[nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[Harry Putnam]

I've been reading some gmail imap groups for a yr or so.  
Yesterday I added a new one.  Today the new groups showed up but they
contain all the mail of the wrong account.

From ~/.gnu:

<This one has been in use for a year>
(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnimap "hputnam3"
                                  (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))

<this one was added yesterday>
(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
                       '(nnimap "harrygp3"
                    (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))
 
The accounts have different names and different passwords.  They are
listed in .authinfo like so:

(passwords obfuscated)

machine imap.gmail.com login hputnam3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
machine imap.gmail.com login harrygp3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap

When I ran gnus, it had pickup all of hputnam3 imap mail and placed
it in groups named harrygp3.  In other words it had retrieved all the
wrong mail for the newly added imap account.

I noticed that the passwords while different were only different by
case. (PAssword and password), so I thought that might be the
reason.

I went to gmail and changed the password of harrygp3 so it was
different by an actual char... an underscore, then  changed the lines
in .authinfo.  I then stripped out all reference to harrygp3 from
.newsrc.eld (with gnus closed) and started gnus again.

However it still retrieves all of hputnam3 mail and places it in
harrygp3 groups.

Gack... now what?  

Re: [nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[Alberto Luaces]

Harry Putnam writes:

> I've been reading some gmail imap groups for a yr or so.  
> Yesterday I added a new one.  Today the new groups showed up but they
> contain all the mail of the wrong account.

Do you have a gnus-select-method different than nnnil?  It happened
something similar to me, but with splitting, when I had one of the
nnimap accounts as the main one and the other as a secondary select
method.  I see that both of your gmail accounts are
gnus-secondary-select, but just in case.

-- 
Alberto

Re: [nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[Harry Putnam]

Alberto Luaces <aluaces@udc.es> writes:

> Harry Putnam writes:
>
>> I've been reading some gmail imap groups for a yr or so.  
>> Yesterday I added a new one.  Today the new groups showed up but they
>> contain all the mail of the wrong account.
>
> Do you have a gnus-select-method different than nnnil?  It happened
> something similar to me, but with splitting, when I had one of the
> nnimap accounts as the main one and the other as a secondary select
> method.  I see that both of your gmail accounts are
> gnus-secondary-select, but just in case.

I have as below, but not sure if that is the same as nnnil.  I think
not.

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '((nnml ""))) 

This has been the case for years.

Re: [nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[Adam Sjøgren]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnimap "hputnam3"
>                                   (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))
>
> <this one was added yesterday>
> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
>                        '(nnimap "harrygp3"
>                     (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))

How is Gnus going to find the relevant .authinfo-line for those select
methods?

The only thing that differs is the name, and how would Gnus know to
partially match that with the "login" field in the .authinfo file?

> machine imap.gmail.com login hputnam3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
> machine imap.gmail.com login harrygp3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap

The manual should be more explicit about how this is handled, I think.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Hur långt man än har kommit                                 Adam Sjøgren
  är det alltid längre kvar"                             asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: [nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[Harry Putnam]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
>
>> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnimap "hputnam3"
>>                                   (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))
>>
>> <this one was added yesterday>
>> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
>>                        '(nnimap "harrygp3"
>>                     (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))
>
> How is Gnus going to find the relevant .authinfo-line for those select
> methods?
>
> The only thing that differs is the name, and how would Gnus know to
> partially match that with the "login" field in the .authinfo file?
>
>> machine imap.gmail.com login hputnam3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
>> machine imap.gmail.com login harrygp3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
>
> The manual should be more explicit about how this is handled, I think.

[...]

Well, I did say that I was confused... and can only re-emphasize that.

I guess I don't understand your reasoning here.  Is it not possible
for gnus to find the correct line by the uid?  Nothing partial
involved but an exact match on uid (LOGNAME).

Its obvious I don't have a clue how this actually works... but I would
have thought that as all things in unix/linux if you want to access
the correct account you need and host and login name, right?  Where
does the 'partial' matching you refer to, come in?

Re: [nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[Adam Sjøgren]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> I guess I don't understand your reasoning here.  Is it not possible
> for gnus to find the correct line by the uid?

The what? "uid"?!

> Nothing partial involved but an exact match on uid (LOGNAME).

"LOGNAME"?

Your authinfo looks like this:

    machine imap.gmail.com login hputnam3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
    machine imap.gmail.com login harrygp3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap

And your select methods are:

    (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnimap "hputnam3"
                                      (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))

    (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
                            '(nnimap "harrygp3"
                        (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))

What I am saying is: Imagine you are a machine. How would you, from the
select method, find the correct authinfo line?

I would have guessed something like matching nnimap-address with machine
or perhaps nnimap-address+nnimap-port with machine+port, but I can't
imagine anyone implementing "Hey, let's see if the select method name is
a partial match of the authinfo login field"¹.

If you had named your select methods exactly the same as the authinfo
login fields, I could understand your guess (I wouldn't expect it to
work, but doing complete match is much more likely than partial).

I'm sorry I am sounding much more harsh than I mean to - I really do
agree that the documentation of this sucks (i.e. I couldn't find it),
but I also think that what you are expecting is... magic.

                                 o o o

Oh, and I think Eric S Fraga's suggestion is the obvious one to try,
i.e. try this:

    (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnimap "a-nice-name"
                                      (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))

    (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
                            '(nnimap "the-other"
                        (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))

    machine a-nice-name login hputnam3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
    machine the-other login harrygp3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap

Where you can replace "a-nice-name" and "the-other" with whatever you
want; I merely choose something different than "hputnam3" and "harrygp3"
to make it explicit that they don't have to have anything to do with
your email-addresses/the login fields.

Actually, I just tried that with two gmail-accounts, and it worked.


  Best regards,

    Adam


¹ Ok, maybe stranger things have happened, but still...

-- 
 "Hur långt man än har kommit                                 Adam Sjøgren
  är det alltid längre kvar"                             asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: [nnimap gmail] confused by phenomena

[Harry Putnam]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> Oh, and I think Eric S Fraga's suggestion is the obvious one to try,
> i.e. try this:
>
>     (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnimap "a-nice-name"
>                                       (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))
>
>     (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
>                             '(nnimap "the-other"
>                         (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com")))
>
>     machine a-nice-name login hputnam3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
>     machine the-other login harrygp3@gmail.com password xxxxxxxx port imap
>
> Where you can replace "a-nice-name" and "the-other" with whatever you
> want; I merely choose something different than "hputnam3" and "harrygp3"
> to make it explicit that they don't have to have anything to do with
> your email-addresses/the login fields.
>
> Actually, I just tried that with two gmail-accounts, and it worked.

Thank you Adam 
And especially you Eric 

For putting your finger directly on the source of my confusion... The
term 'machine'; where I expected it to equate to 'host' as it does in
many thousands of conversations between linux/unix users.  And for
that matter as it does in all but the imap lines in (my) .authinfo

For example this one:

'machine enews.newsguy.com login reader password xxxxxxx'

enews.newsguy.com is a real hostname that needs to be queried about
the UID reader.... Its not a 'LABEL' that needs to match the UID.

And thanks to all posters in both of my threads for showing uncommon
patience with profound ill-informedness (political correctness for
deep seated dunce) on my part.

PS - The suggestions by Eric and a few others in these threads have
worked admirably:
(wrapped for mail)
   machine hputnam3 login hputnam3@gmail.com \
   password xxxxxx port imap force yes

   machine harrygp3 login harrygp3@gmail.com \
   password xxxxxx port imap force yes

Yup, that works