Send a bulk SMS using Twilio PHP library to 2,000+ numbers - php

Question

I have an integration with Twilio's PHP library to bulk send SMS messages. This is all working fine with 5-10 numbers, however, I keep getting a 504 timeout error after 60 seconds when sending to hundreds of numbers. I have created a simple form that you can type a message into which submits to Twilio's API. My integration opens a CSV which contains all the numbers and sends the message to each number. The issue I have is that after 60 seconds I hit a 504 timeout error and therefore only 200-300 numbers receive my SMS. How can I avoid this? Is there a way to break down the nubmers into batches?
<?php
require __DIR__ . '/src/Twilio/autoload.php';
use Twilio\Rest\Client;
// Your Account SID and Auth Token from twilio.com/console
$sid = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$token = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$notify_sid = 'xxxxxxxxxxxx';
$client = new Client($sid, $token);
$row = 1;
if (($handle = fopen("test.csv", "r")) !== FALSE) {
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 100, ",")) !== FALSE) {
$num = count($data);
$row++;
for ($c=0; $c < $num; $c++) {
$numbersFinal = "'".$data[$c] . "',";
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
// Use the client to do fun stuff like send text messages!
$message = $_POST['message'];
$phoneNumbers = array($numbersFinal);
$to = array();
foreach ($phoneNumbers as $phoneNumber) {
$to[] = '{"binding_type":"sms", "address":"'.$phoneNumber.'"}';
}
$request_data = [
"toBinding" => $to,
'body' => $message
];
// Create a notification
$notification = $client
->notify->services($notify_sid)
->notifications->create($request_data);
}
}
}
fclose($handle);
}
?>

Answer 1

504 is a timeout error. This error occurs because of your php.ini settings. Please check the phpinfo() output. Look for max_execution_time variable. It's probably 60 seconds. While you run the file, server terminates the process after this time exceeded.
To handle this problem, you can follow several ways:
Ask your service provider to raise this limit. Usually, they reject those requests.
You can run this file as a cron task. When you click send button, you can save it as a cronjob. You can figure it out.
When you click send, you can send sms by 100, 100, ... send_sms.php?sent=100 could send 100 sms then redirect to send_sms.php?sent=200... until they end.
Tell me if any of these solutions work for you.