In the preceding chapters, you've learned about how to use phpList from simple routine list management to more advanced features and settings. In this chapter, you will learn how to maintain, backup, and update phpList, as well as how to troubleshoot common faults and errors.
We will cover the following topics:
- General fault diagnosis
- Common errors and warnings
- Backing up phpList
- Upgrading phpList
- Where to find more help and information
phpList includes some advanced controls for providing information and debugging when a problem occurs. These can help us determine where the fault lies.
In test mode, phpList will appear to process messages as normal, but will not actually send any messages. This is a useful way to test your configuration and settings without disrupting your subscribers.
Open config/config.php and look for the following line (around line #193):
define ("TEST",0);
Change the value of TEST to 1. If TEST is set to 1, then no actual e-mail will be sent from phpList.
You will be notified that the phpList's admin interface is in test mode:
Similar messages will be displayed when you process the queue:
In verbose mode, phpList will output far more details than usual when processing messages. For example, it will display every e-mail address used when processing the queue—on a large e-mail list, this can significantly impact the performance of the in-browser "process queue" page!
To enable verbose mode, open config/config.php, and look for the following line (around line #198):
define ("VERBOSE",0);
Change the value of VERBOSE to 1 to enable verbose mode.
When sending a message in verbose mode, the process output includes the SQL statements used to determine whether a user should receive a message or not. These can be very helpful in resolving faults around repeat / RSS messages.
