qgnus: Cached articles are marked read when expired from server

qgnus: Cached articles are marked read when expired from server

[Lars Balker Rasmussen]

I have observed that cached articles in my nntp-groups are marked read
when their server-counterparts have expired.  They're not deleted from
the cache though, so their status as unread can be restored in the
group.  This restoration only lasts until next start of Gnus though...

Observed for qgnus 0.13 and 0.17.

Most discombobulating.

(setq
 ;; cache ticked and dormant articals locally.  They won't expire then!
 gnus-use-cache			t
 gnus-cache-directory		"~/News/cache/"
 gnus-cache-active-file		"~/News/cache/active"

 ;; Don't cache mail-groups
 gnus-uncacheable-groups	"^nnml"
)
-- 
Lars Balker Rasmussen, Software Engineer, Mjolner Informatics ApS
lbr@mjolner.dk

Re: qgnus: Cached articles are marked read when expired from server

[Lars Balker Rasmussen]

Lars Balker Rasmussen <lbr@mjolner.dk> writes:
> I have observed that cached articles in my nntp-groups are marked read
> when their server-counterparts have expired.  They're not deleted from
> the cache though, so their status as unread can be restored in the
> group.  This restoration only lasts until next start of Gnus though...
> 
> Observed for qgnus 0.13 and 0.17.

Also for 0.18.

A side effect of this is that when entering the affected group for the
first time after starting Gnus, the cached articles that have been
expired on the newsserver does NOT show up in the Summary buffer, even
when entering with `C-u SPACE'.  Leaving the Summary buffer and
reentering makes the appear, so you can M-u them all for this session.

Does anyone else see this?
-- 
Lars Balker Rasmussen, Software Engineer, Mjolner Informatics ApS
lbr@mjolner.dk

Re: qgnus: Cached articles are marked read when expired from server

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Balker Rasmussen <lbr@mjolner.dk> writes:

> I have observed that cached articles in my nntp-groups are marked read
> when their server-counterparts have expired.  They're not deleted from
> the cache though, so their status as unread can be restored in the
> group.  This restoration only lasts until next start of Gnus though...

Huh.  Does the cache active file look ok?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: qgnus: Cached articles are marked read when expired from server

[Lars Balker Rasmussen]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> Huh.  Does the cache active file look ok?

Now that you mention it.  My News/cache/active file was empty, and
hadn't been touched since Oct 2nd.  I was using Qgnus 0.11 at the time,
and had only just started using Emacs 20.2 the night before.

Oh well, I deleted it, restarted Gnus, and now it contains the
information I would expect, making the affected groups contain the
expected number of articles.

Deleting the active file and touch'ing it makes Gnus do the same thing
as before.  Perhaps Gnus should treat an empty active file as a
non-existant one?

As a sidenote, the problem wasn't directly with the articles being
marked as read.  When entering the summary buffer for an affected group
for the first time, the empty active file caused gnus-cache to assume
the cache was empty, so the cached *and* expired articles were not
presented, and ultimately marked as read.

Ho hum.
-- 
Lars Balker Rasmussen, Software Engineer, Mjolner Informatics ApS
lbr@mjolner.dk

Re: qgnus: Cached articles are marked read when expired from server

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Balker Rasmussen <lbr@mjolner.dk> writes:

> Deleting the active file and touch'ing it makes Gnus do the same thing
> as before.  Perhaps Gnus should treat an empty active file as a
> non-existant one?

Yup.  Fix in Quassia Gnus v0.19.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen