losing mail with nnml in 0.18

[raeburn@cygnus.com (Ken Raeburn)]

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September Gnus v0.18; nntp 4.0; nnvirtual 1.0; nnml 1.0
GNU Emacs 19.30.1 (i486-unknown-linuxaout) of Thu Nov 30 1995 on kr-laptop

Recently I updated to 0.18, with no patches.  I use POP, so the
process-unix-mail patches aren't needed.

Even more recently (I believe, but can't confirm), I ran
nnml-generate-nov-databases.

One of my mail groups is described thus in my .newsrc.eld file:

("nnml:list.mit.zephyr" 2
	((1 . 166))
	((expire (162 . 166)) (reply 143 (145 . 146)))
	(nnml "")
	(total-expire))

It's not an active list; there were probably no messages there this
morning.  I happened to notice two messages came in today and got
filed away as messages 1 and 2.  The group buffer indicates no new
messages in this group.

A couple days ago I partially finished an rdist of my nnml hierarchy
to another machine.  This directory may not have been done, but the
active file was.  It had no entry for list.mit.zephyr at all.  So my
guess is that nnml-generate... omits empty (but existing) directories,
confusing the code for filing new messages.

If this is a problem caused by an earlier version, sinced fixed, and
I'm only just noticing it now, feel free to ignore me.  Well,
actually, please tell me, so I'll stop worrying about losing more mail
in the future...

------------------ Environment follows -------------------

(setq gnus-startup-hook '(#[nil "ÀÁÂ\"ˆÀÁÃ\"ˆÄ\x15ÀÆÂ\"‡" [remove-hook gnus-summary-prepare-hook hilit-rehighlight-buffer-quietly hilit-install-line-hooks (gnus-summary-mark-unread-as-read) gnus-mark-article-hook gnus-article-prepare-hook] 3]))
(setq gnus-hidden-properties '(invisible t))
(setq gnus-auto-expirable-newsgroups "nnml:.*")
(setq gnus-summary-line-format "%U%R%z%I%6N %d%[%4L:%-15,15n%] %s
")
(setq gnus-buffer-configuration '((group ([group 1.0 point] (if gnus-carpal [group-carpal 4]))) (summary ([summary 1.0 point] (if gnus-carpal [summary-carpal 4]))) (article ([summary 0.25000000005215406 point] (if gnus-carpal [summary-carpal 4]) [article 1.0])) (server ([server 1.0 point] (if gnus-carpal [server-carpal 2]))) (browse ([browse 1.0 point] (if gnus-carpal [browse-carpal 2]))) (group-mail ([mail 1.0 point])) (summary-mail ([mail 1.0 point])) (summary-reply ([article 0.50000000029802327] [mail 1.0 point])) (info ([nil 1.0 point])) (summary-faq ([summary 0.25000000006705525] [faq 1.0 point])) (edit-group ([group 0.50000000067055228] [edit-group 1.0 point])) (edit-server ([server 0.50000000067055228] [edit-server 1.0 point])) (edit-score ([summary 0.25000000005960465] [edit-score 1.0 point])) (post ([post 1.0 point])) (reply ([article 0.50000000002980227] [mail 1.0 point])) (mail-forward ([mail 1.0 point])) (post-forward ([post 1.0 point])) (reply-yank ([mail 1.0 po!
 
 int])) (mail-bounce ([article 0.50000000004470346] [mail 1.0 point])) (draft ([draft 1.0 point])) (pipe ([summary 0.25000000005215406 point] (if gnus-carpal [summary-carpal 4]) ["*Shell Command Output*" 1.0])) (followup ([article 0.50000000007450585] [post 1.0 point])) (followup-yank ([post 1.0 point]))))
(setq gnus-auto-center-summary nil)
(setq gnus-ignored-newsgroups "^aus\\.\\|^ba\\.\\|^bionet\\.\\|^bit\\.\\|^dc\\.\\|^de\\.\\|^eunet\\.\\|^fj\\.\\|^fr\\.\\|^hiv\\.\\|^info\\.\\|^k12\\.\\|^k5\\.\\|^k7\\.\\|^no\\.\\|^ny\\.\\|^soc\\.\\|^sub\\.\\|^talk\\.\\|^usa-today\\.\\|^vmsnet\\.")
(setq gnus-decode-encoded-word-method #[nil "À‡" [nil] 1])
(setq gnus-summary-gather-subject-limit 'fuzzy)
(setq gnus-summary-make-false-root nil)
(setq gnus-use-cross-reference 42)
(setq gnus-startup-file "~/News/.newsrc")
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnml "")))
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "cambridge-news.cygnus.com"))
(setq gnus-local-organization "Cygnus Support, Cambridge MA")
(setq gnus-local-domain "cygnus.com")
(setq gnus-default-nntp-server "")