated that email(s) could not be sent.
I also quantified my data and found that the number of emails that everyone had received was equal to the number of records in the found set. Thus we had set up a table with 5 records for which only 3 had email addresses (within our group). All 3 email recipients received 5 emails (with the "TO" addresses of all 3 emails found).
When the checkbox is unchecked, it did in fact send a single email to each email address found. I guess the single email that was successful was just lost in the multitude of emails that were already coming from the same source.
So appears the problem is fixed. Just wish there were more warnings on this script screen about the pitfalls.
Thanks to everyone.