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New issue: emails get stuck in Mail/Incoming* files

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Francis Moreau

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Oct 29, 2009, 6:41:41 AM10/29/09
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Hello

I'm facing with a new issue with Gnus.

All my emails (fetched by fetchmail into /var/spool directory) are
moved by Gnus to Mail/Incoming* files, but now they don't appear
anymore in my Inbox group.

Could anybody tell me what's happening ?

Thanks

Tassilo Horn

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Oct 29, 2009, 2:53:18 PM10/29/09
to info-gnu...@gnu.org
Francis Moreau <franci...@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

> All my emails (fetched by fetchmail into /var/spool directory) are
> moved by Gnus to Mail/Incoming* files,

I can explain that:

,----[ (info "(gnus)Gnus Development") ]
| Some variable defaults differ between alpha Gnusae and released
| Gnusae, in particular, `mail-source-delete-incoming'. This is to
| prevent lossage of mail if an alpha release hiccups while handling the
| mail.
`----

,----[ C-h v mail-source-delete-incoming RET ]
| mail-source-delete-incoming is a variable defined in `mail-source.el'.
| Its value is 10
|
| Documentation:
| If non-nil, delete incoming files after handling.
| If t, delete immediately, if nil, never delete. If a positive number, delete
| files older than number of days.
|
| Removing of old files happens in `mail-source-callback', i.e. no
| old incoming files will be deleted unless you receive new mail.
| You may also set this variable to nil and call
| `mail-source-delete-old-incoming' interactively.
`----

,----[ C-h v mail-source-incoming-file-prefix RET ]
| mail-source-incoming-file-prefix is a variable defined in `mail-source.el'.
| Its value is "Incoming"
|
| Documentation:
| Prefix for file name for storing incoming mail
`----

> but now they don't appear anymore in my Inbox group.

Well, here I don't know why...

Bye,
Tassilo

Francis Moreau

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Oct 29, 2009, 5:28:26 PM10/29/09
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Hello Tassilo,

On Oct 29, 7:53 pm, Tassilo Horn <tass...@member.fsf.org> wrote:

Yes, I already set mail-source-delete-incoming to nil since I don't
want to loose any emails until this problem is fixed.

> > but now they don't appear anymore in my Inbox group.

It looks like the split process, the one which deliver each email to
the right group is not working/called anymore.

This might be due to an unexpected power-off that leads to a
corruption of a Gnus' file or something similar.

Do you have an idea, how I can debug this ?

Thanks

Tassilo Horn

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Oct 30, 2009, 3:04:45 AM10/30/09
to info-gnu...@gnu.org
Francis Moreau <franci...@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

>> > but now they don't appear anymore in my Inbox group.


>
> It looks like the split process, the one which deliver each email to
> the right group is not working/called anymore.
>
> This might be due to an unexpected power-off that leads to a
> corruption of a Gnus' file or something similar.
>
> Do you have an idea, how I can debug this ?

Hm, to see where the splitting process delivered a mail, you can use
this.

,----[ (info "(gnus)Splitting Mail") ]
| If you wish to see where the previous mail split put the messages,
| you can use the `M-x nnmail-split-history' command.
`----

But most probably this doesn't show anything, because you said that they
don't show up in any inbox.

I had a similar thing when upgrading from dovecot 1.1 to 1.2 (that's my
local imap server). In 1.1, the dot was used as separator while in 1.2
it is a /. So the old foo.bar group didn't get any new messages. Then,
I found out that I had to enter the server buffer and subscribe to
foo/bar and friends, which contained all the new and the old mails.

But I guess you use nnml or nnmaildir, right?

Bye,
Tassilo

Francis Moreau

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Oct 30, 2009, 4:40:09 AM10/30/09
to
Hello Tassilo,

On Oct 30, 8:04 am, Tassilo Horn <tass...@member.fsf.org> wrote:
> Francis Moreau <francis.m...@gmail.com> writes:
>

> Hm, to see where the splitting process delivered a mail, you can use
> this.
>
> ,----[ (info "(gnus)Splitting Mail") ]
> |    If you wish to see where the previous mail split put the messages,
> | you can use the `M-x nnmail-split-history' command.
> `----
>
> But most probably this doesn't show anything, because you said that they
> don't show up in any inbox.

