unable to disable App Nap in MBM on Mac OSX El Capitan

srelan

Member
Since upgrading Mac OS X to El Capitan, the App Nap checkbox has disappeared from MaxBulkMailer. Thus any batch sends start slowing to a crawl even if application is in foreground and computer has sleep turned off - and sends fine if you stay on the computer moving things around to keep awake and App running, which is not feasible for timed early morning newsletter blasts.
Attached is a screen snap of the info box to see where the App Nap checkbox is now gone.

How do you disable App Nap now in order to make MaxBulk Mailer functional again?

MBM_appnap.jpg


(also FYI, this board won't allow attachments any longer as it returns error attachment quota has been reached)
 

srelan

Member
To add/modify above post, I found in my backup drive the previous maintenance release of MaxBulkMailer (ver. 8.5) and tried using it instead of the most recent maintenance release I had (ver. 8.5.1) – and it works perfectly fine... So this slow sending appears to be a problem in just the most recent application version, not a problem with El Capitan. The missing App Nap checkbox in the recent version seems to be a problem as well.

Please reply, as I don't see how I could do the next paid upgrade if the most recent maintenance release doesn't work properly compared to older version. I've been happy using MBM for years now, so not trying to complain.
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Yes indeed, the check box was removed. A user told us a few days after the 8.5.1 release. We decided to add code to MaxBulk Mailer to handle App Nap internally. We made the change and the modified released was uploaded again here.

With that version, as soon as you start a delivery, App Nap and system sleep mode get deactivated and reactivated when done. You can check it with Mac OS Activity monitor (Application/Utilities folder), select the 'Energy' panel and look at the 'Preventing App Nap' column. It is 'No' by default but will change to 'Yes' when sending a message.
 

srelan

Member
Thanks for the reply about the App Nap selection, however what is the issue with the speed limiting in 8.5.1 vs 8.5 ? That is the biggest problem. I thought it was due to AppNap, but when I found a copy of 8.5 on my backup disk and tried it, it worked great. 8.5.1 is unusable for the very slow sending in grinding through our active subscription list. Testing one right after the other on the same machine, the sending speed difference and slowdown with the latest free update is quite obvious.
Is it perhaps a bug? or on purpose with some preference I'm just not finding? (using the same file with the same connections and interval settings_
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Did you download again 8.5.1 and check if App Nap get deactivated? App Nap is the very only feature that can slowdown an app in Mac OS.
 

srelan

Member
This is very confusing. Yes, I did, and yes the same applies to your answer to my original question, there is no App Nap checkbox in Get Info for the newest version 8.5.1. I runs a 1/10 the sending rate of the previous version (8.5) on the exact same saved file.
I will start it on one, let it run a few minutes and watch it, note the sending rate which is very slow, then quit and save progress. Then open file in the previous version 8.5, and it runs like a dream. Sends almost exactly as the red estimated send rate text implies.

Note: I do keep getting popup messages with the new version from the free upgrade that paraphrase says something about a new subscription, etc. Which I don't understand as I paid for app a while ago in total, no subscription mentioned then. Is this version 8.5.1 somehow rate limited unless I pay for some new subscription? If so, just let us know. Right now there is no indication after doing the free update that it was somehow hobbled for a licensing reason.
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
8.5.1 handles sleep mode and App Nap automatically. 8.5 doesn't. Try 8.5.1 and if it is really slower, look at the delivery panel and find out what is slow. All entries have a date and time header. I am really not aware that 8.5.1 is slower than 8.5, really!

About licensing, check your serial here.
 

srelan

Member
That is what I am trying to explain. Running right next to each other (but one at a time), on the same MBM email/list file, 8.5.1 is 1/100th the sending speed on ElCapitan iMac or even an old 2010 MacBook Pro, then 8.5 is. 8.5.1 is unusably slow in sending. All mail is still going through but the delivery rate is abysmal.
What specifically should I be looking at in the delivery panel to show you? All may goes through fine on each version. It's just the horribly slow connection and/or delivery rate in 8.5.1
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
First never use 2 different versions of MaxBulk Mailer at the same time on a computer. Do not even have two versions on your hard disk. Zip old ones if you want to keep them.

