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vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com

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Aug 11, 2021, 12:50:32 PM8/11/21
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Several senders, universities, email blows mailx up with "segmentation fault"

looks like mime without a start-mime header

Any way to read the message:


--
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus
blog: panix.com/~vjp2/ruminatn.htm - = - web: panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
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---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---






Grant Taylor

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Aug 11, 2021, 12:55:18 PM8/11/21
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On 8/11/21 10:50 AM, vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
> Several senders, universities, email blows mailx up with "segmentation fault"

:-(

> looks like mime without a start-mime header

I've run into something that might be described that way form Microsoft
email programs a handful of times over the last few years.

I found that the associated headers that I would expect to be part of
the mime separator either were completely absent /or/ they were encoded
as part of the base64 encoded blob. (I don't remember which it was
specifically.)

> Any way to read the message:

I was able to manually decode the base64 blob and access things correctly.

This seems like a standards violation to me. But it's not happened
often enough for me to find, chase, much less tilt at that particular
Microsoft windmill.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com

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Aug 12, 2021, 12:22:00 AM8/12/21
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In <sf0vi9$vcd$1...@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net> by Grant Taylor <gta...@tnetconsulting.net> on Wed, 11 Aug 2021 12:55:32 we perused:
*+-On 8/11/21 10:50 AM, vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
*+-> Several senders, universities, email blows mailx up with "segmentation fault"

*+-:-(

*+-> looks like mime without a start-mime header

*+-I've run into something that might be described that way form Microsoft
*+-email programs a handful of times over the last few years.

*+-I found that the associated headers that I would expect to be part of
*+-the mime separator either were completely absent /or/ they were encoded
*+-as part of the base64 encoded blob. (I don't remember which it was
*+-specifically.)

*+-> Any way to read the message:

*+-I was able to manually decode the base64 blob and access things correctly.

*+-This seems like a standards violation to me. But it's not happened
*+-often enough for me to find, chase, much less tilt at that particular
*+-Microsoft windmill.


Many thanks

Grant Taylor

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Aug 12, 2021, 12:45:22 AM8/12/21
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On 8/11/21 10:21 PM, vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
> Many thanks

You're welcome.

Aside: What client uses *+- as it's quote indicator?

The User-Agent header indicates tin. I know of it but have never used
it. Is that the default quote?

Claus Aßmann

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Aug 12, 2021, 2:20:01 AM8/12/21
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wrote:
> Several senders, universities, email blows mailx up with "segmentation fault"

Have you tried to debug the program?
Or at least reported the program to the mailx authors/maintainers?
It shouldn't crash.

--
Note: please read the netiquette before posting. I will almost never
reply to top-postings which include a full copy of the previous
article(s) at the end because it's annoying, shows that the poster
is too lazy to trim his article, and it's wasting the time of all readers.

Eli the Bearded

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Aug 12, 2021, 3:09:03 AM8/12/21
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In comp.mail.misc,
Claus AÃ mann <INVALID_NO_CC_REMOVE_IF_YOU_DO_NOT_POST_ml+sendmail(-no-copies-please)@esmtp.org> wrote:

Well *that's* quite an email address.

>> Several senders, universities, email blows mailx up with "segmentation fault"
> Have you tried to debug the program?

Near as I can tell, no.

> Or at least reported the program to the mailx authors/maintainers?

He hasn't even identified what version of mailx. It may well be that it
has been fixed. I'm not afraid of mailx source, but I don't have enough
information to even try to reproduce this. (I don't think anyone is
maintaining mailx these days, just local patches from different OSes.)

If he's using mailx from the shell prompt at Panix, there's at least
two versions. /usr/bin/mailx is very old, /usr/local/bin/mailx is much
newer. There are many more if he is using an alias (eg to running
/u/l/b/mailx.att or /u/l/b/mailx.old or /u/l/b/nail). He could be
using one he compiled himself or not be using it on Panix at all.

He did complain about this in the Panix internal newsgroups, too, where
I have also not seen a good description of the problem.

I use mailx daily on Panix, but I compiled my own fork. I never see
mailx seg fault.

Elijah
------
Panix is very accomodating about installing software upon request

Anssi Saari

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Aug 12, 2021, 3:21:37 AM8/12/21
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Grant Taylor <gta...@tnetconsulting.net> writes:

> On 8/11/21 10:21 PM, vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
>> Many thanks
>
> You're welcome.
>
> Aside: What client uses *+- as it's quote indicator?
>
> The User-Agent header indicates tin. I know of it but have never used
> it. Is that the default quote?

I have a vague memory tin used something other than the almost
ubiquitous '> ', possibly -> but not *+- by default. With a quick look
at what I think the tin defaults are today (for version 2.4.3) tin uses
'> ' like everyone else by default.

Spiros Bousbouras

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Aug 12, 2021, 7:03:46 AM8/12/21
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[I dropped comp.unix.shell .I went over a list of newsgroups trying to find
something newsreaders specific but alt.comp.software.newsreaders ,
news.software.newsreaders and alt.comp.apps.nntp seem dead.
]

On Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:21:32 +0300
Anssi Saari <a...@sci.fi> wrote:
> Grant Taylor <gta...@tnetconsulting.net> writes:
>
> > Aside: What client uses *+- as it's quote indicator?
> >
> > The User-Agent header indicates tin. I know of it but have never used
> > it. Is that the default quote?
>
> I have a vague memory tin used something other than the almost
> ubiquitous '> ', possibly -> but not *+- by default. With a quick look
> at what I think the tin defaults are today (for version 2.4.3) tin uses
> '> ' like everyone else by default.

I don't use tin myself but I have seen tin many times in headers and I
don't recall ever seeing an unusual method of quoting.

Frank Slootweg

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Aug 18, 2021, 9:41:05 AM8/18/21
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Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [I dropped comp.unix.shell .I went over a list of newsgroups trying to find
> something newsreaders specific but alt.comp.software.newsreaders ,
> news.software.newsreaders and alt.comp.apps.nntp seem dead.
> ]

The newsgroup name is news.software.readers, not ...newsreaders.

It's *the* newsgroup for newsreaders.

And the NNTP (and News server software) group is news.software.nntp

[...]

Spiros Bousbouras

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Aug 18, 2021, 1:05:13 PM8/18/21
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On 18 Aug 2021 13:41:03 GMT
Thank you , it's good to know that these exist.
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