Thread bifurcation bug?
JC
I seem to see a lot of threads in one of my newsgroups where a lot of
"new" threads start with "Re: ...". It appears to me that the thread is
getting chopped in some way whereas these "Re:" responses should be
attached to the original post.
I'm not technically oriented over here but I'd very much like to know if
this is a bug and if it is possible for me to fix this in some way.
It is making it very difficult to view this newsgroup efficiently.
Many thanks,
JC
David E. Ross
This was extensively discussed in this newsgroup in the thread with the
subject "Topics occasionally being repeated in newsgroups in TB 3".
Generally, this is caused when someone replies using an application that
does not provide the proper References header field. When that field is
either missing, corrupted, or incorrect in a reply message, Thunderbird
cannot attach the message to the appropriate thread. It seems that this
is often the case when someone replies via Google Groups.
--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>
Go to Mozdev at <http://www.mozdev.org/> for quick access to
extensions for Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and other
Mozilla-related applications. You can access Mozdev much
more quickly than you can Mozilla Add-Ons.
Ron K.
My first question pertains to what your retention setting is for the group
that is effected. I see what you describe because I set a 6 day retention.
Any new posting to a post that was older than 6 days, I only see the RE:
posting.
Are any of the postings originating from the mailing list? The Mailman
program that interfaces the mailing list to the news server does some odd
things with message references that causes threading irregularities.
There is a hidden configuration for a strict/loose RE: policy. I have
{mail.strict_threading} set to false [default].
I also have set {mail.thread_without_re} to false [user set].
These two prefs can be set using Config Edit and found easily by filtering
on the names given here.
--
Ron K.
Who is General Failure, and why is he searching my HDD?
Kernel Restore reported Major Error used BSOD to msg the enemy!
JC
> On 3/29/10 7:33 PM, JC wrote:
>> Hi All.
>>
>> I seem to see a lot of threads in one of my newsgroups where a lot of
>> "new" threads start with "Re: ...". It appears to me that the thread is
>> getting chopped in some way whereas these "Re:" responses should be
>> attached to the original post.
>>
>> I'm not technically oriented over here but I'd very much like to know if
>> this is a bug and if it is possible for me to fix this in some way.
>>
>> It is making it very difficult to view this newsgroup efficiently.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> JC
>
> This was extensively discussed in this newsgroup in the thread with the
> subject "Topics occasionally being repeated in newsgroups in TB 3".
>
> Generally, this is caused when someone replies using an application that
> does not provide the proper References header field. When that field is
> either missing, corrupted, or incorrect in a reply message, Thunderbird
> cannot attach the message to the appropriate thread. It seems that this
> is often the case when someone replies via Google Groups.
>
Hi David.
Many thanks.
I saw that thread and my technical skills on these issues is a little
lacking so I was not sure if I was seeing the same thing. I never really
saw this in the previous release but I am seeing it a lot lately and it
is making life really difficult.
Can I expect to try and block out the mental head space and time to do
as Ron is describing and fix this in 3.0? Or would you recommend I
backtrack and "re-"install my previous version of TB? Things seemed to
be AOK previously.
I was moving to Mac from PC and I think I have it nailed down with the
exception of a few nagging issues that I need to dig into. My previous
install of TB on the PC seemed to work fine for me as long as I am able
to conquer archiving and Profiles in short order over here.
Many thanks!
Jonathan
JC
Hi Ron.
Big thanks.
I never saw this in my previous install of TB on my PC and I'm in the
middle of migrating a one person office to the Mac. Lord.
Can I ask you to give me the dumb monkey version of setting this
loose-strict setting in 3.0? Do you think there is an easy way for me to
"backtrack" to 2.X while I get other things sorted over here?
This is super important over here as I try and get back up to speed but
the technical hurdles are sometimes a lot higher than I would like on
some of this stuff.
TIA (if possible)
Jonathan
David E. Ross
> On 3/29/10 7:33 PM, JC wrote:
>> Hi All.
>>
>> I seem to see a lot of threads in one of my newsgroups where a lot of
>> "new" threads start with "Re: ...". It appears to me that the thread is
>> getting chopped in some way whereas these "Re:" responses should be
>> attached to the original post.
>>
>> I'm not technically oriented over here but I'd very much like to know if
>> this is a bug and if it is possible for me to fix this in some way.
