Bogus error message: "Could not identify any recipients. Perhaps the group is empty?" is shown when civicrm.settings.php has declared the mailing backend preferences
Bogus error message: "Could not identify any recipients. Perhaps the group is empty?" is shown when civicrm.settings.php has declared the mailing backend preferences.
When mailing_backend is defined in civicrm.settings.php as follows.
global $civicrm_setting;
$civicrm_setting['Mailing Preferences']['mailing_backend']['outBound_option'] = 'SMTP';
$civicrm_setting['Mailing Preferences']['mailing_backend']['smtpServer'] = 'ssl://association.asn.au';
$civicrm_setting['Mailing Preferences']['mailing_backend']['smtpPort'] = '465';
$civicrm_setting['Mailing Preferences']['mailing_backend']['smtpAuth'] = '1';
$civicrm_setting['Mailing Preferences']['mailing_backend']['smtpUsername'] = 'membership@association.asn.au';
Removing these settings and changing the mailing preferences in the UI works.
Agileware ref: CIVICRM-1452