Re: Problem with nnml group

[Leonidas Tsampros <ltsampros@upnet.gr>]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> Leonidas Tsampros <ltsampros@upnet.gr> writes:
>
>> The overview file under outbox/ contains the overview lines for messages
>> 1 to 5 which are indeed the 5 last messages I sent today. Since these
>> are the last messages I sent, I would expect them to be 470-475
>> instead. That means, that Gnus got confused today and overwrote 5 old
>> sent mails of mine.
>
> Are you sure that articles 1-5 really did exist before?  I think there's
> a protection in nnml somewhere against overwriting files.
>
> Anyway, it sounds like nnml thinks that there's only five messages in
> the group, for some reason.  What does ~/Mail/active say about the
> group?

Hi Lars,

thanks for the answer. I've been meaning to take a look at the relevant
code but I have no time currently.

I think the trigger of the issue is a combination of the below:

1) (setq nnml-directory "~/Mail.Gnus")
   (setq mail-source-delete-incoming t)
   (setq mail-sources '((directory :path "~/Mail"
                                   :suffix "")))
   (setq gnus-message-archive-group "nnml:outbox")

2) fire up emacs/gnus from a directory other than the home
directory (that was the only different parameter in contrast with my
everyday Gnus-workflow).

3) Move files from the nnml:outbox to another group, thus creating holes
in the article ranges.

However, I've not been up to the task of trying to reproduce the bug
yet, so all the above is just speculation.

With regards to the active file, I remember that it was completely wrong
and I removed the relevant entry. Then I edited the group and marks by
hand to reflect the correct values, restarted Gnus and this fixed the
issue for me.

Now G E on nnml:outbox reports: 

("nnml:outbox" 3
 ((1 . 484))
 ((seen
   (1 . 484)))
 "nnml:")

The outbox/.marks file:
((read (1 . 484)))

My Mail.Gnus/active file:
outbox 484 1 y

and I can confirm that new mail gets saved successfully without
overwriting old mail.

However, going back to the original problem, I cannot guarantee that
mails 1-5 existed. I had done a mass mail move recently to nnimap but I
did not meddle with such old mails (I only moved specific mails after
01/09/2010).

Now my only remaining problem is that when I enter the group I get 227
emails whereas the outbox folder itself reports:

[ltsampros@laptop]outbox $ ls -1 | sort -n | wc -l
483

and the mode line writes:
nnml:outbox [470] Bot (227,0) (Summary Plugged)

I can notice that the only mails that are being displayed have sent
dates gt 01/01/2011.

Upon entering the group, I think the total number is also displayed
correctly:

How many articles from outbox (available 484, default 200) however
whatever number I enter there a completely arbitrary number of articles
appear on the summary buffer (e.g. for the default number 200, only the
last 15 mails appear).

I really cannot understand what is going on. Fortunately, I have kept a
backup since the problem appeared.

Best Regards,
Leonidas Tsampros