With 8.5.1, as soon as you start a delivery, App Nap and system sleep mode get deactivated and reactivated when done. You can check it with Mac OS Activity monitor (Application/Utilities folder), select the 'Energy' panel and look at the 'Preventing App Nap' column. It is 'No' by default but will change to 'Yes' when sending a message. Have you checked that?

You can see speed looking at the delivery report, it includes the delivery rate.

By the way, despite what we are discussing here, the slowest you send a message the best. Indeed the MaxBulk Mailer setting panels have lots of settings to slowdown the application and the deliveries.
 

srelan

Member
Hi, I understand your point about slow, but not applicable in this case here. I am sending through a large national SMTP mail service vendor (SendGrid) who handles what is queued to them on their end and throttles speed depending on recipient domain, grey bounces etc. They specifically recommend the send rate settings for the messages to their server which handles actual delivery to recipient by individual rate limiting from there. And yes, I have tried again with testing again the app versions one by one, which the other zipped and removed from computer before opening the other version and running it.

Could this be an issue of list size and memory handling - whereas something in the 8.5.1 version is choking on it where 8.5. isn't? Our newsletter list is around 100,000.

Here are the two log reports (with personal info xxx'ed out) from today's newsletter where I manually stopped each after just 1300. Keep in mind that the sending speed to the SMTP server from 8.5.1 gets even slower the longer I let the send continue through the list. After running through 10s of thousands it slows to a crawl. Whereas, when I use 8.5 it never slows throughout the whole list. Keeps the same pace throughout the send :


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
MaxBulk Mailer Delivery Report [#451] - 12/22/15
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mailer version: 8.5.1-US (Cocoa) Pro - Registered
Machine OS/speed: Mac OS 10.11.2 El Capitan/3.4Ghz

Streams: 2 [2 Used] Single Server
Delivery mode: Singly (Tag processing ON)

SMTP server address: smtp.sendgrid.net [Port: 587] SSL Off
Authentication: ESMTP (Login) | [192.168.0.34]
Groups: 60 [Interval: 00:00:02]

Delivery start date: 12/22/15 at 12:56:07 PM
End date: 12/22/15 at 1:10:02 PM
Total duration: 13 minute(s), 55 second(s) (Cancelled by user)
Rate: 1.56 recipient(s)/second

to a total of: 94,489 recipient(s) [94,489/94,677]
List name: unknown
Sent: 1,302
Failed: 93,187 undelivered [Delivery cancelled by user]

Mail subject: XXXX XX, XXXXXXX XXXXXX, XXXXX XXXXXX
Mail priority: Normal
Reply To: [email protected] (Sender)
Errors: [email protected] (Sender)
Return receipt: No
Mail format: HTML only | utf-8 | quoted-printable
Mail size: 6.59 KB (Doesn't include attachments)
Attachments: none

MLM: Click-through tracking [Deactivated]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
MaxBulk Mailer Delivery Report [#452] - 12/22/15
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mailer version: 8.5-US Pro - Registered
Machine OS/speed: Mac OS 10.11.2/3.4Ghz

Streams: 2 [2 Used] Single Server
Delivery mode: Singly (Tag processing ON)

SMTP server address: smtp.sendgrid.net [Port: 587] SSL Off
Authentication: ESMTP (Login) | [192.168.0.34]
Groups: 60 [Interval: 00:00:02]

Delivery start date: 12/22/15 at 1:13:27 PM
End date: 12/22/15 at 1:17:43 PM
Total duration: 4 minute(s), 16 second(s) (Cancelled by user)
Rate: 5.08 recipient(s)/second

to a total of: 93,187 recipient(s) [93,187/94,677]
List name: unknown
Sent: 1,301
Failed: 91,886 undelivered [Delivery cancelled by user]

