Rails ActiveJob Background Job Keeps Pinging Mailchimp Repeatedly

Question

I have a rails app (v4.2) I'm developing and when a user registers for the site, I'd like to sign them up to my Mailchimp mailing list. I've implemented this process as a background job with sucker_punch and the gibbon gem. Read more here (Rails Mailchimp Background Job Not Implemented Error)

I've got it working using an after_commit call in the user.rb file.

Only issue I'm running into now is it seems ActiveJob will successfully perform this method over and over again until Mailchimp responds with a 400 error that the email already was added.

How can I get ActiveJob or this method to only hit the Mailchimp API once?

Here's my background job:

class AddUserToRegistrationListJob < ActiveJob::Base
 queue_as :default
 require 'gibbon'

def perform(user_id)
    user = User.find(user_id)
    email = user.email
    first_name = user.first_name
    last_name = user.last_name

    mailchimp_list_id = "my list id here"
    Gibbon::Request.api_key = "my api key here"
    Gibbon::Request.timeout = 15
    gibbon = Gibbon::Request.new

    gibbon.lists("#{mailchimp_list_id}").members.create(
        body: 
        {
            email_address: email, 
            status: "subscribed", 
            merge_fields: {FNAME: first_name, LNAME: last_name
                }})
end
end

My user.rb file:

after_create :add_user_to_registration_list

def add_user_to_registration_list
   AddUserToRegistrationListJob.perform_later(self)
end

Is there any chance the job is raising an exception and being retried? — pdoherty926, Aug 18 '16 at 16:38
There doesn't appear to be any exceptions being raised except for a deprecation warning about using 'find' — JohnOHFS, Aug 18 '16 at 16:47
You should alter your use of Gibbon to first check if the user in question has already been added to the list. — Jim Van Fleet, Aug 18 '16 at 18:48
I'm not seeing a gibbon method for checking if a subscriber is already on a list @JimVanFleet — JohnOHFS, Aug 18 '16 at 19:25

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 18 '16 at 20:28

2

The Gibbon interface has been updated again for v3 of the MailChimp API, and there is a new capability to 'upsert' in a one liner. From the RubyDoc:

If you want to upsert instead, you would do the following:

 gibbon.lists(list_id).members(lower_case_md5_hashed_email_address).upsert(body: {email_address: "foo@bar.com", status: "subscribed", merge_fields: {FNAME: "First Name", LNAME: "Last Name"}})

To acquire the hash, this code should work:

require 'digest'
lower_case_md5_hashed_email_address = Digest::MD5.new.update(email.downcase).hexdigest

This should resolve your error by ensuring the upsert command is a no-op if the member is already subscribed to the list in question.

answered Aug 18 '16 at 20:28

Jim Van Fleet

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what's the purpose of the "lower_case_md5_hashed_email_address" and where do I put that line of code? I'm assuming I need the Digest gem too? – JohnOHFS Aug 18 '16 at 20:45
@JohnOHFS Presumably, that is how MailChimp can most quickly uniquely identify email addresses. Digest is a part of the Ruby standard library; you can require 'digest' at the top of the file in which you reference it. – Jim Van Fleet Aug 18 '16 at 21:11

Rails ActiveJob Background Job Keeps Pinging Mailchimp Repeatedly

1 Answers1