NowSMS Update – 2011.03.21

An interim update release of the Now SMS & MMS Gateway is currently available at https://nowsms.com/download/nowsms20110321.zip. Use the executable file in this ZIP to update an existing NowSMS installation.

This document details the update release history since the previous interim update, version 2010.11.04. Release history for the changes prior to the current official release can be found at https://nowsms.com/category/updates.

The following issues are addressed by this update:

SMS Gateway Updates:

• SMS Gateway Web Admin Interface: Fix for web admin interface only sending the first 16KB when attempting to remotely download log files. (For additional information, see https://nowsms.com/discus/messages/1/60254.html.)
• SMS Gateway: Add configuration setting to limit individual user accounts from flooding the outbound message queue. This setting enforces a maximum number of queued messages that any individual user account can have pending in the outbound message queue. If a user attempts to submit additional messages when over the limit, a throttling error will be returned. To enable this throttling, the setting UserOutboundQueueLimit=##### must be added to the [SMSGW] section of SMSGW.INI. The ##### value sets a default maximum outbound message queue size to be applied to all user accounts. (A special value of 0 means no limit, but enables non-default settings to be applied to individual user accounts.) To override the default setting for individual user accounts, create an [UserOutboundQueueLimit] section, and add username=##### to this section to enable a limit for a specific user account. (A value of 0 will disable limits for that user account.) Note that queue size monitoring experiences a 30 to 60 second delay, so it is possible that users may slightly exceed configured limits. Also note that for SMPP accounts, care is taken to ensure that a throttling error does not occur in the middle of a multipart message transmission.
• SMS Gateway: Improved handling of “User Queue Size Threshold” to prevent problems where SMPP user accounts could be allocated multiple queue directories, giving extra priority to that account.
• SMS Gateway: The SMSGW.INI SMSCSendLimit=x/y setting, which can limit the speed at which messages are sent via a specific SMSC connection, was not functioning accurately at higher speeds. The setting has been reworked to support throttling at higher speeds.
• SMS Gateway/SMPP Client: When a throttling error occurs, additional logic requeues the message that triggered the error so that several retries will be attempted without requiring a pass through the entire message queue before the message is retried. This is necessary for proper handling of multipart segmented messages, so that if one part of the message encounters a throttling error, it can still be transmitted within the same window as other parts of the message when the outbound message queue is very full.
• SMS Gateway: Fix for changes to the [Inbound SMS Routing] table (used for routing received messages to local user accounts based upon recipient address matching) not automatically being reloaded by the server without a restart.
• 2-Way SMS Command Processor: Fix for a problem where a message with invalid UDH could be posted repeatedly to a 2-way command. The problem could occur if the user data header indicated a multipart message where the current part number was larger than the number of indicated message parts.
• SMS Gateway: Add configuration option to duplicate SMPP receipts being routed to a local SMPP user account, so that they are also routed to 2-way command processing. This setting would be used when an installation needs to process all delivery receipts via a 2-way command. To enable this option, edit SMSGW.INI, and under the [SMSGW] header, add DuplicateUserReceiptsFor2Way=Yes.
• SMPP Server: Fix for a change first introduced in 2010-05-20 version which could cause extra null messages to be delivered to connected SMPP clients. This problem could only potentially occur if a client had multiple receive (or transceive) connections open to the NowSMS SMPP server.
• Web Interface: Fix for problem introduced in 2010.11.04 version where the web interface was not working properly with Firefox.

MMSC Updates:

• MMSC: Fix for problem where the message ID in a delivery receipt was not formatted correctly (“/” characters changed to “.”) for delivery receipts that arrived via an MM4 connection. This prevented sending clients from being able to correctly resolve delivery receipts. (For additional information, see https://nowsms.com/discus/messages/485/60287.html.)
• MMSC: Change MM7 transaction ID format to not include @ character, due to suspcion that this was causing a problem for a particular provider.

MMS Gateway Updates:

• MMSC: Fix for problem in a multiple server installation (SHAREDVOLUME.INI) where only one front-end would actively listen for connections for MMS messages converted to SMS.
• MM7: When AllowAlphaRecip=Yes is enabled, use <Number> instead of <ShortCode> for the recipient address type, even if it is not a number.
• MMS via GPRS Modem: Fix for problem introduced in 2010.11.04 version where MMS messages would not be retrieved from some operator MMSCs, particularly T-Mobile USA.
• MM7: Don’t add extra CRLF before closing MIME boundary as this might be confusing some Java libraries.
• Web Interface: Fix for problem sending pre-compiled MMS messages via the “Send MMS Message” web interface that could cause these messages to become corrupted.

Other Updates:

• Configuration program opens LOG files using the default program for the .LOG extension instead of always using Notepad.