No this doesn't help since the emails seem not going through the split
process and stay at the 'Incoming' stage.

>
> I had a similar thing when upgrading from dovecot 1.1 to 1.2 (that's my
> local imap server).  In 1.1, the dot was used as separator while in 1.2
> it is a /.  So the old foo.bar group didn't get any new messages.  Then,
> I found out that I had to enter the server buffer and subscribe to
> foo/bar and friends, which contained all the new and the old mails.
>

I took a look to the server buffer, but nothing wrong I can notice
unfortunately.

> But I guess you use nnml or nnmaildir, right?

yes I use nnml.

So I guess I need to debug this with a debuger, but I was wondering if
you or someone else have any hints since I'm going to have hard time
to find out what's going on...

Thanks

Francis Moreau

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Oct 30, 2009, 7:49:54 AM10/30/09
to

Ok, I found something...

To fetch new emails, I'm doing 'g' in the group buffer. However I just
redefined this key binding so it fetchs only emails for groups whose
levels are 1 or 2:

(defun my-gnus-group-get-new-news (level)
(interactive "P")
(gnus-group-get-new-news (or level 2))
(gnus-group-list-groups))

(define-key gnus-group-mode-map [?g] 'my-gnus-group-get-new-news)

And it happens to cause the issue I'm currently facing: if I remove
this binding and therefore call a 'raw' gnus-group-get-new-news() when
pressing 'g' it works as expected.

I actually did another test without redefining 'g' binding: I did "C-u
2 g" to rescan emails for group levels 1, 2 and it fails the same way
as before.

So either I haven't understand gnus-group-get-new-news documentation,
or this function is boggus.

See if I can understand that code...

Tassilo Horn

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Oct 30, 2009, 10:17:03 AM10/30/09
to info-gnu...@gnu.org
Francis Moreau <franci...@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

>> But I guess you use nnml or nnmaildir, right?


>
> yes I use nnml.
>
> So I guess I need to debug this with a debuger, but I was wondering if
> you or someone else have any hints since I'm going to have hard time
> to find out what's going on...

I don't use nnml and no mail spool, so I don't have any expertise there.
You might want to do `M-x toggle-debug-on-error' before looking for new
mail, just to ensure that there's no error thrown somewhere.

Maybe there's some message in *Messages*?

Bye,
Tassilo

Francis Moreau

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Oct 30, 2009, 10:27:02 AM10/30/09
to
Hello Tassilo,

On Oct 30, 3:17 pm, Tassilo Horn <tass...@member.fsf.org> wrote:

nothing.

Please have a look to my post:

Message-ID: <2545451f-beb5-4fe8-b46c-
d2d0b9...@g23g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>

I think I have found something but I'm unable to debug it

Tassilo Horn

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Oct 30, 2009, 6:32:33 PM10/30/09
to info-gnu...@gnu.org
Francis Moreau <franci...@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

> (defun my-gnus-group-get-new-news (level)


> (interactive "P")
> (gnus-group-get-new-news (or level 2))
> (gnus-group-list-groups))
>
> (define-key gnus-group-mode-map [?g] 'my-gnus-group-get-new-news)
>
> And it happens to cause the issue I'm currently facing: if I remove
> this binding and therefore call a 'raw' gnus-group-get-new-news() when
> pressing 'g' it works as expected.
>
> I actually did another test without redefining 'g' binding: I did "C-u
> 2 g" to rescan emails for group levels 1, 2 and it fails the same way
> as before.
>
> So either I haven't understand gnus-group-get-new-news documentation,
> or this function is boggus.

Hm, looks all good to me. Try to edebug that function and see where it
differs with and without level.

Bye,
Tassilo

Francis Moreau

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Oct 31, 2009, 2:46:21 AM10/31/09
to
On Oct 30, 11:32 pm, Tassilo Horn <tass...@member.fsf.org> wrote:

Is there another news group where development on Gnus are discussed ?

