Why can't I send bulk SMS (even though I can send individually)?

Question

I'm working for Engineers Without Borders Galicia and we are migrating our volunteer managing system to CiviCRM. I'm experiencing something quite like this bug: https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-15702

I can send SMS to individuals from his profile page, but bulk SMS are not sent , although the report says the job is completed. The users in the group (a one man group) have all emails. Our SMS provider is Twilio and there is no trace of the bulk sms. The normal ones get perfectly sent (and logged).

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Iván Lago.

IT Engineer at Engineers Without Borders Galicia

More info: Server version: Apache/2.2.22 (Debian) CMS: Drupal 7.36 CiviCRM version:4.6.0 PHP: 5.4.39-0+deb7u2 MySQL: 5.5.41-0+wheezy1 SMS Provider: Twilio (test acount)

//Edit 1: As someone noticed at CiviCRM forums, there's no such version 5.6.0 . It was a typo fail that I've copy-pasted many times. Sorry about that. CiviCRM version is 4.6.0.

//Edit 2: To give more data, I'm forcing the process of sending pending sms with the call:

php /var/www/sites/all/modules/civicrm/bin/cli.php -u [myuser] -p [mypassword] -e Job -a execute

Obviously, with my user and password where necessary. The jobs get done... but no sms are ever sent :( .

Answer 1

Hi I'm having this exact problem and have done some debugging:

When making a new SMS there are three steps

1. you first select recipients
2. then you write the body of the SMS
3. you schedule the SMS

Between step one and two the table civicrm_mailing_recipients correctly gets filled with email_id set to null and phone_id set with the id of the contacts' phone numbers. This gets done in the function getRecipients in CRM/Mailing/BAO/Mailing.php, and the phone_ids get set because $mode is set to "sms".

But after completing step three this function is called again and $mode is now empty, and the email_id is set instead and phone_id is set to null.

This results in an empty result from an sql-call in the function deliver in CRM/Mailing/Bao/MailingJob.php, which try to get the recipients, but returns empty and thus there's no one to send to.

This second call to getRecipients is made by the function create, also in CRM/Mailing/BAO/Mailing.php, and it's there $mode is NOT getting set, and there's no checking if it's an sms or not:

  // Populate the recipients.
  if (empty($params['_skip_evil_bao_auto_recipients_'])) {
    self::getRecipients($job->id, $mailing->id, NULL, NULL, TRUE, $mailing->dedupe_email);
  }

So to fix that I altered it to this:

  // Populate the recipients.
  if (empty($params['_skip_evil_bao_auto_recipients_'])) {
    // check if it's an sms
    $mode = $mailing->sms_provider_id ? 'sms' : NULL;
    self::getRecipients($job->id, $mailing->id, NULL, NULL, TRUE, $mailing->dedupe_email, $mode);
  }

And now it works. When the "Send Scheduled SMS"-job is run, the bulk sms gets sent. I've filed an issue at https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-17331

Answer 2

It is because you have a test account. If you go to a paid account, the issue will stop.

https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/07/new-twilio-free-trial-phone-numbers-for-all.html

SMS

You must verify a phone number before you can send SMS messages
to it from your trial phone number.

https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/twilio-basics/how-does-twilios-free-trial-work

Trial numbers can only call and text verified numbers.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/25581823/4406810

2) Is it because I have a trial account and will it work once I upgrade? From an trial account You can send SMS to the number with you registered. To other numbers it will work after you upgrade your account.

Answer 3

I experienced this myself, but understood that it was plenty of ways to run into the issue of not being able to send bulk-sms. Try to limit the issue first:

If it is in fact the same issue as I experienced, on the forum thread, then this will help you figure out what the issue is all about.

1. Send a bulk sms with a template including a token, and an e-Mail adress recorded at the contact.

2. Send a bulk sms with a template without any tokens, and an e-Mail adress recorded at the contact.

3. Send a bulk sms with a template including a token, and no e-Mail adress recorded at the contact.

4. Send a bulk sms with a template without any tokens, and no e-Mail adress recorded at the contact.

   5. And then possibly combinations where "No bulk e-mail" is ticked off.

There was submitted a fix for case 5 I think, but our issue actually was case 1, I think.

Good luck!