General questions regarding the Agent and IMAP

General questions regarding the Agent and IMAP

[Julien Cubizolles]

I'm confused by some aspects of using the Agent and IMAP.

The articles I choose to fetch from the IMAP server with the agent exist
both on the server and as a local copy on my machine, right ?

If such an article is marked for expiry, is it deleted both on the local
copy and on the remote IMAP server ?

Also, I noticed that every time I hit g in the Group buffer, a new copy
of *every* unread and unfetched message on the IMAP server is added in
the Summary, what could be the cause ?

Finally, the total message count is completely wrong for the IMAP server
if I'm using the agent but that's not too inconvenient.

Thanks for your explanations.

Julien.

Re: General questions regarding the Agent and IMAP

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr>:

> I'm confused by some aspects of using the Agent and IMAP.

Ah... that combination is buggy.  See old messages on this list.

The funniest effect is when the cached article is replaced with a file
containing NOV data.

> The articles I choose to fetch from the IMAP server with the agent exist
> both on the server and as a local copy on my machine, right ?

Yep.

> If such an article is marked for expiry, is it deleted both on the local
> copy and on the remote IMAP server ?

I don't think so.  If you delete it while offline I don't think it is
deleted on the server.  And deleting on the server doesn't clear the
agent cached version, or at least I think it doesn't...? (at least it
didn't do so back in 2001 or thereabuts.

> Also, I noticed that every time I hit g in the Group buffer, a new copy
> of *every* unread and unfetched message on the IMAP server is added in
> the Summary, what could be the cause ?

Bugs, possibly...?

> Finally, the total message count is completely wrong for the IMAP server
> if I'm using the agent but that's not too inconvenient.

Another possible bug...?

Actually, after trying to debug the agent several times and eventually
giving up, I'm wondering if that isn't a candidate for just a severe
rewrite as the nnimap backend...?

Re: General questions regarding the Agent and IMAP

[Richard Riley]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

>>>>>> Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr>:
>
>> I'm confused by some aspects of using the Agent and IMAP.
>
> Ah... that combination is buggy.  See old messages on this list.
>
> The funniest effect is when the cached article is replaced with a file
> containing NOV data.
>
>> The articles I choose to fetch from the IMAP server with the agent exist
>> both on the server and as a local copy on my machine, right ?
>
> Yep.
>
>> If such an article is marked for expiry, is it deleted both on the local
>> copy and on the remote IMAP server ?
>
> I don't think so.  If you delete it while offline I don't think it is
> deleted on the server.  And deleting on the server doesn't clear the
> agent cached version, or at least I think it doesn't...? (at least it
> didn't do so back in 2001 or thereabuts.
>
>> Also, I noticed that every time I hit g in the Group buffer, a new copy
>> of *every* unread and unfetched message on the IMAP server is added in
>> the Summary, what could be the cause ?
>
> Bugs, possibly...?
>
>> Finally, the total message count is completely wrong for the IMAP server
>> if I'm using the agent but that's not too inconvenient.
>
> Another possible bug...?
>
> Actually, after trying to debug the agent several times and eventually
> giving up, I'm wondering if that isn't a candidate for just a severe
> rewrite as the nnimap backend...?
>

+1 on that : the same issues crop up time and time again indicating a
real gap there. I gave up on the agent with email (imap) - the message
counts just went nuts ;)