Thanks

Tassilo Horn

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Oct 31, 2009, 4:37:47 AM10/31/09
to info-gnu...@gnu.org
Francis Moreau <franci...@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

> Is there another news group where development on Gnus are discussed ?

There is the di...@gnus.org mailing list which is also accessible via
gmane (gmane.emacs.gnus.general).

Bye,
Tassilo

Francis Moreau

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Nov 2, 2009, 3:58:22 AM11/2/09
to
Hello Tassilo,

On Oct 31, 9:37 am, Tassilo Horn <tass...@member.fsf.org> wrote:
> Francis Moreau <francis.m...@gmail.com> writes:
>

> > Is there another news group where development on Gnus are discussed ?
>

> There is the d...@gnus.org mailing list which is also accessible via
> gmane (gmane.emacs.gnus.general).
>

Ok, I think I'll use this one, it's funny to see that Gnus development
discussions happen on a mailing list and not on a news group.

Francis Moreau

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Nov 4, 2009, 11:33:47 AM11/4/09
to
Hello Tassilo,

On Oct 31, 9:37 am, Tassilo Horn <tass...@member.fsf.org> wrote:
>
> There is the d...@gnus.org mailing list which is also accessible via
> gmane (gmane.emacs.gnus.general).
>

I posted my question 2 days ago and cannot see it from
gmane.emacs.gnus.general.

Should I be subscribed to post on this mailing lists ?

I would think no since I haven't received any reply asking me to
subscribe before posting.

Tassilo Horn

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Nov 5, 2009, 9:01:05 AM11/5/09
to info-gnu...@gnu.org
Francis Moreau <franci...@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

>> There is the d...@gnus.org mailing list which is also accessible via


>> gmane (gmane.emacs.gnus.general).
>
> I posted my question 2 days ago and cannot see it from
> gmane.emacs.gnus.general.
>
> Should I be subscribed to post on this mailing lists ?

I don't use that group but the mailinglist. But I think I used it
somewhere in the past. Normally, you should get a gmane confirmation
message from gmane the first time you post to a group, which you have to
reply to.

If you didn't get it, maybe try again.

Bye,
Tassilo

Francis Moreau

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Nov 6, 2009, 11:09:32 AM11/6/09
to
On 5 nov, 15:01, Tassilo Horn <tass...@member.fsf.org> wrote:

> Francis Moreau <francis.m...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> Hi Francis,
>
> >> There is the d...@gnus.org mailing list which is also accessible via
> >> gmane (gmane.emacs.gnus.general).
>
> > I posted my question 2 days ago and cannot see it from
> > gmane.emacs.gnus.general.
>
> > Should I be subscribed to post on this mailing lists ?
>
> I don't use that group but the mailinglist.  But I think I used it
> somewhere in the past.  Normally, you should get a gmane confirmation
> message from gmane the first time you post to a group, which you have to
> reply to.

Sorry I wasn't cleared: I did send a mail to the mailing list but
since I'm not subscribed, I use gmane.emacs.gnus.general to check that
my email reached the mailing list and I can't see it.

But I'll retry as you suggested.

Thanks

Tassilo Horn

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Nov 6, 2009, 5:52:37 PM11/6/09
to info-gnu...@gnu.org
Francis Moreau <franci...@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Francis,

>> > Should I be subscribed to post on this mailing lists ?


>>
>> I don't use that group but the mailinglist.  But I think I used it
>> somewhere in the past.  Normally, you should get a gmane confirmation
>> message from gmane the first time you post to a group, which you have
>> to reply to.
>
> Sorry I wasn't cleared: I did send a mail to the mailing list but
> since I'm not subscribed, I use gmane.emacs.gnus.general to check that
> my email reached the mailing list and I can't see it.

I'm subscribed to ding, and there's no message from you. So maybe you
have to be subscribed to post to the list. Hm, maybe try to post via
the gmane group, or subscribe to the list.

Bye,
Tassilo

Francis Moreau

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Nov 12, 2009, 3:55:25 PM11/12/09
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Hello Tassilo,

Tassilo Horn <tas...@member.fsf.org> writes:

Ok I give up, after subscribing to this list, it still doesn't work :(

--
Francis

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