Gnus-agent /unfinished business

Gnus-agent /unfinished business

[Harry Putnam]

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to gnu.emacs.gnus as well.


[posted to ding list and gnu.emacs.gnus]

What might be considered two major problems of "Agent" off line mode
are:

Summary:
(I hope this is a local setup problem, but think not)
 
 1) Gnus can loose all track of readedness under certain conditions. 

 2) Gnus looses track of Posts in News/agent once they are expunged
    from the server.
*** end summary ****

Both need attention, especially since mime hammering has simmered down
a bit now.  I wish I had the skill to correct these because they seem
like serious shortcomings in an "off-line" reader.

Problem (1) can occur in what should be a common action for off line
users:

  1)  Start gnus plugged press `J s'  (`gnus-agent-fetch-session') to
      retrieve messages according to categories.

  2) Go unplugged (`gnus-agent-toggle-plugged') read groups  etc
   
  3) Close down gnus and emacs

  4) Restart gnus while off line, in unplugged mode
    (M-x gnus-unplugged), read more or whatever, then go online and go
     "plugged" press "g" to see new posts.

After doing that sequence all nntp groups come up showing all messages
on server as new unread regardless of previous marks.  Very annoying
and very repeatable, a serious shortcoming for off line use.

This may be a local problem, I've checked it on at least two machines
running gnus (pgnus v0.83-84). Although these are alpha releases the
same thing happens in gnus-5.6.x Hence posting to "gnu.emacs.gnus"
too.  I've also noticed other posts confirming this problem.

Problem (2) is well known, but still seems to be crying for a fix.

I hope someone has workarounds for (2).  I've tried accessing the
"dead" messages in News/agent with nneething, but unsuccessfully.

They can be searched etc with normal unix tools, or even manipulated
with "awk" or "sed" to resemble mail. etc etc.  But WIBNI gnus could
access them in the normal way!