Re: Gnus losing information about what has been read

[Kevin Greiner <kevin.greiner@vignette.com>]

Ralf Angeli <dev.null@iwi.uni-sb.de> writes:

> * Kevin Greiner (2004-09-24) writes:
>
>> Ralf Angeli <dev.null@iwi.uni-sb.de> writes:
>>
>>> * Kevin Greiner (2004-09-24) writes:
>>>
>>>> I'm trying an entirely different aproach now as it turned out that the
>>>> nntp implementation required the server to be open for
>>>> nntp-marks-file-name to be correct.
>>>>
>>>> It appears that the agent's synchronization function could actually
>>>> try to write the flags back to itself. Then, having done so, delete
>>>> the flags file so that all of the flags were lost.  I've added some
>>>> additional checks.  Please give it a try.
>>>
>>> After a fresh CVS checkout I don't get the error related to
>>> `nntp-marks-file-name' being nil anymore.  I noticed a message in the
>>> echo area upon leaving a group in unplugged state with e.g. `q':
>>>
>>> Added to /home/angeli/News/agent/nntp/news.gmane.org/agent.lib/flags
>>>
>>> While there are no errors anymore, the marks are forgotten again.
>>> Tested this by starting Emacs/Gnus in plugged state, downloading new
>>> articles into the agent with `J s', switching to unplugged state with
>>> `J j', reading the articles, shutting down Gnus in unplugged state
>>> with `q y' and restarting Emacs and Gnus in plugged state.
>>
>> Have you customized gnus-agent-synchronize-flags?  If it is null,
>> automatic synchronization will be completely turned off.
>
> It is customized to t:
>
> ,----[ C-h v gnus-agent-synchronize-flags RET ]
> | gnus-agent-synchronize-flags's value is t
> `----
>
>> From this description, the unplugged flags are being saved but never
>> sync'ed.  In the last step, when you restart emacs and gnus in a
>> plugged state, do you automatically perform a fetch session ('J s')?
>
> No, I am always doing this manually.

Are you willing/able to do a little lisp debugging for me?  If so, please do the following:
1) Run gnus as you've described up to the point where you've seen the 'Added to ... agent.lib/flags' message.
2) Start a new emacs process.
3) Do M-x load-library<ret>gnus-agent.el<ret>
4) Do M-x debug-on-entry<ret>gnus-agent-possibly-synchronize-flags<ret>
5) Do M-x gnus

The questions that I need you to answer are:

1) Is gnus-agent-possibly-synchronize-flags being called?  That is, do
   you ever drop into the debugger?

2) As you step through the execution.  You should see where gnus
   checks for the existence of the agent.lib/flags file.  There's one
   file for each server.  Does gnus check specifically for the
   news.gmane.org server's file?

3) If the file is found, gnus will attempt to open the server.  Does
   that open succeed?

4) Finally, a (eval (read (current-buffer))) expression is performed
   several times.  Does it seem to return normally or does it signal
   an error?

Kevin