mairix problem: "No new messages found" upon initial indexing

mairix problem: "No new messages found" upon initial indexing

[Bill White]

Howdy -

I installed mairix yesterday after reading about it in the emacs NEWS
file.  I'm trying to get it to do an initial indexing of my email, but
it won't cooperate.  Here's what it reports:

,----[ shell ]
| [Sun Sep  7 15:37:34 CDT 2008] [billw@billw-desktop ~]$ mairix -v
| mairix 0.21, Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Richard P. Curnow
| mairix comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
| This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
| under certain conditions; see the GNU General Public License for details.
| 
| Finding all currently existing messages...
| Starting new database
| 0 newly dead messages, 0 messages now dead in total
| No new messages found
| [Sun Sep  7 15:38:57 CDT 2008] [billw@billw-desktop ~]$ 
`----

Here's my config file, based on /usr/share/doc/mairix/dotmairixrc.eg.
"/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/gunroom" is an nnml dir containing 837
message files and no subdirs; /home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/zzz_mfolder
hasn't been created (should I do that by hand?) and neither has
/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/mairix_database

,----[ ~/.mairixrc ]
| base=/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006
| maildir=gunroom
| mfolder=zzz_mfolder
| mformat=maildir
| database=/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/mairix_database
`----

(it's "Mail-2006" because I used to separate my gnus mail into
year-based dirs, and Jan 2006 was the last time I bothered with that)

And here's what I'm using:

 - ubuntu 8.04: Linux version 2.6.24-19-generic (buildd@terranova) (gcc
   version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)) #1 SMP Wed Aug 20 22:56:21 UTC
   2008

 - a fresh cvs emacs checkout from yesterday: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1
   (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.9) of 2008-09-06 on
   billw-desktop, compiled via './configure
   --without-toolkit-scroll-bars; make bootstrap'

 - gnus that ships with cvs emacs: Gnus v5.13

 - mairix 0.21, Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Richard P. Curnow, installed
   via 'sudo apt-get install mairix'

Any suggestions?

Thanks -

bw
-- 
Bill White . billw@wolfram.com . http://members.wolfram.com/billw
"No ma'am, we're musicians."

Re: mairix problem: "No new messages found" upon initial indexing

[David Engster]

Bill White <billw@wolfram.com> writes:
> Here's my config file, based on /usr/share/doc/mairix/dotmairixrc.eg.
> "/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/gunroom" is an nnml dir containing 837
> message files and no subdirs;
>
> ,----[ ~/.mairixrc ]
> | base=/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006
> | maildir=gunroom
> | mfolder=zzz_mfolder
> | mformat=maildir
> | database=/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/mairix_database
> `----

nnml stores its mail in MH format, not maildir. So you have to use

mh=gunroom
mformat=mh

>  /home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/zzz_mfolder
> hasn't been created (should I do that by hand?

It will be created if it doesn't exist. If you plan to use the nnmairix
back end for Gnus, you don't have to specify 'mfolder' at all (but it
does no harm, either).

-David

mairix 'G b c' trouble (was Re: mairix problem: "No new messages found" upon initial indexing)

[Bill White]

On Sun Sep 07 2008 at 16:20, David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> wrote:

> Bill White <billw@wolfram.com> writes:

>> Here's my config file, based on /usr/share/doc/mairix/dotmairixrc.eg.
>> "/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/gunroom" is an nnml dir containing 837
>> message files and no subdirs;
>>
>> ,----[ ~/.mairixrc ]
>> | base=/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006
>> | maildir=gunroom
>> | mfolder=zzz_mfolder
>> | mformat=maildir
>> | database=/home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/mairix_database
>> `----
>
> nnml stores its mail in MH format, not maildir. So you have to use
>
> mh=gunroom
> mformat=mh

Argh!  Now I see and understand that bit in the info manual at (info
"(gnus) Setting up mairix")

>>  /home/billw/wri/Mail-2006/zzz_mfolder
>> hasn't been created (should I do that by hand?
>
> It will be created if it doesn't exist. If you plan to use the
> nnmairix back end for Gnus, you don't have to specify 'mfolder' at all
> (but it does no harm, either).

Thanks!  Now mairix indexes messages, and I'm slowly adding various dirs
to be indexed.  Now there's a problem within gnus :-/

Here's the nnmairix stuff in my ~/.emacs (I keep my gnus settings
there instead of ~/.gnus)

,----[ ~/.emacs ]
| ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
| ;;
| ;; nnmairix - mail indexing and searching
| ;; see ~/.mairixrc and (info "(gnus) nnmairix")
| 
| (require 'nnmairix)
| (defun my-check-mail-mairix-update (level)
|   (interactive "P")
|   ;; if no prefix given, set level=1
|   (gnus-group-get-new-news (or level 1))
|   (nnmairix-update-groups "mairix-server" t t)
|   (gnus-group-list-groups))
| 
| (define-key gnus-group-mode-map "g" 'my-check-mail-mairix-update)
| 
| (setq gnus-auto-subscribed-groups
|       "^\\(nnml\\|nnfolder\\|nnmbox\\|nnmh\\|nnbabyl\\|nnmaildir\\).*:\\([^z]\\|z$\\|\\z[^z]\\|zz$\\|zz[^_]\\|zz_$\\).*")
`----

Start gnus, then in my Group buffer after all mail is retrived after
startup, I do 'G b c' (nnmairix-create-server-and-default-group) and give
it these four answers:

mairix-server [it matches the arg of nnmairix-update-groups above]
nnml          [from (info "(gnus) Configuring nnmairix")]
mairix        
mairix-group  

and I immediately get this error:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function nil-open-server)
  nil-open-server(nil)
  apply(nil-open-server nil)
  nnmairix-create-server-and-default-group()
  call-interactively(nnmairix-create-server-and-default-group nil nil)

Quit out of the error, then running 'g' in the Group buffer returns this
message after retrieving my other mail:

,----[ *Messages* ]
| Server mairix-server not opened
`----

Any ideas? Thanks for your help!

bw
-- 
Bill White . billw@wolfram.com . http://members.wolfram.com/billw
"No ma'am, we're musicians."

Re: mairix 'G b c' trouble

[David Engster]

Bill White <billw@wolfram.com> writes:
> Thanks!  Now mairix indexes messages, and I'm slowly adding various dirs
> to be indexed.  Now there's a problem within gnus :-/
[...]
> Start gnus, then in my Group buffer after all mail is retrived after
> startup, I do 'G b c' (nnmairix-create-server-and-default-group) and give
> it these four answers:
>
> mairix-server [it matches the arg of nnmairix-update-groups above]
> nnml          [from (info "(gnus) Configuring nnmairix")]
> mairix        
> mairix-group  

My guess is that just entering "nnml" as the back end server is not
enough. You should do TAB completion for the available back end
servers. Only those servers that are shown in the completions will
work.

But I see that the documentation is misleading here; I will change that
and also fix nnmairix so that it only accepts servers from the available
completions.

If it still doesn't work, please post your mail server entries from
gnus-select-method and/or gnus-secondary-select-methods.

-David

Re: mairix 'G b c' trouble

[Bill White]

On Mon Sep 08 2008 at 04:04, David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> wrote:

> Bill White <billw@wolfram.com> writes:
>> Thanks!  Now mairix indexes messages, and I'm slowly adding various dirs
>> to be indexed.  Now there's a problem within gnus :-/
> [...]
>> Start gnus, then in my Group buffer after all mail is retrived after
>> startup, I do 'G b c' (nnmairix-create-server-and-default-group) and give
>> it these four answers:
>>
>> mairix-server [it matches the arg of nnmairix-update-groups above]
>> nnml          [from (info "(gnus) Configuring nnmairix")]
>> mairix        
>> mairix-group  
>
> My guess is that just entering "nnml" as the back end server is not
> enough. You should do TAB completion for the available back end
> servers. Only those servers that are shown in the completions will
> work.

TAB at this point in the process:

   Back end server (TAB for completion): 

gives me the message:

   [Sole completion]

as if there are no servers available.  Typing, for example, 'n TAB',
hoping for a completion of 'nnml', gives the message:

   [No match]

> But I see that the documentation is misleading here; I will change that
> and also fix nnmairix so that it only accepts servers from the available
> completions.
>
> If it still doesn't work, please post your mail server entries from
> gnus-select-method and/or gnus-secondary-select-methods.

,----[ ~/.emacs ]
| (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "netnews.mchsi.com"))
| (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
|       '(
|         (nntp "news.gmane.org")
|         (nnml "")
|         ))
`----

Thanks, and sorry for the delay,

bw
-- 
Bill White . billw@wolfram.com . http://members.wolfram.com/billw
"No ma'am, we're musicians."

Re: mairix 'G b c' trouble

[David Engster]

Bill White <billw@wolfram.com> writes:
> Typing, for example, 'n TAB', hoping for a completion of 'nnml', gives
> the message:
>
>    [No match]

[...]

> ,----[ ~/.emacs ]
> | (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "netnews.mchsi.com"))
> | (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
> |       '(
> |         (nntp "news.gmane.org")
> |         (nnml "")
> |         ))
> `----

I tried to reproduce this with the latest Emacs CVS checkout, no .emacs
and a minimal .gnus containing essentially the same select methods, but
to no avail.

nnmairix looks at the variable gnus-opened-servers to determine the
available mail back ends. The contents of this variable 
(C-h v gnus-opened-servers RET) should contain the lines

((nnml "")
 ok)

Additionally, you should see no "nnmairix" server whatsoever in this
variable. If there is already a nnmairix server, maybe from your
previous efforts of using nnmairix, you should delete any mairix groups
which still linger around and restart Gnus.

-David

Re: mairix 'G b c' trouble

[Bill White]

On Thu Sep 11 2008 at 04:35, David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> wrote:

> Bill White <billw@wolfram.com> writes:
>> Typing, for example, 'n TAB', hoping for a completion of 'nnml', gives
>> the message:
>>
>>    [No match]
>
> [...]
>
>> ,----[ ~/.emacs ]
>> | (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "netnews.mchsi.com"))
>> | (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
>> |       '(
>> |         (nntp "news.gmane.org")
>> |         (nnml "")
>> |         ))
>> `----
>
> I tried to reproduce this with the latest Emacs CVS checkout, no
> .emacs and a minimal .gnus containing essentially the same select
> methods, but to no avail.

I updated and recompiled emacs this afternoon and now nnmairix is
working.  hanks for your help!

bw
-- 
Bill White . billw@wolfram.com . http://members.wolfram.com/billw
"No ma'am, we're musicians."