I am an idiot.

I am an idiot.

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello guys,

   I was launching last night my Gnus, and while it tried to open the
news server, I typed "C-g" to get it out of the loop.  All of a
sudden, all my groups were gone.

   I eventually managed to get my mail groups back, but now they all
have an "*" in front of them, and it seems all the history about which
messages I had read, and which ones I had replied to, and expired is
gone (I fucked up even more afterwards though).

   So this is not a bug report, but a request for help :-)

   I have the impression that the information about which mails I read
is kept in the overview files for my nnml groups or hopefully on the
messages themselves.  Is there any way to make Gnus regenerate its
internal data about my article marks from the existing files?

   I will deeply appreciate any help.

Best wishes,
Miguel.

Re: I am an idiot.

[Kai Großjohann]

Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com> writes:

> I have the impression that the information about which mails I read
> is kept in the overview files for my nnml groups or hopefully on the
> messages themselves.  Is there any way to make Gnus regenerate its
> internal data about my article marks from the existing files?

You have probably screwed up your .newsrc.eld.  I regret having to
tell you that the article marks are stored in .newsrc.eld :-/

kai
-- 
~/.signature: No such file or directory

Re: I am an idiot.

[D. Michael McFarland]

>>>>> "Kai" == Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> writes:

 Kai> You have probably screwed up your .newsrc.eld.  I regret having
 Kai> to tell you that the article marks are stored in .newsrc.eld :-/

Is there a general strategy for coping with this situation, where one
has somehow "lost" some of Gnus's state information?  I suppose
quitting via Q is the best bet.  Not that I've ever made such a
mistake, of course.  Ahem.  ("What do you mean I can't yank back those
six groups I just killed?")

Michael

-- 
    D. Michael McFarland   <mcfarlan@neca.com>

Re: I am an idiot.

[Alan Shutko]

mcfarlan@neca.com (D. Michael McFarland) writes:

> Is there a general strategy for coping with this situation, where one
> has somehow "lost" some of Gnus's state information?  I suppose
> quitting via Q is the best bet.

Quitting immediately is always the best bet.  When it looks like
you've lost lots of groups because you hit C-g, you probably haven't
lost them, just interrupted it while it was building the list, so you
can safely save and quit.  I only use Q when I really think lots has
gone wrong.

(I also save all the time, so hitting Q wouldn't be so bad.)

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
226 days, 21 hours, 19 minutes, 15 seconds till we run away.
The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching train.

Re: I am an idiot.

[Sudish Joseph]

Alan Shutko writes:
> Quitting immediately is always the best bet.  When it looks like
> you've lost lots of groups because you hit C-g, you probably haven't
> lost them, just interrupted it while it was building the list, so you
> can safely save and quit.  I only use Q when I really think lots has
> gone wrong.

I use Q out of the *Group* buffer quite frequently, mostly when I hit
c by mistake when exiting a group.  Or for typos in multi-key
sequences, such as for scoring, where the wrong prefix key can land up
with a lot of groups getting messed up.  I then edit the dribble file
and remove the junk transformations on newsrc.eld.

This is what I would've done in Miguel's situation.  (Fwiw, there're
other cases where Gnus can get confused when C-g is hit at the wrong
moment during group article update.  Sometimes this can lead to groups
having totally bogus article counts.  I do a quick visual scan of the
group buffer after hitting C-g when Gnus is updating article counts.)

I've often thought it'd be cool to have an "undo" mode buffer, where
one could edit the dribble file in a user-friendly fashion.  However,
C-xC-f .newsrc-dribble combined with C-k works well enough for me at
the moment.

> (I also save all the time, so hitting Q wouldn't be so bad.)

I haven't used "q" in years now and instead bind "z" in the group
buffer to gnus-group-suspend.  I then have the suspend hook write out
.newsrc.eld:
(add-hook 'gnus-suspend-gnus-hook 'gnus-group-save-newsrc)

Works very well for me, since a suspended Gnus has faster startup for
scanning new news than M-x gnus.

-- 
Sudish Joseph

Re: I am an idiot.

[Colin Rafferty]

Sudish Joseph writes:

> I haven't used "q" in years now and instead bind "z" in the group
> buffer to gnus-group-suspend.  I then have the suspend hook write out
> .newsrc.eld:

Why even suspend?  I have dedicated XEmacs frames for Gnus.  If XEmacs
is running, so is Gnus.

My restart time is zero.

And here's my most important three lines:

(add-hook 'gnus-after-getting-new-news-hook 'gnus-dribble-save)
(add-hook 'gnus-group-catchup-group-hook 'gnus-dribble-save)
(add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-dribble-save)

-- 
Colin

Re: I am an idiot.

[Sudish Joseph]

Colin Rafferty writes:
> Why even suspend?  I have dedicated XEmacs frames for Gnus.  If XEmacs
> is running, so is Gnus.

It's equivalent to saving newsrc.eld, followed by bury-buffer.
Convenience more than anything else.  (I don't like the multi-frame
approach, but that's a personal preference more a vestige of an
earlier period where opening multiple frames in one of GNU Emacs or
XEmacs caused redisplay to slow down terribly.)

-- 
Sudish Joseph

Re: I am an idiot.

[Arcady Genkin]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Groъjohann) writes:

> You have probably screwed up your .newsrc.eld.  I regret having to
> tell you that the article marks are stored in .newsrc.eld :-/

It's probably overwritten now, but if not, try replacing .newsrc.eld
with .newsrc.eld~.

Back up your current .newsrc.eld firs of all, of course.

This is untested... Just a thought, hope it doesn't get you in further
trouble. ;^)
-- 
Arcady Genkin                                 http://www.thpoon.com
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

.newsrc.eld backups (was: I am an idiot.)

[Mike Fabian]

Arcady Genkin <a.genkin@utoronto.ca> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Groъjohann) writes:
> 
> > You have probably screwed up your .newsrc.eld.  I regret having to
> > tell you that the article marks are stored in .newsrc.eld :-/
> 
> It's probably overwritten now, but if not, try replacing .newsrc.eld
> with .newsrc.eld~.

this reminds me of a strange phenomenon I am observing with the
backup-files of .newsrc.eld. I have

    (setq version-control t)
    (setq kept-new-versions 2)
    (setq kept-old-versions 2)

in my .emacs to make XEmacs create not only foo~ backup-files, but a
series of numbered backup files. This works in most cases, for example
I have several backups of .bbdb:

    mike@nozomi ~$ ll .bbdb*
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7675 Mar 29 20:38 .bbdb
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7604 Mar  5 18:54 .bbdb.~1~
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7641 Mar 21 20:02 .bbdb.~2~
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7661 Mar 24 01:02 .bbdb.~4~
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike         7627 Mar 25 20:09 .bbdb.~5~

but no extra backups are created for .newsrc.eld:

    mike@nozomi ~$ ll .newsrc.eld*
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike       178191 Mar 30 08:50 .newsrc.eld
    -rw-r--r--   1 mike     mike       178151 Mar 30 08:49 .newsrc.eld~
    mike@nozomi ~$ 

Why not? 

-- 
Mike Fabian   <mike.fabian@gmx.de>   <mike@nozomi.rhein-neckar.de>

Re: .newsrc.eld backups (was: I am an idiot.)

[Florian Weimer]

Mike Fabian <mike.fabian@gmx.de> writes:

> but no extra backups are created for .newsrc.eld:

Probably because of the following line in gnus-save-newsrc-file:

(setq version-control 'never)

;)

Re: .newsrc.eld backups (was: I am an idiot.)

[Mike Fabian]

Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> writes:

> Mike Fabian <mike.fabian@gmx.de> writes:
> 
> > but no extra backups are created for .newsrc.eld:
> 
> Probably because of the following line in gnus-save-newsrc-file:
> 
> (setq version-control 'never)

I see. Thank you.

But why is this done? The .newsrc.eld seems to be a very important
file, and it might be very nice to have some more backups of
.newsrc.eld. 

Isn't it weird to explicitly prohibit extra backups of .newsrc.eld?

-- 
Mike Fabian   <mike.fabian@gmx.de>   <mike@nozomi.rhein-neckar.de>

Re: .newsrc.eld backups (was: I am an idiot.)

[Andreas Schwab]

Mike Fabian <mike.fabian@gmx.de> writes:

|> Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> writes:
|> 
|> > Mike Fabian <mike.fabian@gmx.de> writes:
|> > 
|> > > but no extra backups are created for .newsrc.eld:
|> > 
|> > Probably because of the following line in gnus-save-newsrc-file:
|> > 
|> > (setq version-control 'never)
|> 
|> I see. Thank you.
|> 
|> But why is this done? The .newsrc.eld seems to be a very important
|> file, and it might be very nice to have some more backups of
|> .newsrc.eld. 
|> 
|> Isn't it weird to explicitly prohibit extra backups of .newsrc.eld?

Well, you can easily undo it by setting it in the
gnus-save-quick-newsrc-hook.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab                                  "And now for something
SuSE Labs                                        completely different."
Andreas.Schwab@suse.de
SuSE GmbH, Schanzäckerstr. 10, D-90443 Nürnberg

Re: .newsrc.eld backups (was: I am an idiot.)

[Mike Fabian]

Andreas Schwab <schwab@suse.de> writes:

> Mike Fabian <mike.fabian@gmx.de> writes:
> 
> |> Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> writes:
> |> 
> |> > Mike Fabian <mike.fabian@gmx.de> writes:
> |> > 
> |> > > but no extra backups are created for .newsrc.eld:
> |> > 
> |> > Probably because of the following line in gnus-save-newsrc-file:
> |> > 
> |> > (setq version-control 'never)
> |> 
> |> I see. Thank you.
> |> 
> |> But why is this done? The .newsrc.eld seems to be a very important
> |> file, and it might be very nice to have some more backups of
> |> .newsrc.eld. 
> |> 
> |> Isn't it weird to explicitly prohibit extra backups of .newsrc.eld?
> 
> Well, you can easily undo it by setting it in the
> gnus-save-quick-newsrc-hook.

Thank you, that's nice. I missed that.

Mike

-- 
Mike Fabian   <mike.fabian@gmx.de>