>>
>> It is making it very difficult to view this newsgroup efficiently.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> JC
>
> This was extensively discussed in this newsgroup in the thread with the
> subject "Topics occasionally being repeated in newsgroups in TB 3".
>
> Generally, this is caused when someone replies using an application that
> does not provide the proper References header field. When that field is
> either missing, corrupted, or incorrect in a reply message, Thunderbird
> cannot attach the message to the appropriate thread. It seems that this
> is often the case when someone replies via Google Groups.
>
I forgot. This problem is also caused when E-mail discussion groups
(e.g., a listserv) propagate into newsgroups. Again, the required
Reference header field is generally awry in an E-mail reply, causing
that reply to start a new thread.
David E. Ross
As I indicated in the "Topics occasionally being repeated in newsgroups
in TB 3" thread, I find threading to work better in Thunderbird 3 than
in Thunderbird 2. That, along with other fixes of Thunderbird 2
problems, drove me to Thunderbird 3.
Mike Easter
> I seem to see a lot of threads in one of my newsgroups where a lot of
> "new" threads start with "Re: ...". It appears to me that the thread is
> getting chopped in some way whereas these "Re:" responses should be
> attached to the original post.
Is this on a 'normal' usenet group which is generally populated by
posters who use normal nntp newsreaders such as Tb or OE; or is this on
a specialty news server which might have 'unusual' routes of posting,
such as a webserver or email or RSS?
That is, name the newsgroup.
If it is on a normal newsgroup, such as would be carried by my news
server, what is a mid (Message-ID) of a message in a thread so
disturbed. Use control-U to see the message headers and copy and paste
the mid here.
That is, give a mid from a header in the thread you descibe.
--
Mike Easter
goodwin
>
> As I indicated in the "Topics occasionally being repeated in newsgroups
> in TB 3" thread, I find threading to work better in Thunderbird 3 than
> in Thunderbird 2. That, along with other fixes of Thunderbird 2
> problems, drove me to Thunderbird 3.
>
That may be all well and good, Dave, but, as I posted to that thread, I
saw the problem in TB 3.0 and TB 3.0.0.3 and did not/ do not currently
see this problem with Tb 2.0.24 - anywhere. It /always/ disappeared
after simple deletion of the offending .msf file and/or an occasional
adjustment to the .rc file numbers, all the broken header discussion
notwithstanding.
Its /possible/ this is a coincidence, dunno, but I doubt it. I'll not
revisit that thread since it became technically obtuse, full of
conjecture, and lacking in any solid examples of the broken headers
discussed.
As far as I'm concerned, this is a problem with TB 3.0 or greater, the
source of which I can't fathom.
Mike Easter
> Mike Easter wrote:
>> JC wrote:
>>
>>> I seem to see a lot of threads in one of my newsgroups where a lot of
>>> "new" threads start with "Re: ...". It appears to me that the thread
>>> is getting chopped in some way whereas these "Re:" responses should be
>>> attached to the original post.
>>
>> Is this on a 'normal' usenet group
> To my knowledge it is effectively the same kind of "list" as this forum.
> That said it is hard for me to know how others are accessing the list.
This is /not/ a 'normal' usenet newsgroup that is (typically) accessed
(just) by people using a newsreader like tbird.
This is a newsreader which is accessible by accessing a mcneel webserver
or by accessing the mcneel private/specialty news server.
This is the same sort of problem discussed earlier re the gmane news
server vs webserver vs mail2news vs RSS and likewise the digitalmars
news server and webserver access in another thread started by Edward
Diener 'Topics occasionally being repeated in newsgroups in TB 3'
News servers which are integrated with input other than news readers
like Tbird are going to get messed up references lines because webserver
input is notorious for handling references line however they feel like.
> Subject: Re: 64 bit renderers
> Newsgroups: rhino
> Message-ID: <4b94ed54$1...@news2.mcneel.com>
> Date: 8 Mar 2010 04:28:04 -0800
> X-Trace: news2.mcneel.com 1268051284 127.0.0.1 (8 Mar 2010 04:28:04 -0800)
> X-Original-Trace: 8 Mar 2010 04:28:04 -0800, 127.0.0.1
> Lines: 5
> Path: news.mcneel.com!news2.mcneel.com!not-for-mail
> Xref: news.mcneel.com rhino:340530
> Let me know if I can do anything on this end in norder to troubleshoot.
Here is a webpage for accessing those messages
http://news2.mcneel.com/scripts/dnewsweb.exe?cmd=xover&group=rhino&utag=
That way you can see that a newsreader isn't the only way to post to the
group. Whenever you open a news server up to web input, the people who
aren't 'comfortable' using a news reader are going to use the web
interface.
Some people (seem to) only know browsers; they use their browser for
their mail and they use their browser for social networking and they use
their browser to communicate in groups.
That rhino on the mcneel news server is an active group. There are
currently about 80,000 messages in rhino.
From looking at a few scores of headers there, it appears to me that
when people post with a newsreader to the news server, that the NPH
nntppostinghost line reflects their connectivity IP; and/but when they
post via the webserver, such as your example here, then the NPH is
127.0.0.1. It looks like the webserver records their IP in an Xline.
It also looks like the webserver doesn't 'string out' the references,
making the line longer and longer, but instead it only retains 3
references. If the post is replying to a message from a news reader
which has say 4 references, instead of the new references line created
by the webserver having 5 references as it should, it only has 3.
That isn't the way newsreaders handle the references line.
However, I wasn't able to find any examples of the thread 'breaking up'
or bifurcating when I was looking at a collection of 5000 headers I
downloaded from the server. I was examining the thread with Win Tb 3.0.4
--
Mike Easter
Mike Easter
Mike Easter wrote:
> This is /not/ a 'normal' usenet newsgroup that is (typically) accessed
> (just) by people using a newsreader like tbird.
>
> This is a newsreader which is accessible by accessing a mcneel webserver
> or by accessing the mcneel private/specialty news server.
s/is a newsreader/is a news server/ (or a newsgroup)
This is a newsgroup (or a news server) which is accessible by accessing
a mcneel webserver or by accessing the mcneel private/specialty news server.
It looks like almost half of the messages are posted via the webserver,
depending on the particular thread.
--
Mike Easter
JC
Hi Mike.
Thank you for your expertise.
Can I just ask you if I can give you a thread and a date on that thread
and ask if you see it "broken up"? Obviously, if you and I are using the
same software there may be something I need to tweak over here. It is an
annoying issue and liable to cause miscommunication, dropped info, etc, etc.
Also, can I ask you one while I have you here?
I have "ported" my mail to my laptop in the last couple of months. This
involved effectively going from Win XP on my desktop to Mac OSX on my
laptop. Things seem pretty good. Local folders are nicely organized,
IMAP is hooked up, and I am reading my newsgroups again.
That said - I have lost about four or five years worth of "stars" where
I have notated a particular thread in order to return to some technical
information when I had the time. I now have the time. It seems trivial
but this "starring" entails a great deal of professional information I
want to access.
Do you think it is possible, or advisable, for me to COPY the
mailviews.dat file and/or the News.msf folder that I archived before my
attempted "port" and PASTE it over the respective file and or folder
that TB is using now as I type this message? Can I import this starring
somehow?
I actually have archived this data and can in fact access it back on the
Win XP partition on my desktop as well.
Thanks,
Jonathan
JC
Hi Mike.
Sorry for the bother.
I am actually seeing this behavior over here on a thread posted by
Goodwin at 11:50 titled "Re: remove duplicate messages (redux)". There
is a little "recycle/reply" symbol before it but it does not appear to
be attached to my original post, or any posts in that thread.
Obviously, I'd like to solve it if possible.
Big thanks,
Jonathan
JC
Hi Mike.
Can I please bother you with a couple more questions?
Do you know how I determine what TB is doing with the messages from a
Newsgroup such as this? I just went back to my TB install on Win XP (did
not download any new headers because I wanted to see where it was at
when I used it last since I really want to recoup the "stars" I made to
many years of threads on that newsgroup) - and I find that the newsgroup
is only going back to 1/11/10.
I would really like to find the information that I so pertinaciously
"starred" (was that word used totally incorrectly??) - anyway - can I
find the 09 and 08 and 07 and 06 stored somewhere on my hard drive?
Or am I effectively at the mercy of how long they retain data on the
newsgroup server somehow and I am only going to see threads that are on
their server?
Was there a setting that I should check...?!
Pretty please.
- Jonathan
Mike Easter
> Mike Easter wrote:
> I am actually seeing this behavior over here on a thread posted by
> Goodwin at 11:50 titled "Re: remove duplicate messages (redux)". There
> is a little "recycle/reply" symbol before it but it does not appear to
> be attached to my original post, or any posts in that thread.
>
> Obviously, I'd like to solve it if possible.
On my left is a computer running XP and Tbird 3.0.4 which I just created
a Moz news server account and downloaded all of the messages on the moz
news server in this moz/tbird group.
Normally I don't read messages in threaded sort, but I have switched to
that threaded view/sort for purposes of addressing this question.
I am looking at the thread of 3 messages which has posters JC, goodwin,
and JC. How the time displays is different for you than for me, but the
thread is 'intact'. There is nothing wrong with it.
It shows JC as the primary, goodwin as the secondary, and JC as the
tertiary member of the threadtree.
goodwin's references line properly has the one reference. JC's tertiary
message has the 2 references of the tree it followed.
Naturally in this newsgroup, I expect that all of the posts will be made
by nntp newsreaders, probably some version of tbird, and they will all
be made to the moz news server news.mozilla.org, and not some other
weird way.
--
Mike Easter
David E. Ross
I see the same. The thread is not broken.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9)
Gecko/20100317 Thunderbird/3.0.4
Mike Easter's expectation in the last paragraph is not true. Parallel
to this newsgroup is support-t...@lists.mozilla.org, a mailing
list discussion group. Messages in one automatically transfer to the
other. Further, this newsgroup is archived to Google Groups, from which
some participants reply. When replies come from either the mailing list
or Google Groups -- and such replies are indeed seen -- it's very
possible that threads break because of failures by the mailing list
gateway or Google to provide proper Reference header fields.
David E. Ross
If the news.mozilla.org service is anything like the commercial side of
Giganews (which hosts news.mozilla.org), messages are retained for three
years.
However, you also have retention settings within Thunderbird for each
account and additional retention settings for each newsgroup. As long
as you don't exceed three years, you can change those settings to longer
(or shorter) periods.
For the account, go to [Tools > Account Settings] on the menu bar. On
the left side of the Account Settings window, select Synchronization &
Storage. On the Synchronization & Storage pane, you will see several
options for retention.
For the individual newsgroup, select the newsgroup. On the menu bar, go
to [Edit > Newsgroup Properties]. On the Folder Properties window,
select the Retention Policy tab to see options for retention.
Mike Easter
> Mike Easter wrote:
>> Naturally in this newsgroup, I expect that all of the posts will be made
>> by nntp newsreaders, probably some version of tbird, and they will all
>> be made to the moz news server news.mozilla.org, and not some other
>> weird way.
> Mike Easter's expectation in the last paragraph is not true. Parallel
> to this newsgroup is support-t...@lists.mozilla.org, a mailing
> list discussion group. Messages in one automatically transfer to the
> other. Further, this newsgroup is archived to Google Groups, from which
> some participants reply. When replies come from either the mailing list
> or Google Groups -- and such replies are indeed seen -- it's very
> possible that threads break because of failures by the mailing list
> gateway or Google to provide proper Reference header fields.
>
Good point.
Now I'll have to go over to that recent thread that has active
participation by a GGer and see how it shapes up in the Win Tb3
threading function.
Now I wish that I hadn't downloaded 96000 messages for this group from
the server on that account. It makes Tbird's function very pokey.
--
Mike Easter
Mike Easter
> David E. Ross wrote:
>> Parallel
>> to this newsgroup is support-t...@lists.mozilla.org, a mailing
>> list discussion group. Messages in one automatically transfer to the
>> other. Further, this newsgroup is archived to Google Groups, from which
>> some participants reply. When replies come from either the mailing list
>> or Google Groups -- and such replies are indeed seen -- it's very
>> possible that threads break because of failures by the mailing list
>> gateway or Google to provide proper Reference header fields.
>>
> Good point.
>
> Now I'll have to go over to that recent thread that has active
> participation by a GGer and see how it shapes up in the Win Tb3
> threading function.
The thread 'CanSomeone-ImportAllOld mail msgs from an Outlook Express
email account??' is actively participated via GG by
kei...@madisoncounty.net AKA Terri and there are many different levels
of threading.
It appears to me that in that thread that GG is 'true to' the References
line -- some of Terri's posts have a references line 6 levels deep - and
they all appear to be threaded in the right place by Tbird3 Win.
--
Mike Easter
Ken Whiton
*-* In Article <7-qdnfbZzeHjaS7W...@mozilla.org>,
*-* David E. Ross wrote
*-* About Re: Thread bifurcation bug?
> On 3/31/10 3:26 PM, JC wrote:
[ ... ]
>> Do you know how I determine what TB is doing with the messages from
>> a Newsgroup such as this?
Unless you have downloaded (and retained) posts for offline use
TB only retains copies of the headers. The complete posts (headers
and bodies) remain on the server until they expire (i.e., are
automatically deleted) according to the server's retention policies.
Depending on the server, that can be anywhere from a few days to
several years.
>> I just went back to my TB install on Win
>> XP (did not download any new headers because I wanted to see where
>> it was at when I used it last since I really want to recoup the
>> "stars" I made to many years of threads on that newsgroup) - and I
>> find that the newsgroup is only going back to 1/11/10.
>>
>> I would really like to find the information that I so
>> pertinaciously "starred" (was that word used totally incorrectly??)
>> - anyway - can I find the 09 and 08 and 07 and 06 stored somewhere
>> on my hard drive?
Only if you had actively saved it to the hard drive.
>> Or am I effectively at the mercy of how long they retain data on
>> the newsgroup server somehow and I am only going to see threads
>> that are on their server?
That's correct. Are you dealing with a public news server, and
if so, which one?
>> Was there a setting that I should check...?!
>
> If the news.mozilla.org service is anything like the commercial side
> of Giganews (which hosts news.mozilla.org), messages are retained
> for three years.
Boy are you bhind the times!! ;-) Giganews' retention for text
groups is currently about six years and nine monthe, and for binary
groups it's 602 days.
As for news.mozilla.org, it opened for business on Giganews in
January, 2006 (over four years ago), and it's all still there.
Ken Whiton
--
FIDO: 1:132/152
InterNet: kenw...@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)
Ken Whiton
*-* In Article <tcudncr1U6O_oinW...@mozilla.org>,
*-* Mike Easter wrote
*-* About Re: Thread bifurcation bug?
> David E. Ross wrote:
Close TB. In your TB profile, open the news.mozilla.org folder,
located in the news folder. Delete the
mozilla.support.thunderbird.msf file and close the profile. When you
reopen TB and (attempt to) open this newsgroup you'll be prompted for
the number of posts to download. Select a number you're comfortable with.
Mike Easter
> Mike Easter wrote
>> Now I wish that I hadn't downloaded 96000 messages for this group
>> from the server on that account. It makes Tbird's function very
>> pokey.
>
> Close TB. In your TB profile, open the news.mozilla.org folder,
> located in the news folder. Delete the
> mozilla.support.thunderbird.msf file and close the profile. When you
> reopen TB and (attempt to) open this newsgroup you'll be prompted for
> the number of posts to download. Select a number you're comfortable with.
Actually I fixed it with the rebuild function because I am still trying
to understand how that is similar and how it is different from deleting
the .msf.
In this instance, the rebuild index worked satisfactorily to reduce my
view of headers.
For a time I was considering keeping the 96,000 just to 'peruse' a lot
of old posts, but since Tbird couldn't do it gracefully, I realized I
needed a header display which was more manageable.
--
Mike Easter
Ron Hunter
your view options to default, while rebuild won't.
goodwin
and for me, in TB 3.0.3, the reindex button froze Tbird all 3 times I
tried it...
Ken Whiton
*-* In Article <P4SdnWmDp-owhCjW...@mozilla.org>,
*-* Ron Hunter wrote
*-* About Re: Thread bifurcation bug?
> Mike Easter wrote:
Deleting the .msf file will also lose whatever history you have
in the group. Records of posts you have replied to, forwarded,
flagged/starred/tagged/whatever for future reference, etc. are stored
in the .msf file, and are lost when it's deleted. I would expect that
that information would be retained when using the rebuild index function.
JC
Hi Mike.
Many thanks for your help.
All I can say is that I am seeing this behavior over here all the time.
I can send you a screen shot off list if it would help.
I can't say if these "bifurcations" "stick" or if there is any rational
behavior to them but I can say for a fact that they happen all the time
over here.
I'm running Snow Leopard these days but if it helped I could check to
see if this behavior is also happening on the version of TB that I have
running on XP.
Cheers,
Jonathan
JC
Hi David,
Sorry to bother you. Do you mind if I ask you - basically - whether
there is anything I can do to prevent this behavior at this point?
I am subscribed to mozilla.support.thunderbird but my real need is to
see if I can prevent this from happening (on my end) from within the
newsgroup I post earlier.
It is always hard for me to know what is helpful and what is not helpful
but I can say that my impression is definitely that this behavior is
problematic on my recent install of TB and was not a problem on my prior
install of TB.
The differences being as far as I can tell - Win XP/2.something and Snow
Leopard/3.0.4.
Thanks.
JC
Hi Ken.
Sorry for the bother.
Do you mind my asking you if it is possible for me to do this in order
to archive old newsgroup mail? I seem to be having a problem accessing
mail from a newsgroup that is earlier than February 2010 and my
assumption is that I need to download more headers.
Ideally I'd like to go back quite a ways and it would be nice for me to
find a good method to - say archive by year. I think this is must be
possible if I was to download a ton of headers, delete the years that
were not within the correct range and export it to a folder or profile
in some way and to then go back and do this again.
Also, can I ask you if deleting the .msf file also deletes the "stars"
that I used to notate threads that I wanted to go back and review?
I am currently trying to find a way to resurrect these stars for about
four or five years worth of posts to a newsgroup (these are important
ones I need to reference) and it is unclear to me as to whether there is
a file in the Profile that will allow me to do this in conjunction with
downloading...
Can I ask you for some advice and or tips?
Thanks.
JC
Hi Ken.
Can I ask you if I can expect to be able to "cut and paste" the
newsgroup.msf file (that I think contains all of my history for a
particular newsgroup) over a Profile that contains mail from that newsgroup?
I would like to archive some newsgroup mail - along with the history -
so I can refer back to old threads.
I guess the key here would be to make sure that somehow the .msf file
that you were using correctly spanned the dates for the downloaded mail
that you are trying to archive...?
Right now I have very little mail in my newsgroup - likely due to my not
downloading many headers I think - and I am thinking that if I download
more headers I should go back to an older version of the newsgroup.msf
file and paste it over the one TB is currently using so that I can try
and resurrect the older but more comprehensive history for that newsgroup.
Does that make sense? Can you add or correct anything there?
THANKS!
JC
> options for retention.
>
> For the individual newsgroup, select the newsgroup. On the menu bar, go
> to [Edit> Newsgroup Properties]. On the Folder Properties window,
> select the Retention Policy tab to see options for retention.
>
Thank you David.
JC
Thank you Ken.
David E. Ross
Occasionally in a "broken" thread, I see a reply that requests users to
use "real" newsreaders instead of Google Groups or mailing list
discussion groups. This really does not help. Instead, we just learn
to live with this.
Ken Whiton
*-* In Article <q-OdnRx9VsbYxyrW...@mozilla.org>,
*-* JC wrote
*-* About Re: Thread bifurcation bug?
> On 4/1/10 4:05 AM, Ken Whiton wrote:
>> *-* Mike Easter wrote
[ ... ]
>>> Now I wish that I hadn't downloaded 96000 messages for this group
>>> from the server on that account. It makes Tbird's function very
>>> pokey.
>
>> Close TB. In your TB profile, open the news.mozilla.org
>> folder, located in the news folder. Delete the
>> mozilla.support.thunderbird.msf file and close the profile. When
>> you reopen TB and (attempt to) open this newsgroup you'll be
>> prompted for the number of posts to download. Select a number
>> you're comfortable with.
>
> Hi Ken.
>
> Sorry for the bother.
>
> Do you mind my asking you if it is possible for me to do this in
> order to archive old newsgroup mail? I seem to be having a problem
> accessing mail from a newsgroup that is earlier than February 2010
> and my assumption is that I need to download more headers.
>
> Ideally I'd like to go back quite a ways and it would be nice for me
> to find a good method to - say archive by year. I think this is must
> be possible if I was to download a ton of headers, delete the years
> that were not within the correct range and export it to a folder or
> profile in some way and to then go back and do this again.
>
> Also, can I ask you if deleting the .msf file also deletes the
> "stars" that I used to notate threads that I wanted to go back and
> review?
>
> I am currently trying to find a way to resurrect these stars for
> about four or five years worth of posts to a newsgroup (these are
> important ones I need to reference) and it is unclear to me as to
> whether there is a file in the Profile that will allow me to do this
> in conjunction with downloading...
>
> Can I ask you for some advice and or tips?
First things first. What server do you access that group on,
and, more importantly, what's their retention policy, i.e., how long
do they retain posts? If the threads you're interested in have
already expired from the server you could be SOL. Based on other
comments of yours I've seen, about switching from Windows to a Mac,
I'm guessing that that history is on the Windows machine. Do you
still have, or have access to, that machine?
