problems reading IMAP mail

problems reading IMAP mail

[David Nash]

I am a long-time user of RMAIL in emacs.  Now I am having to move to 
IMAP (ANU having discontinued POP access), and have today learnt 
enough about gnus to see my mail therein; and am struggling to regain 
the functionality I had with RMAIL.

I have looked found two threads here which are right on one of my problems:

Re: gnus-get-new-news with IMAP doesn't
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnus-english/2005-03/msg00089.html

Re: How to get new mail without leaving Summary buffer? 
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnus-english/2005-03/msg00200.html

but the suggestions there don't work for me (partly because I am 
using emacs over ssh so I don't control what software is on the host).

When I try to get new mail from the IMAP server, using M-g say, I get the error
"Ephemeral groups can't be reselected"

The host uses Gnus v5.9.0 and
GNU Emacs 21.4.1 (sparc-sun-solaris2.9)

Has anyone been down this path or can point me out of this?!
David

Re: problems reading IMAP mail

[Matthias Buelow]

David Nash <David.Nash@anu.edu.au> writes:

>I am a long-time user of RMAIL in emacs.  Now I am having to move to
>IMAP (ANU having discontinued POP access), and have today learnt
>enough about gnus to see my mail therein; and am struggling to regain
>the functionality I had with RMAIL.

Why don't you use fetchmail?

mkb.

Re: problems reading IMAP mail

[Reiner Steib]

On Tue, Sep 20 2005, David Nash wrote:

[ Gnus v5.9.0 ]
> but the suggestions there don't work for me (partly because I am 
> using emacs over ssh so I don't control what software is on the host).

I'd recommend to upgrade to Gnus 5.10.6 as Simon suggested in one of
these threads.  You can install a new Gnus version without updating
Emacs.  (Gnus needs less than 10 MB.)

> When I try to get new mail from the IMAP server, using M-g say, I
> get the error "Ephemeral groups can't be reselected"

How did you subscribe to the IMAP group?
gnus-secondary-select-methods?  It shouldn't not be an ephemeral
group.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: problems reading IMAP mail

[David Nash]

Thanks again for both follow-up responses.

I have followed Reiner's suggestion about gnus, and the loading of 
the mail into Gnus is indeed smoother now.  However, the mode line 
has "-ephemeral" appended to the name of the mail INBOX Group; and 
also when I issue a M-g (in the Gnus summary buffer) I still get an 
error "Ephemeral groups can't be reselected" -- so I don't know how 
to get new mail.

In the mean time, I have tried to follow another line of suggestions 
from a local friend, and  have taken 
http://gray.gnu.org.ua/software/emacs/rmail-1.el which is linked from 
in the middle of
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailutils/mailutils.html, prompted by the 
comment "The improved rmail.el, taking advantage of all the features 
provided by our movemail should become available with the next 
version of GNU Emacs. In the meanwhile its code is available from 
Sergey Poznyakoff's site."

I byte-compiled it and loaded it OK.  I issue "ESC-0 g" and at the 
prompt "Get new mail from file: ~/ " I point it at 
imap://<username>@<mailhost> (cf. defun rmail-parse-url at line 193)  
And I presume I'll need to install at least movemeail from the GNU 
mail utilities (not that I know how to do this...)

Matthias Buelow:
>  Hmm.. you cannot install some stuff in your home directory?
Yes, I can -- but am wary of having to instal and maintain stuff I 
don't really understand.

Anyway, if this enhancement to RMAIL can be got working I reckon it 
will be the best way out of my problem -- I can just keep using RMAIL 
as I was (and don't need to keep trying to make gnus work).

David

Re: problems reading IMAP mail

[Matthias Buelow]

David Nash <David.Nash@anu.edu.au> writes:

>>Why don't you use fetchmail?
>I gather this comes with emacs v22 (and not in v21)?

No, fetchmail is separate software to fetch mail from about any
configuration of POP or IMAP server onto your local machine.
See also: http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/

>As I said
>>I am using emacs over ssh so I don't control what software is on the host
>As the current stable release of emacs is 21.4 (true?), and the site
>doesn't like to instal beta software, I'm looking for a solution with
>Gnus v5.9.0 and Emacs 21.4.1.  OK, maybe I have to try convincing the
>admin of the university machine to install Gnus 5.10....

Hmm.. you cannot install some stuff in your home directory?

mkb.

Re: problems reading IMAP mail

[Reiner Steib]

On Wed, Sep 21 2005, David Nash wrote:

> Matthias Buelow:
>>Why don't you use fetchmail?
> I gather this comes with emacs v22 (and not in v21)?

No, it's an external program.  But I'd recommend not to use it for
IMAP if you stay with Gnus.

> Yes, like this in my .gnus file:
>
>>(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
>>         '(
>>          ;; IMAP server
>>          (nnimap "IMAP" (nnimap-address "<mailhost>")
>>                         (nnimap-user "<username>")))
>>          (nnimap-need-unselect-to-notice-new-mail t))

One pair of brackets in the last line is bogus.  `nnimap-user' is not
used; at least in the current Gnus sources.  I would use ~/.authinfo
instead:

,----[ ~/.authinfo ]
| # With recent Gnusae, you can write the alias (e.g. "IMAP") here:
| machine IMAP login <username>
| # Else, use the server name:
| machine <mailhost> login <username>
`----

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '(;; IMAP server
	(nnimap "IMAP"
		(nnimap-address "<mailhost>")))
      nnimap-need-unselect-to-notice-new-mail t)

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: problems reading IMAP mail

[David Nash]

Thanks for both response so far

Matthias Buelow:
>Why don't you use fetchmail?
I gather this comes with emacs v22 (and not in v21)?

As I said
>I am using emacs over ssh so I don't control what software is on the host
As the current stable release of emacs is 21.4 (true?), and the site 
doesn't like to instal beta software, I'm looking for a solution with 
Gnus v5.9.0 and Emacs 21.4.1.  OK, maybe I have to try convincing the 
admin of the university machine to install Gnus 5.10....

Reiner Steib:
>How did you subscribe to the IMAP group?
>gnus-secondary-select-methods?

Yes, like this in my .gnus file:

>(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
>         '(
>          ;; IMAP server
>          (nnimap "IMAP" (nnimap-address "<mailhost>")
>                         (nnimap-user "<username>")))
>          (nnimap-need-unselect-to-notice-new-mail t))

>  It shouldn't not be an ephemeral group.
That's what I expected, that it should be solid.  Maybe I have done 
(or not done) something simple, in my ignorance.

David