Understand the Reported Issue
Donorfy has identified an issue where synchronisations from Donorfy to Mailchimp are timing out.
The issue was first reported on 30 September 2024 and affects how constituent data is transferred to Mailchimp.
Identify How the Issue Manifests
Affected syncs may fail in one of the following ways:
The sync process starts and completes immediately, reporting no data to process.
Constituents are marked as failed in the confirmation email due to incorrect or unconfirmed Merge Tags.
These symptoms can occur even when no configuration changes have been made.
Review Investigation Findings
Donorfy’s investigation confirmed the following:
Donorfy’s Mailchimp integration follows Mailchimp’s documented API process.
Donorfy process logs report no internal errors.
Mailchimp’s API times out after approximately 100 seconds, which interrupts the sync process and causes failures.
The timeout occurs within Mailchimp’s infrastructure and is outside Donorfy’s direct control.
Understand Remedial Work Completed
Donorfy has taken multiple steps to mitigate the issue.
Introduced a retry mechanism when Mailchimp does not return confirmation within a defined timeframe.
Reduced the number of data items sent in each data packet.
Escalated the issue directly to Mailchimp for investigation and resolution.
Review the Timeline of Actions
The following actions and updates have been recorded:
30/09/2024 – Issue escalated from Donorfy Support 3rd Line to the Engineering Team.
01/10/2024 – Root cause identified as Mailchimp API timeout and escalated to Mailchimp.
02/10/2024 – Awaiting further information from Mailchimp.
09/10/2024 – Mailchimp added additional logging; Donorfy ran multiple test syncs.
11/10/2024 – Mailchimp applied changes; initial test syncs successful.
14/10/2024 – All test syncs since 11 October completed successfully.
18/10/2024 – Syncs returned to normal for some clients; issue persisted for others.
22/10/2024 – Mailchimp escalated the issue internally to their development team.
November 2024 – Donorfy reduced packet sizes further and enhanced retry handling for failed items.
Current Status and Next Steps
Mailchimp continues to investigate API timeout behaviour, while Donorfy has implemented additional safeguards to improve sync reliability.
This article will be updated as further information becomes available.
Recommended Action for Customers
If your organisation was affected by this issue:
Run a full sync from Donorfy to Mailchimp.
Monitor the confirmation email for any failed constituents.
Donorfy is confident that recent changes have improved sync success rates, although some edge cases may still occur.