Can anyone explain this error message?

Can anyone explain this error message?

[Harry Putnam]

When I start gnus, or scan for news/mail

I get this error in echo area (wrapped for mail):

  Mail source (directory :path /home/reader/spool/in/ :suffix .in
  :predicate #[(file) \301\b!\302\230\207 [file file-name-nondirectory
  cron_tr.in] 2]) error (Searching for program).  Continue? (y or n) y

In gnus I have this:
(setq mail-sources
           '((file :path "/var/spool/mail/reader")
             (directory :path "/home/reader/spool/in/"    :suffix ".in")))

There are dozens of mbox style files in there, all ending in *.in
When scanned, gnus slurps them up and delivers to nnml groups of the
same name minus the `.in' part.

But for some reason the file mentioned in the error (cron_tr.in) has a
problem.

I don't see anything unusual about it, but did delete it.. Of course
it gets recreated when procmail delivers more msgs to it.  Just like
all the other *.in files...

Once again I hit the error after it gets recreated.

[Further note from a day later:  I see now after deleting all tine
*.in files that all are causing the same error with different
filename. of course.  All `searching for program'.

What program would that be... far as I know its gnus itself that does
the slurping, after procmail writes to those mbox style files.


I made no changes in .procmailrc .gnus or .emacs, however: I did
recreate the emacs directory created by git, from a backup of a few
hours earlier, due to problems with gnus failing to get mail from
several nnimap groups following a git pull and rebuild of emacs
yesterday (170725).

Something I've done with no problems a time or two in the past.

That is when the error started to appear.

Must have lost something that handles the transfer of of those mbox
files to nnml folders.

Re: Can anyone explain this error message?

[Robert Pluim]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> When I start gnus, or scan for news/mail
>
> I get this error in echo area (wrapped for mail):
>
>   Mail source (directory :path /home/reader/spool/in/ :suffix .in
>   :predicate #[(file) \301\b!\302\230\207 [file file-name-nondirectory
>   cron_tr.in] 2]) error (Searching for program).  Continue? (y or n) y
>

If you do (setq debug-on-error t), then you should get a better
backtrace telling you what's going on.

Regards

Robert

Re: Can anyone explain this error message?

[Harry Putnam]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:

> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
>
>> When I start gnus, or scan for news/mail
>>
>> I get this error in echo area (wrapped for mail):
>>
>>   Mail source (directory :path /home/reader/spool/in/ :suffix .in
>>   :predicate #[(file) \301\b!\302\230\207 [file file-name-nondirectory
>>   cron_tr.in] 2]) error (Searching for program).  Continue? (y or n) y
>>
>
> If you do (setq debug-on-error t), then you should get a better
> backtrace telling you what's going on.
>

I've worked around for now. So don't have the same setup now, I'll
have to set it up in a sandbox to recreate.

But as I recall I did set debug on error (as an old time gnus user I
knew to try that).  As I recall it produced no back-trace... It might
not be considered a gnus error.  Or probably more likely I screwed
up the attempt somehow.


The problem produces a yes or no question and claims the error is in
not finding an un-named program.  But it has got to be involved with the
way gnus slurps *.in mbox files and sends them to like named (minus
the *.in part) nnml directories.

I'm running debian in a vbox vm on an `openindian' OS (an open source
branch of solaris 11).  I had inadvertently rm'ed my git branch of
emacs and some of its installed files I keep on a test area. Replaced
them with files from a zfs filesytem snapshot.

Hopefully it has something to do with me having screwed that up
somehow.

I'm going to try again from a clean start ... Maybe it will just go away.