gnus-activate-{level,foreign-newsgroups} doesn't work?

gnus-activate-{level,foreign-newsgroups} doesn't work?

[Karl Kleinpaste]

I've noticed this before, but it's beginning to take a nasty toll on
me due to certain foreign servers' slowness.  As an example of my
*Group*, here are those I keep under my "Usenet" topic.  Note that I
put groups' level into the display with ^<digit>.

 U   [^6 ?0 !0]     8: control.newgroup
 U   [^6 ?0 !0]     0: control.rmgroup
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.admin.hierarchies
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.admin.misc
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.admin.technical
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.announce.important
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.announce.newgroups
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.groups.reviews
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.software.b
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.software.nntp
     [^3 ?0 !0]     0: news.software.readers
 U   [^6 ?0 !0]     4: test

Why does Gnus (p0.69) know anything about level 6 groups, when this is 
part of my .gnus.el:

	(setq gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups 4
	      gnus-activate-level 5)

I'm confused -- I was sure one or the other of these variables should
prevent level 6 groups from coming to life at all.  And in fact local
nneething groups, also level 6, are not touched (show `*') unless I
explicitly ask for them.  A certain very slow, far-away foreign
server, for which all subscribed groups are level 6, still insists on
activating them, and it's becoming a real problem to me.

Clues, anyone?

--karl

Re: gnus-activate-{level,foreign-newsgroups} doesn't work?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com> writes:

> Why does Gnus (p0.69) know anything about level 6 groups, when this is 
> part of my .gnus.el:
> 
> 	(setq gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups 4
> 	      gnus-activate-level 5)
> 
> I'm confused -- I was sure one or the other of these variables should
> prevent level 6 groups from coming to life at all. 

The latter variable should.

Could you edebug through `gnus-get-unread-articles' in gnus-start.el
and see what happens there?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: gnus-activate-{level,foreign-newsgroups} doesn't work?

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com> writes:
>> I'm confused -- I was sure one or the other of these variables should
>> prevent level 6 groups from coming to life at all. 

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> Could you edebug through `gnus-get-unread-articles' in gnus-start.el
> and see what happens there?

Here's a brief view.  This affects only native & secondary servers,
which is why my nneething groups don't get prematurely analyzed.

The problem is that getting unread article counts is not dependent
solely on group levels, but also on gnus-read-active-file being nil.
I use 'some, and so the "else" branch off the main "if" below for
native & secondary groups fails, leaving the initial setting of
"active" in place, resulting in unread articles being checked.

I'm honestly not at all sure what would be the best way to fix this.
The necessity is that "active" needs to be deliberately set to nil on
the right conditions, rather than being allowed to percolate unchanged
the rest of the way down to the final "when".  As it stands, "active"
comes out at the bottom with a non-nil setting regardless of
gnus-activate-level.

1. Initial setting.
2. Failing "when" for gnus-read-active-file of 'some.
3. Decision to get unread articles based on setting from 1.

1-->  (setq active (gnus-active (setq group (gnus-info-group
					     (setq info (pop newsrc))))))

      ;; Check newsgroups.  If the user doesn't want to check them, or
      ;; they can't be checked (for instance, if the news server can't
      ;; be reached) we just set the number of unread articles in this
      ;; newsgroup to t.  This means that Gnus thinks that there are
      ;; unread articles, but it has no idea how many.
      (if (and (setq method (gnus-info-method info))
	       (not (inline
		      (gnus-server-equal
		       gnus-select-method
		       (setq method (gnus-server-get-method nil method)))))
	       (not (gnus-secondary-method-p method)))
	  ;; These groups are foreign.  Check the level.
	  (when (<= (gnus-info-level info) foreign-level)
	    (setq active (gnus-activate-group group 'scan))
	    ;; Let the Gnus agent save the active file.
	    (when (and gnus-agent gnus-plugged active)
	      (gnus-agent-save-group-info
	       method (gnus-group-real-name group) active))
	    (unless (inline (gnus-virtual-group-p group))
	      (inline (gnus-close-group group)))
	    (when (fboundp (intern (concat (symbol-name (car method))
					   "-request-update-info")))
	      (inline (gnus-request-update-info info method))))
	;; These groups are native or secondary.
2-->	(when (and (<= (gnus-info-level info) level)
		   (not gnus-read-active-file))
	  (setq active (gnus-activate-group group 'scan))
	  (inline (gnus-close-group group))))

      ;; Get the number of unread articles in the group.
3-->  (if active
	  (inline (gnus-get-unread-articles-in-group info active t))
	;; The group couldn't be reached, so we nix out the number of
	;; unread articles and stuff.
	(gnus-set-active group nil)
	(setcar (gnus-gethash group gnus-newsrc-hashtb) t))

Re: gnus-activate-{level,foreign-newsgroups} doesn't work?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com> writes:

> The problem is that getting unread article counts is not dependent
> solely on group levels, but also on gnus-read-active-file being nil.
> I use 'some, and so the "else" branch off the main "if" below for
> native & secondary groups fails, leaving the initial setting of
> "active" in place, resulting in unread articles being checked.

Yup.  Fix in Pterodactyl Gnus v0.74.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen