Re: PATCH II (for testing only): [Bug, Debian(?)] "g" goes not

[Mark Plaksin <happy@usg.edu>]

Kevin Greiner <kgreiner@xpediantsolutions.com> writes:

> Mark Plaksin <happy@mcplaksin.org> writes:
>
>> Kevin Greiner <kgreiner@xpediantsolutions.com> writes:
>>
>>> Mark Plaksin <happy@mcplaksin.org> writes:
>>>
>>>> Kevin Greiner <kgreiner@xpediantsolutions.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Mark Plaksin <happy@mcplaksin.org> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Marcus Frings <iam-est-hora-surgere@despammed.com> writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> By the way, this is also a bug on my FreeBSD system. Both on Debian and
>>>>>>> FreeBSD I use GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (and `g' fails on all systems) but on two
>>>>>>> different Windoze boxes I use a CVS Emacs (and there `g' works without
>>>>>>> any problems). So the new code seems to work for CVS Emacs but fails on
>>>>>>> the current stable Emacs. Can this really be Emacs-specific?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have the problem with both CVS Emacs and the wonderful multi-tty
>>>>>> (http://lorentey.web.elte.hu/project/emacs.html) Emacs which is CVS
>>>>>> Emacs plus patches.
>>>>>
>>>>> This patch should be applied to rev 7.8 (CVS head) of gnus-start.el.
>>>>> Please let me know what the outcome is.  Finally, if this doesn't
>>>>> help, please revert to CVS head.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the patch!
>>>>
>>>> It doesn't change the behavior for me.  Testing this I was also
>>>> reminded that the problem affects my nnvirtual groups too.
>>>>
>>>> After patching, I exited Emacs, started up again, started Gnus (which
>>>> automatically checks groups at level 1), and then did 5 G.  Gnus
>>>> checked all groups at level 4 and below but no groups at level 5.  I
>>>> have both nnimap and nnvirtual groups at level 5.  As before, going to
>>>> the top topic and hitting ESC g (i.e., ESC < ESC g) checks all groups at
>>>> all levels.
>>>
>>> Well, I tried being a little smarter and did learn one fact.  The code
>>> that Lars patched in gnus-start and that I re-patched in my previous
>>> patch is never used when you do ESC < ESC g as you described.
>>>
>>> That would appear to indicate that your problems are being caused by
>>> the rather innocuous addition of two inline declarations in gnus.el.
>>> If so, the problem is more of an emacs bug that gnus, which would help
>>> explain why it is only seen on certain platforms.
>>>
>>> All right, enough talk.  Here's the patch for gnus.el.  As before,
>>> apply it to the current revision of gnus.el.  What is different is
>>> that you MUST delete all *.elc files before compiling gnus.  The
>>> reason is that gnus-secondary-method-p is an inline function (a
>>> defsubst) which, like a macro, is expanded at compilation time.
>>
>> Same results with this patch.  Can I provide more information or help
>> in some other way?
>
> Definitely.  I'll admit that right now, I'm skeptical that unpatching
> Lars code change actually fixes this problem.
>
> So, let's go back to the beginning.  The problem as I understand is
> that your nnimap, nnvirtual, perhaps other, groups are not fetching
> new articles.  As an example, the command 'ESC < ESC g' was provided.
>
> ESC < is move point OK
> ESC g gnus-topic-get-new-news-this-topic
>
> gnus-topic-get-new-news-this-topic is a fairly simple function that
> selects a set of groups then calls gnus-group-get-new-news-this-group.
> Hmmm.  That's identical to turning off the topic mode, marking several
> groups with '#', then pressing 'ESC g'.  Does this work for you or is
> it also broken?  (This will determine whether the problem is in selecting
> or processing the groups).

This *works*.

Your other suggestions got me looking at the code and I found that
changing gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups from the default of 4 to 5
solves the problem for me.  The documentation for this variable makes it
sound like it's only relevant at startup but maybe I misunderstand it:

  *If nil, Gnus will not check foreign newsgroups at startup.
  If it is non-nil, it should be a number between one and nine.  Foreign
  newsgroups that have a level lower or equal to this number will be
  activated on startup.  For instance, if you want to active all
  subscribed newsgroups, but not the rest, you'd set this variable to
  `gnus-level-subscribed'.
  
  If you subscribe to lots of newsgroups from different servers, startup
  might take a while.  By setting this variable to nil, you'll save time,
  but you won't be told how many unread articles there are in the
  groups.

Before making the change mentioned above, these two parts of
gnus-get-unread-articles seem to be what causes Gnus not to check all of
the groups:

	 (foreign-level
	  (min
	   (cond ((and gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups
		       (not (numberp gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups)))
		  (1+ gnus-level-subscribed))
		 ((numberp gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups)
		  gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups)
		 (t 0))
	   level))

For me foreign-level ended up set to 4.  Then this part of the code
ends up checking whether 5 <= 4 and it's not so the group gets skipped.

	  (when (and (<= (gnus-info-level info) foreign-level)
		     (setq active (gnus-activate-group group 'scan)))

I'm not sure what all of that means :)

Marcus: Does setting gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups to 5 solve the
problem for you?