"No such article" error

"No such article" error

[Dan Davison]

I'm using nnimap on local Maildirs served by dovecot. I moved my
Maildirs to a new laptop using rsync and copied over the ~/.newsrc*, and
gnus and dovecot config files. Everything seems to work OK, except for
one group called "org". When I attempt to view an article in that group
I get e.g.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
No such article 22554 in org: Mailbox doesn't exist: .zz_mairix-mairix-hits-1
No such article (may have expired or been canceled)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

(".zz_mairix-mairix-hits-1" is a name I once used for a group to hold
mairix hits; it is not something I use now.)

I tried renaming my ~/.newsrc* and starting gnus from fresh and
re-subscribing to the problematic group. Then I get e.g.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
No such article 22554 in org: nil
No such article (may have expired or been canceled)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


I've also tried temporarily getting rid of org/.nnmaildir and
org/dovecot*, to no avail.

I would like to keep the history of messages stored in this group. Can
anyone suggest how I can resurrect it?

Thanks a lot,

Dan
Gnus v5.13
Ubuntu 9.04

Re: "No such article" error

[Dan Davison]

I'd like to substitute a simpler question: how should I migrate a
functioning Maildir/dovecot/gnus setup to a new laptop (Ubuntu)?

I have tried copying the Maildirs over with

rsync -avHAX

and also copying my ~/.gnus, ~/.newsrc* and dovecot config files, and it
all looks OK up until the summary buffer, but when I try to read an
article I am getting errors (for some articles) like

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
No such article 29024 in a-new: Mailbox doesn't exist: .zz_mairix-mairix-hits-1
No such article (may have expired or been canceled)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Thanks a lot,

Dan


Dan Davison <davison@stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> I'm using nnimap on local Maildirs served by dovecot. I moved my
> Maildirs to a new laptop using rsync and copied over the ~/.newsrc*, and
> gnus and dovecot config files. Everything seems to work OK, except for
> one group called "org". When I attempt to view an article in that group
> I get e.g.
>
> No such article 22554 in org: Mailbox doesn't exist: .zz_mairix-mairix-hits-1
> No such article (may have expired or been canceled)
>
> (".zz_mairix-mairix-hits-1" is a name I once used for a group to hold
> mairix hits; it is not something I use now.)
>
> I tried renaming my ~/.newsrc* and starting gnus from fresh and
> re-subscribing to the problematic group. Then I get e.g.
>
> No such article 22554 in org: nil
> No such article (may have expired or been canceled)
>
>
> I've also tried temporarily getting rid of org/.nnmaildir and
> org/dovecot*, to no avail.
>
> I would like to keep the history of messages stored in this group. Can
> anyone suggest how I can resurrect it?
>
> Thanks a lot,
>
> Dan
> Gnus v5.13
> Ubuntu 9.04

Re: "No such article" error

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:13:25 -0400 Dan Davison <davison@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote: 

DD> I'd like to substitute a simpler question: how should I migrate a
DD> functioning Maildir/dovecot/gnus setup to a new laptop (Ubuntu)?

Maildirs can't be rsynced IIRC.  You need to use a program that does it.

I would just copy over IMAP--select all messages from group A and copy
them to group B; repeat as needed.  That will preserve marks through
IMAP and DTRT in general.

I don't use dovecot so I don't know if there's an easier way, sorry.

Ted

Re: "No such article" error

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>:

> Maildirs can't be rsynced IIRC.  You need to use a program that does it.

Sure you can rsync.  The --fuzzy flag is your friend:
 <nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.dovecot/33313 >
 <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.dovecot/33313 >

The problem for rsync, is that the file name is changed when the state
of the message is changed.  But the fuzzy flag looks for similar-looking
name and if everything else matches, takes it as the same file.

(FWIW you could always rsync.  rsync is pretty good at mirroring file
system hierarchies.  It just wouldn't neccessarily be efficient network
wise.  It would have to delete the file with the old file name, and
retransfer the new one, when a message's status is changed)

> I would just copy over IMAP--select all messages from group A and copy
> them to group B; repeat as needed.  That will preserve marks through
> IMAP and DTRT in general.

FWIW this is what I did when moving from cyrus to dovecot.  But
replicating the dovecot folders to a different machine (poor man's
backup), is done with rsync.

Using imap itself to replicate has the advantage that you can have two
live imap servers.  I don't think 

> I don't use dovecot so I don't know if there's an easier way, sorry.

dovecot is pretty good: simple to install and configure, transparent
behaviour (i.e. information not hidden inside centralized obscure data
bases, but in well documented formats in users' home directories), and
cooperates well with mail filtering and processing software.

And yes... it is stable.  I haven't had a single hiccup since I started
using it.

Re: "No such article" error

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:11:10 +0200 Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> wrote: 

>>>>>> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>:
>> Maildirs can't be rsynced IIRC.  You need to use a program that does it.

SB> Sure you can rsync.  The --fuzzy flag is your friend:
SB>  <nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.dovecot/33313 >
SB>  <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.dovecot/33313 >

SB> The problem for rsync, is that the file name is changed when the state
SB> of the message is changed.  But the fuzzy flag looks for similar-looking
SB> name and if everything else matches, takes it as the same file.

SB> (FWIW you could always rsync.  rsync is pretty good at mirroring file
SB> system hierarchies.  It just wouldn't neccessarily be efficient network
SB> wise.  It would have to delete the file with the old file name, and
SB> retransfer the new one, when a message's status is changed)

Sorry.  I was thinking of the qmail queue, which stores files named the
same as their inode number, which can't be rsynced easily.  Maildirs are
not related to this (except I first used them when I started using
qmail, so I mistakenly connected them to the qmail queue).

Ted