gnus-gravatar may hang offline

gnus-gravatar may hang offline

[Vincent Bernat]

Hi!

While offline, I notice that Gnus sometimes hang when reading
articles. I have pinpointed this problem to gravatar support. It uses
`url-retrieve` which is documented as asynchronous but the resolving
part isn't.

I suppose there isn't much to do in a simple library like gravatar.el
since the problem is rooted in Emacs. Does someone know if there is some
workaround or if the problem is fixed in more recent versions of Emacs
(I am using Emacs 24.3).

Thanks!
-- 
printk("MASQUERADE: No route: Rusty's brain broke!\n");
        2.4.3. linux/net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_MASQUERADE.c

Re: gnus-gravatar may hang offline

[Vincent Bernat]

 ❦ 25 juillet 2014 09:11 +0200, Vincent Bernat <bernat@luffy.cx> :

> While offline, I notice that Gnus sometimes hang when reading
> articles. I have pinpointed this problem to gravatar support. It uses
> `url-retrieve` which is documented as asynchronous but the resolving
> part isn't.
>
> I suppose there isn't much to do in a simple library like gravatar.el
> since the problem is rooted in Emacs. Does someone know if there is some
> workaround or if the problem is fixed in more recent versions of Emacs
> (I am using Emacs 24.3).

Meantime, I have found this thread:
 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-10/msg01053.html

However, it doesn't contain no conclusion.
-- 
Make your program read from top to bottom.
            - The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan & Plauger)

Re: gnus-gravatar may hang offline

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2014 09:17:08 +0200 Vincent Bernat <bernat@luffy.cx> wrote: 

VB>  ❦ 25 juillet 2014 09:11 +0200, Vincent Bernat <bernat@luffy.cx> :
>> While offline, I notice that Gnus sometimes hang when reading
>> articles. I have pinpointed this problem to gravatar support. It uses
>> `url-retrieve` which is documented as asynchronous but the resolving
>> part isn't.
>> 
>> I suppose there isn't much to do in a simple library like gravatar.el
>> since the problem is rooted in Emacs. Does someone know if there is some
>> workaround or if the problem is fixed in more recent versions of Emacs
>> (I am using Emacs 24.3).

VB> Meantime, I have found this thread:
VB>  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-10/msg01053.html

VB> However, it doesn't contain no conclusion.

One possibility is to wait for the FFI to be available in Emacs, which
might enable better DNS resolution plugin libraries.

You could also disable the Gravatar support with
`gnus-treat-mail-gravatar' and friends when you're offline.

Finally, you could hard-code the IP address to the Gravatar server in
your /etc/hosts file, but that has obvious long-term issues.

Ted