I'm trying to get the IMAP portion of gnus working.  I'm somehow missing the
right incantation.   I originally tried with  pgnus 0.98 and  I'm now trying
gnus-5.8.2 and I am getting the same error. 

Platform red hat  6.0 stock with GNU Emacs  20.3.1 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu, X
toolkit) of Mon Apr 19 1999 on porky.devel.redhat.com

gnus 5.8.2 from tar file. 

my .gnus contains:

;; gnus config file

;;(setq load-path
;;      (cons (expand-file-name "/home/esj/imapwemacs/nnimap-0.131") load-path))

;(require 'nnimap)

(setq imap-debug "*imap-debug*")
(setq debug-on-error  t)

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '((nnimap "harvee"
                (nnimap-address "harvee.billerica.ma.us")
		(nnimap-stream network)
                (nnimap-list-pattern ("INBOX" "/home/esj/IMap/*")))))

the back trace I get is:

Signaling: (wrong-type-argument wholenump -1)
  make-string(-1 124)
  trace-entry-message(imap-opened 0 ((buffer " *nnimap* harvee" optional)))
  (insert (trace-entry-message (quote imap-opened) trace-level (list ...)))
  (save-excursion (set-buffer trace-buffer) (goto-char (point-max)) (if (= trace-level 1) (insert trace-separator)) (insert (trace-entry-message ... trace-level ...)))
  (let ((trace-level ...) (trace-buffer ...)) (save-excursion (set-buffer trace-buffer) (goto-char ...) (if ... ...) (insert ...)) (setq ad-return-value (ad-Orig-imap-opened buffer)) (save-excursion (set-buffer trace-buffer) (goto-char ...) (insert ...)))
  (let (ad-return-value) (let (... ...) (save-excursion ... ... ... ...) (setq ad-return-value ...) (save-excursion ... ... ...)) ad-return-value)
  imap-opened(" *nnimap* harvee")
  nnimap-open-server("harvee" ((nnimap-address "harvee.billerica.ma.us") (nnimap-stream network) (nnimap-list-pattern ("INBOX" "/home/esj/IMap/*"))))
  gnus-open-server((nnimap "harvee" (nnimap-address "harvee.billerica.ma.us") (nnimap-stream network) (nnimap-list-pattern ("INBOX" "/home/esj/IMap/*"))))
  gnus-check-server((nnimap "harvee" (nnimap-address "harvee.billerica.ma.us") (nnimap-stream network) (nnimap-list-pattern ("INBOX" "/home/esj/IMap/*"))))
  gnus-read-active-file-1((nnimap "harvee" (nnimap-address "harvee.billerica.ma.us") (nnimap-stream network) (nnimap-list-pattern ("INBOX" "/home/esj/IMap/*"))) nil)
  gnus-read-active-file(nil nil)
  gnus-setup-news(nil nil nil)
  byte-code("„
  gnus-1(nil nil nil)
  gnus(nil)
* call-interactively(gnus)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
* call-interactively(execute-extended-command)

any ideas?  I'm at a loss as to where to look. 

--- eric