Mail subject: XXXX XX, XXXXXXX XXXXXX, XXXXX XXXXXX
Mail priority: Normal
Reply To: [email protected] (Sender)
Errors: [email protected] (Sender)
Return receipt: No
Mail format: HTML only | utf-8 | quoted-printable
Mail size: 6.36 KB (Doesn't include attachments)
Attachments: none

MLM: Click-through tracking [Deactivated]
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Using an interval of less than a minute is not good. It is possible it takes a few seconds more to 8.5.1 to reconnect. And since your server is for bulk emailing why do you use groups and intervals? Why don't you send everything in one shot?
 

srelan

Member
Hi, thanks for the reply, but you didn't really answer my question as to why 8.5.1 is so much slower than all previous maintenance versions. (I've tested a couple older app versions taken from our backup server).

The interval and all other setting are as requested by the SMTP vendor Sendgrid (and similar batch and interval settings requested by Amazon SES as well), but most importantly, have been used exactly as-is on MaxBulk Mailer for many years now on both a local SMTP server and later vendor SMTP services without any problems. Sure, I can lengthen the interval time some more, but you can see from the send rate DURING the send process that the rate is much, much slower than with 8.5. To send a test batch of 100 emails takes 3.5 to 4 times longer every test I've tried.

My post was both to alert you to this if you didn't know, and just a curious question as to "why" before I can pay for any future upgrade or service plan. With a newsletter list of our size, the sending rate with the latest maintenance version would take literally days to queue to vendor SMTP, vs. the couple hours we've become used to with your previous versions.

But to be fair, I just quintupled the interval on 8.5.1 for most recent newsletter and the sending rate per batch was still abysmally slow. (I'm not trying to be rude, just want to help provide honest feedback about product I've loved and used for many years.) The sending was so much slower, we were forced to stop it after 2500 messages and restart the file with older version 8.5 and it is running perfectly.

Note: this same rate issue is verified on both brand new Mac and a 5 year old MacBook laptop I tested. Both running El Capitan MacOS. We tested both just to make sure wasn't a machine specific issue.
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Hi, thanks for the reply, but you didn't really answer my question as to why 8.5.1 is so much slower than all previous maintenance versions. (I've tested a couple older app versions taken from our backup server).
I don't respond to your question because I don't know the answer. MaxBulk Mailer 8.5.1 works here at the same speed as 8.5, I am talking about the 8.5.1 we uploaded recently with App Nap and sleep mode handling support, not the first 8.5.1 that will slow down to 80% as soon as the application enter in sleep mode. Exactly what's happening. Absolutely all the people reporting this kind of problems in November told me the problem was fixed thanks to the modification we made. Now you are the very only user with this problem, I don't know if you are using the right version because you never did what I asked, I repeat "With 8.5.1, as soon as you start a delivery, App Nap and system sleep mode get deactivated and reactivated when done. You can check it with Mac OS Activity monitor (Application/Utilities folder), select the 'Energy' panel and look at the 'Preventing App Nap' column. It is 'No' by default but will change to 'Yes' when sending a message." Have you checked that? Is the column updated or not?
 

srelan

Member
Hi, thanks. Was waiting for next send to reply so could check what you asked. Here is screensnap of activity monitor under 8.5.1. I'm not sure if this is what you are saying I should see under App Nap column.

Screen_Shot_2015-12-30_12.52.12AM.jpg
 

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Perfect! Now you have to look at the 'Preventing Sleep' column. It should read YES after you start a delivery in MaxBulk Mailer, it then switch back to NO, once done. If it is not the case, delete the version of MaxBulk Mailer you have and download the right one here. It is labeled 8.5.1 as well, actually the App Nap and Sleep Mode support are features of next 8.5.2 but we decided to add them and re-upload the version, mainly because the Finder 'Get Info' window no longer lets the user deactivate that. Then try again, you will see how the 'Preventing Sleep' column reads YES during deliveries, that allows MaxBulk Mailer to run always at 100% and not 20% or 10% after a while, because the app enter in sleep mode (App Nap column in the Activity Monitor).
 

srelan

Member
Ok. will download new copy. Yes, that screen grab was taken during a newsletter send and you can see the column is labelled "No".
Thanks for the help.
 
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