Initiating a Purge Queue
Initiating a purge of the current outbound messages in queue for your SocketLabs On-Demand server will immediately pause delivery for your server. Once the delivery has been paused, we apply an action to all outbound messages to force them to "fail" delivery. This allows the message details to be logged in the failed messages report. Once the queue is empty, the delivery capability of the server is restored, allowing new mail to continue delivery.
SocketLabs recommends halting the injection of new outbound messages when requesting a queue purge. Messages injected during the period of time in which messages are being cleared out could cause unwanted message failures.
Please note that messages being sent to you via the Notification API will not be purged from the queue. Delivery of these messages will be attempted after the process is complete.
Details of Outbound Messages That Were Purged
Once an outbound message is purged from the queue, you will be able to find the statistical details of the message in the Failed Messages report.
Messages that have been purged will show in the failed messages report as a "Temporary" failure. These messages will have a failure reason of 500 5.4.0 System rule action set to fail connection.
Customers using the SocketLabs On-Demand API can identify outbound messages purged from queue based on the following details returned from the messagesFailed API method.
FailureType: 0
FailureCode: 4999
Reason: 421 4.3.0 Message was purged from queue.
Purged Messages and Monthly Message And Bandwidth Allotments
SocketLabs calculates a server's usage of messages and bandwidth by recording the details of each message as it is injected into our network for delivery. Regardless of the eventual delivery result, all messages injected to SocketLabs are counted against your allowances. By the time a clear queue request has been initiated, the messages have already entered our systems and been calculated into the server's usage details. Messages purged from queue are treated similarly as messages that encountered a temporary delivery failure.
Viewing Outbound Message Content
The content of the outbound messages is not retained by our system. We only retain the statistical metadata of any given message, such as the date and time the message was sent, the address of the recipient, the address of the sender, any custom message and mailing IDs, the size of the message, and the response received to sending the message from the recipient mail system.