nnimap troubles

nnimap troubles

[Jeremy Hankins]

Hello.

I posted about one of my nnimap problems a few days ago.  There haven't
been any responses so far, and searching online I found an old post
about the same problem, also with no responses.  So I guess no one else
is crazy enough to try to split alternate mail sources into nnimap,
and that it's not even supposed to work.  Of course, if so, an error
message might be preferable to silently throwing your mail someplace
unexpected...

The other problem I'm having seems much more ordinary, though.  The
problem is that new folders (e.g., mail gets split into a folder that
didn't previously exist) don't show up as subscribed (or killed, or as a
zombie).  They do show up if I use 'A A' to get a complete list of
folders, and I can then subscribe to them.  I have
`gnus-options-subscribe' set to ".*", which I would expect would
subscribed me to any new groups whatsoever.  But it doesn't seem to have
any effect.

Both of these problems are somewhat frustrating me.  I've been happy
with gnus for a long time now using nnml, and thought switching to
nnimap would allow me to read my mail from my (soon-to-be) new laptop.
Unfortunately, the result has been an exercise in hunting around to try
and figure out where my mail has gone when people complain that they
can't reach me.


If need be I'll try to tackle these problems myself, armed with the
emacs debugger, a minimal knowledge of elisp, and virtually no knowledge
of gnus internals.  So any pointers anyone could give me (any at all!)
would be appreciated.

I'm using the recently released No Gnus 0.6 from:
http://quimby.gnus.org/gnus/dist/ngnus-0.6.tar.gz

-- 
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333  9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03

Re: nnimap troubles

[Jeremy Hankins]

Joel Reicher <joel@panacea.null.org> writes:

> It is supposed to work, I think, but splitting with IMAP is a little
> different to splitting without. Did you read the docs? For example,
> there is
>
> `nnimap-split-inbox'

Yup, I've read them.  And I have nnimap-split-inbox set to 'INBOX', and
splitting is happening as I'd expect for messages that start out in
nnimap.  The problem is that I have other sources of mail, and messages
that start out there end up in new group that has the correct name, but
is an nnml group rather than nnimap.  So I end up with two identical
hierarchies of groups, one in nnimap and the other local nnml.

>> The other problem I'm having seems much more ordinary, though.  The
>> problem is that new folders (e.g., mail gets split into a folder that
>> didn't previously exist) don't show up as subscribed (or killed, or as a
>> zombie).  They do show up if I use 'A A' to get a complete list of
>> folders, and I can then subscribe to them.  I have
>> `gnus-options-subscribe' set to ".*", which I would expect would
>> subscribed me to any new groups whatsoever.  But it doesn't seem to have
>> any effect.
>
> And again from the docs...
>
>    Gnus gives you all the opportunity you could possibly want for
> shooting yourself in the foot.

[...]

Yes, I know.  But with nnimap (like nnml) I really do want to subscribe
to everything that shows up -- and nnml works this way by default, in my
experience.  However:

%    If you don't want to mess with your `.newsrc' file, you can just set
% the two variables `gnus-options-subscribe' and
% `gnus-options-not-subscribe'.  These two variables do exactly the same
% as the `.newsrc' `options -n' trick.  Both are regexps, and if the new
% group matches the former, it will be unconditionally subscribed, and
% if it matches the latter, it will be ignored.

Perhaps those variables are intended to only work with nntp, but that
isn't clear to me from context (section 1.5.3, "Filtering New Groups").
My nnimap groups do show up in my .newsrc, for example.


Thanks for responding!  Now I know my messages are getting through... ;)

-- 
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333  9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03

Re: nnimap troubles

[Joel Reicher]

Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org> writes:

> I posted about one of my nnimap problems a few days ago.  There haven't
> been any responses so far, and searching online I found an old post
> about the same problem, also with no responses.  So I guess no one else
> is crazy enough to try to split alternate mail sources into nnimap,
> and that it's not even supposed to work.  Of course, if so, an error
> message might be preferable to silently throwing your mail someplace
> unexpected...

It is supposed to work, I think, but splitting with IMAP is a little
different to splitting without. Did you read the docs? For example,
there is

`nnimap-split-inbox'
     A string or a list of strings that gives the name(s) of IMAP
     mailboxes to split from.  Defaults to `nil', which means that
     splitting is disabled!

          (setq nnimap-split-inbox
                '("INBOX" ("~/friend/Mail" . "lists/*") "lists.imap"))

     No nnmail equivalent.

Note that last remark.

I'm afraid I don't use this facility, so aside from this slightly
trivial response I can't help you. :)

> The other problem I'm having seems much more ordinary, though.  The
> problem is that new folders (e.g., mail gets split into a folder that
> didn't previously exist) don't show up as subscribed (or killed, or as a
> zombie).  They do show up if I use 'A A' to get a complete list of
> folders, and I can then subscribe to them.  I have
> `gnus-options-subscribe' set to ".*", which I would expect would
> subscribed me to any new groups whatsoever.  But it doesn't seem to have
> any effect.

And again from the docs...

   Gnus gives you all the opportunity you could possibly want for
shooting yourself in the foot.  Let's say you create a group that will
contain all the mail you get from your boss.  And then you accidentally
unsubscribe from the group.  Gnus will still put all the mail from your
boss in the unsubscribed group, and so, when your boss mails you "Have
that report ready by Monday or you're fired!", you'll never see it and,
come Tuesday, you'll still believe that you're gainfully employed while
you really should be out collecting empty bottles to save up for next
month's rent money.

Cheers,

        - Joel