Incidentally, based on the times shown on your posts it appears
that sometime between your Saturday posts and your Monday posts your
Mac's system clock has "jumped ahead" 12 hours. It looks like it
might be an AM/PM setting change.
JC
Dang. Thanks Ken. I see that AM-PM now. Thanks.
Yes, I am in the process of "cleaning up" Local Folder mail so it is
nice and tidy.
The "old state" of TB is in fact on the hard drive of my XP OS. I can't
say what the retention policy is in fact and I sort of don't want to
have to inquire at the moment.
Is there a strategy where I try and download as many headers as possible
to see how far back I can go on my MAC OS install of XP? If so, is there
a way for me to copy the old mailview.dat to the new MAC OS?
Alternatively I supposed I could move the old News.msf and the old
mailview.dat to the new install by writing over the older information...?
Can you suggest a good strategy?
Many thanks,
Jonathan
goodwin
<not much>
jc, fix your clock and go back to reading a good manual, then google on
how to ask intelligent questions.
Ken Whiton
*-* In Article <3MedncFbLviSUCbW...@mozilla.org>,
*-* JC wrote
*-* About Re: Thread bifurcation bug?
> On 4/6/10 3:02 AM, Ken Whiton wrote:
>> *-* JC wrote
> Dang. Thanks Ken. I see that AM-PM now. Thanks.
>
> Yes, I am in the process of "cleaning up" Local Folder mail so it is
> nice and tidy.
>
> The "old state" of TB is in fact on the hard drive of my XP OS. I
> can't say what the retention policy is in fact and I sort of don't
> want to have to inquire at the moment.
>
> Is there a strategy where I try and download as many headers as
> possible to see how far back I can go on my MAC OS install of XP?
Without having some idea of how many posts are on the server I
can't say what might or might not work, hence my question about retention.
What do you mean by "MAC OS install of XP"? Do you have one OS
running in a VM under the other OS?
> If
> so, is there a way for me to copy the old mailview.dat to the new
> MAC OS?
>
> Alternatively I supposed I could move the old News.msf and the old
> mailview.dat to the new install by writing over the older
> information...?
I'm not familiar with the mailViews.dat file or its purpose, so I
can't really answer either of the above questions.
> Can you suggest a good strategy?
Here's what I would do in your situation.
1. If your old Windows install of TB is on a separate machine,
set that machine up in a location where you can see both its
monitor and your Mac's monitor, and make sure it can connect
to the Internet. If your old Windows install of TB is in a
VM on the Mac, open that VM.
2. Open your old Windows install of TB, and open the news server
and newsgroup in question. Since that copy of TB probably
hasn't opened that newsgroup for a while you'll probably have
a lot of new headers to download. If TB displays a message
that there are more new posts than the limit you have set,
tell it to download *all* new headers.
3. Once TB has downloaded all the new headers it should display
numbers for Unread and Total posts in the lower right corner,
at the end of the status bar. Make note of the Total number.
4. With the Mac copy of TB closed, open its profile, delete the
.msf file for the newsgroup in question, and close the
profile.
5. Open the Mac copy of TB and open the news server and newsgroup
in question. TB should tell you how many posts there are in
the newsgroup, and ask how many it should download.
a. If the number of posts is less than the Total you noted in
Step 3 you've probably lost some of what you're trying to
recover.
b. If the number of posts is less than or approximately the
same as the Total you noted in Step 3, tell it to download
all the posts.
c. If the number of posts is more than the Step 3 Total, tell
it to download that many (the Step 3 Total) or a few more.
6. In the Thread (message list) Pane of the Windows copy of TB
click on the header of the "star" column so TB will sort on
that column, and all your "starred" threads will be displayed
together.
7. For each "starred" thread shown in the Windows copy of TB, use
the Date and/or Subject to locate the same thread in the Mac
copy of TB and "star" it there. Depending on the number of
threads involved this could be quite time-consuming and
tedious, but to me it seems "surer" than messing around
outside of TB with files you're not sure of.
JC
Hi Ken.
As always thanks for the help. Sorry for the issues but I have degree of
difficulty here that is more than I would have liked to take on all at
once. That said, your kind of help is a huge assistance.
I'll take a stab at it.
And yes, I run snow leopard but I also have win 7 installed on the
computer in the virtual machine using parallels 5.
It's a lot to tackle for one guy when you add everything else in, so
again a big thanks.
JC