Re: nnml suddenly not activating groups on startup

["Adam Sjøgren" <asjo@koldfront.dk>]

Russ writes:

> So (nnml "") seems to be doing something different than "nnml:" and is
> working correctly, and this appears to have something to do with when the
> server is opened.  Maybe it's a sequencing issue during startup?

I was chasing something similar at one point I think (related to
nnir/notmuch and searching), when I changed my .gnus to use the full
definition for each server where ever it is used, I stopped having
problems.

> For the record, my select-method configuration is:
>
>  '(gnus-select-method
>    '(nntp "news.eyrie.org"
>           (nntp-open-connection-function network-only)
>           (nntp-connection-timeout 3)))
>  '(gnus-secondadry-select-methods '((nnml "")))
                 ^
              I guess this typo is only in the email?

I have:

  (setq asjo-local-mail-method '(nnml ""
                                      (nnir-search-engine notmuch)))
  (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
        `(
          ,asjo-local-mail-method
            [....]

  (setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups `(,asjo-local-mail-method))

So I always give the complete and identical definition whenever I use
it.

>> Does your server buffer show multiple nnml-servers?
>
> It does not, but now that you mention this, I feel like at one point I did
> see this and "fixed it" by deleting one of the servers.  I should have
> remembered that, and that's probably related, although I'm fairly sure my
> problems started before that and this was one of my attempts to fix it.

That could account for the two different "types" of groups, at least, I guess.

>> ¹ Not my archive groups, though, they seem to all carry a copy of the full
>> server definition:
>>    (nnml "archive" (nnml-directory "~/Mail/archive")
>>          (nnml-active-file "~/Mail/archive/active")
>>          (nnml-get-new-mail nil)
>>          (nnml-inhibit-expiry t))
>> as the last element. That seems a little much.

> Mine had this in gnus-server-alist and just a reference to "archive" in
> the group information, but while I've been working on this problem (and
> after it started), I finally got rid of the second nnml server for
> archiving and just merged all that stuff into my main nnml server because
> I've had no end of problems with having two nnml servers for years.

I gave my archive server the same treatment as I described above, so I
have:

  (setq asjo-archive-method '(nnml "archive"
                                   (nnml-directory "~/Mail/archive")
                                   (nnml-active-file "~/Mail/archive/active")
                                   (nnml-get-new-mail nil)
                                   (nnir-search-engine notmuch)
                                   (nnml-inhibit-expiry t)))
  (setq gnus-message-archive-method asjo-archive-method)

  (setq gnus-refer-article-method
        ;; First try to load the article from your local newsserver or nnml
        '(current
          ;; Then try the archive (?):
          (list asjo-archive-method)
             ....

to make sure that every time I mention the server, the definition is
exactly identical.

I think I chased that problem down to some elaborate function checking
if two definitions were the same, somewhere deep inside Gnus, and I
concluded that it was too hairy for me to try to fix.

> The last straw was that while I was restarting Gnus to try to get to
> the bottom of this problem, one time Gnus split all of my incoming
> mail into the archive server instead of the main nnml server.

Uggghh :-/


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Dom 999 saker                                             Adam Sjøgren
  jag aldrig skulle göra                               asjo@koldfront.dk
  Dom vägs upp av 999 värre
  saker jag redan har gjort"