Persistently getting zero length files

Persistently getting zero length files

[Harry Putnam]

Something is causing me to get lots of zero length files in some
groups. I run unplugged mostly so may be related.  I can't see what is
causing it.  And don't notice it till the odd message turns up in
summary buffer with subject `none'.

It only happens in nntp groups that are under agent, and not all of
them.  Two I've noticed to be big offenders is gnu.emacs.help and
comp.unix.solaris.   But cannot see anything to radically different
about them.  Bother are in groups where the agent category  contains a
score file that collects messages beginging with Re: only.  There are
several other groups in that category that don't exhibit the problem
`G E' on gnu.emacs.help shows in part:

;;; Editing the group info for `gnu.emacs.help'.
;; Type `C-c C-c' after you've finished editing.

("gnu.emacs.help" 3
 ((1 . 64842))
 ((seen 62845 62944 63019
	(63025 . 63026)
	63045 63055
	(63062 . 63063)
	63075 63077 63089
	(63099 . 63100)
	63102
	(63104 . 63108)
	63119 63127 63132 63136 63650 63657 63669 63671 63673 63676 63778 63780 63783
	(63786 . 63787)
	63789 63791
	(63794 . 63796)

[...] snip a lengthy column of post numbers.  None of the zero length files
      are on it.

I've already deleted the zero length files but think I'll setup a
shell script that watches for zero length files each time a batch
fetch is run.  Maybe someone will see something to nail it down.

Re: Persistently getting zero length files

[Robert Epprecht]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Something is causing me to get lots of zero length files in some
> groups. I run unplugged mostly so may be related.  I can't see what is
> causing it.  And don't notice it till the odd message turns up in
> summary buffer with subject `none'.

I have seen the same behaviour about a year ago.  It turned out that
the (non local) news server I got my news from was completely messed
up then.  If I remember correctly the empty 'none' articles tended to
reappear (after deleting them) on the next download.

I have seen it also with older Gnus versions (only) when I was on a
news server which kept messages for a very short time. I got to the
impression that it happened when the Agent tried to download articles
that had expired on the news server.  I do not know if this conclusion
was right, and I never saw it again with more recent Gnus versions.
This time the articles did not reappear.

Robert Epprecht