agent forgetting marks

agent forgetting marks

[Robert Epprecht]

I have a problem with the agent and would appreciate any help very much:

User-Agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux)
Debian sarge

I have installed Debian sarge on a new machine, moved all user data
and the directory where I keep gnus cvs version from my prior debian
(woody) installation and did a cvs update. One of these steps must
have confused Gnus, but I can't find out what could be wrong.
I have *not* changed my Gnus configuration (which was working fine before)
in any way.

I have two users using Gnus, one for mail (where everything works fine)
and another one for news. On news I see the following problem:

I read articles *un*plugged, mark some with '!' or '?' which seems
to work fine. But if I plug Gnus now ('Jj') and do 'g' all the articles
which I have read under the agent are shown again as unread. It's very
annoing...  Gnus does *not* show the unseen mark '.' on these messages,
so it seems to know that I have seen them at least. All the '!' and '?'
marks have disappeared, though...

BTW: If I read (or mark) articles in the *plugged* state everything
works fine and read or marked articles stay read/marked regardless
the online/offline status.

What could I do to find out why the agent is not working any more for me?

Thanks a lot,
Robert Epprecht

Re: agent forgetting marks

[Simon Josefsson]

Robert Epprecht <epprecht@solnet.ch> writes:

> I have a problem with the agent and would appreciate any help very much:
>
> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux)
> Debian sarge
>
> I have installed Debian sarge on a new machine, moved all user data
> and the directory where I keep gnus cvs version from my prior debian
> (woody) installation and did a cvs update. One of these steps must
> have confused Gnus, but I can't find out what could be wrong.
> I have *not* changed my Gnus configuration (which was working fine before)
> in any way.
>
> I have two users using Gnus, one for mail (where everything works fine)
> and another one for news. On news I see the following problem:
>
> I read articles *un*plugged, mark some with '!' or '?' which seems
> to work fine. But if I plug Gnus now ('Jj') and do 'g' all the articles
> which I have read under the agent are shown again as unread. It's very
> annoing...  Gnus does *not* show the unseen mark '.' on these messages,
> so it seems to know that I have seen them at least. All the '!' and '?'
> marks have disappeared, though...
>
> BTW: If I read (or mark) articles in the *plugged* state everything
> works fine and read or marked articles stay read/marked regardless
> the online/offline status.
>
> What could I do to find out why the agent is not working any more for me?

Perhaps

(setq gnus-agent-synchronize-flags t)

helps?

Re: agent forgetting marks

[Robert Epprecht]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> Robert Epprecht <epprecht@solnet.ch> writes:

>> I read articles *un*plugged, mark some with '!' or '?' which seems
>> to work fine. But if I plug Gnus now ('Jj') and do 'g' all the articles
>> which I have read under the agent are shown again as unread. It's very
>> annoing...  Gnus does *not* show the unseen mark '.' on these messages,
>> so it seems to know that I have seen them at least. All the '!' and '?'
>> marks have disappeared, though...
>>
>> BTW: If I read (or mark) articles in the *plugged* state everything
>> works fine and read or marked articles stay read/marked regardless
>> the online/offline status.

>
> Perhaps
>
> (setq gnus-agent-synchronize-flags t)
>
> helps?

Yes, indeed, this seems to solve the problem.

Was there a recent change in Gnus that requires me to set this variable
now, which I never had to do before?

I usually do *not* read news online, but always use the agent. Is it
normal Gnus behaviour that I have to set gnus-agent-synchronize-flags
for that to work?  Or could it still be a sign that something went wrong,
when I moved my Gnus news data from one system to the other?

Thanks a lot for your help,
Robert Epprecht

Re: agent forgetting marks

[Simon Josefsson]

Robert Epprecht <epprecht@solnet.ch> writes:

> Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
>
>> Robert Epprecht <epprecht@solnet.ch> writes:
>
>>> I read articles *un*plugged, mark some with '!' or '?' which seems
>>> to work fine. But if I plug Gnus now ('Jj') and do 'g' all the articles
>>> which I have read under the agent are shown again as unread. It's very
>>> annoing...  Gnus does *not* show the unseen mark '.' on these messages,
>>> so it seems to know that I have seen them at least. All the '!' and '?'
>>> marks have disappeared, though...
>>>
>>> BTW: If I read (or mark) articles in the *plugged* state everything
>>> works fine and read or marked articles stay read/marked regardless
>>> the online/offline status.
>
>>
>> Perhaps
>>
>> (setq gnus-agent-synchronize-flags t)
>>
>> helps?
>
> Yes, indeed, this seems to solve the problem.
>
> Was there a recent change in Gnus that requires me to set this variable
> now, which I never had to do before?

I think so, the variable default has been flipping between nil and ask
a few times.  Now I think we should try to make the default t.

> I usually do *not* read news online, but always use the agent. Is it
> normal Gnus behaviour that I have to set gnus-agent-synchronize-flags
> for that to work?  Or could it still be a sign that something went wrong,
> when I moved my Gnus news data from one system to the other?

No, it is the normal behavior, although I agree it is sub-optimal.
Making the default t is probably better.

I changed the default to t in No Gnus and on the 5.10 branch.