rebuilding .overview

rebuilding .overview

[Michael Lamoureux]

Hmmm, hard to call this a bug, but easy to say that it didn't work
like I expected.  I'm still using the XEmacs version of gnus, and
yesterday, the filesystem that my homedir is on flaked and a large
chunk of a .overview file got corrupted (overwritten with nulls).

I spent quite a bit of time looking at the FAQ, help, and Info docs
trying to figure out how to rebuild it.  The best I could come up with
was M-x nnml-generate-nov-databases (which is probably overkill for
what I needed...is there a better way), and it was hard to find the
documentation for it even though I knew (from reading this list) that
such a beast existed.  Is there an error recovery section of the docs
that I missed?  Is there a better way to just regenerate the .overview
file for one group?

Also, after running the above function all of the new messages (there
were 105 new messages, which is how I noticed there was a problem in
the first place), all of the messages that were added back into the
.overview file were given a mark of read instead of unread.  I had to
enter the group with C-u Ret to see them.  Is that the best default
mark to have for such an operation?

Has this process been changed in the newer versions?  Is it better
documented now?


BTW, just the other day I had another group that didn't show up in the
topic listing until the second message showed up.  I had reported this
bug a while ago, but then couldn't reproduce it.  I just did.  :-/


fyi,
Michael

Re: rebuilding .overview

[Rich Pieri]

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>>>>> "ML" == Michael Lamoureux <lamour@engin.umich.edu> writes:

ML> The best I could come up with was M-x nnml-generate-nov-databases
ML> (which is probably overkill for what I needed...is there a better
ML> way),

You can invoke nnml-generate-nov-databases-1 manually and give it a
directory to build the .overview file within.

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-- 
Rich Pieri <rich.pieri@prescienttech.com> | Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball
Prescient Technologies, Inc.              | include an unknown glowing
A Stone & Webster Company                 | substance which fell to Earth,
I speak for myself, not PTI or SWEC       | presumably from outer space.

Re: rebuilding .overview

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Michael Lamoureux <lamour@engin.umich.edu> writes:

> Also, after running the above function all of the new messages (there
> were 105 new messages, which is how I noticed there was a problem in
> the first place), all of the messages that were added back into the
> .overview file were given a mark of read instead of unread.  I had to
> enter the group with C-u Ret to see them.  Is that the best default
> mark to have for such an operation?

I can't explain this.  Regenerating the .overview files doesn't affect
article readedness at all -- all that's being handled by Gnus, and
Gnus knows nothing about .overview files and stuff like that.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: rebuilding .overview

[Michael Lamoureux]

 "lars" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

lars> Michael Lamoureux <lamour@engin.umich.edu> writes:
>> Also, after running the above function all of the new messages
>> (there were 105 new messages, which is how I noticed there was a
>> problem in the first place), all of the messages that were added
>> back into the .overview file were given a mark of read instead of
>> unread.  I had to enter the group with C-u Ret to see them.  Is
>> that the best default mark to have for such an operation?

lars> I can't explain this.  Regenerating the .overview files doesn't
lars> affect article readedness at all -- all that's being handled by
lars> Gnus, and Gnus knows nothing about .overview files and stuff
lars> like that.

Ok, then I clearly don't understand as much as I thought I did.  I'll
tell you what happened without any assumptions of understanding what
happened, and you can figure it out.

1) the topic buffer reported 105 unread messages in an NNML group.
2) upon entering the group, I found only about 20-25 messages.  I read
   them, and then got out of the group.
3) I reentered the group with C-u RET, and could not find messages
   which I could see in the actual mail directory.
4) I looked at the .overview file, and noticed that a large chunk of
   it had been overwritten with nulls.
5) I looked for a function to rebuild it, and then ran M-x
   generate-nov-databases.
6) I reentered the group.  Nothing.
7) I got out and reentered with C-u RET again, and found all of the
   messages that I had never seen, but they all had a "O" mark.
8) Then I posted the above message.


fyi,
Michael

Re: rebuilding .overview

[Michael Lamoureux]

 "rich" == Rich Pieri <rich.pieri@PrescientTech.com> writes:

>>>>>> "ML" == Michael Lamoureux <lamour@engin.umich.edu> writes:

ML> The best I could come up with was M-x nnml-generate-nov-databases
ML> (which is probably overkill for what I needed...is there a better
ML> way),

rich> You can invoke nnml-generate-nov-databases-1 manually and give
rich> it a directory to build the .overview file within.

Thanks.  It just happened again, and this saved me a lot of time.


fyi,
Michael

Re: rebuilding .overview

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Michael Lamoureux <lamour@engin.umich.edu> writes:

> 1) the topic buffer reported 105 unread messages in an NNML group.
> 2) upon entering the group, I found only about 20-25 messages.  I read
>    them, and then got out of the group.
> 3) I reentered the group with C-u RET, and could not find messages
>    which I could see in the actual mail directory.
> 4) I looked at the .overview file, and noticed that a large chunk of
>    it had been overwritten with nulls.
> 5) I looked for a function to rebuild it, and then ran M-x
>    generate-nov-databases.
> 6) I reentered the group.  Nothing.
> 7) I got out and reentered with C-u RET again, and found all of the
>    messages that I had never seen, but they all had a "O" mark.
> 8) Then I posted the above message.

nnml had reported that the messages didn't exist, which made Gnus
think that they didn't exist.  So it marked them as read.
Regenerating the .overview file didn't change anything in that regard
-- Gnus continued to have them marked as read.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen