Those blasted \201 characters

Those blasted \201 characters

[Peter Dalgaard]

Every accented character received in mail from certain senders get
preceded by the dreaded \201 character. 

I think this happened after I killed an ancient line with

(standard-display-european 1)

to get rid of a UTF8 display problem. It appears to be happening in
the nnmail step - i.e. there are no \201's in $MAIL, but they are
there in ~/Mail/misc/mail/12345.  

I tried reinstating the above line, which reintroduced the UTF8
problem, but didn't cure the \201 thing... (well, maybe I didn't check
on newly arrived mail, need to recheck).

Any clues? 

[LC_CTYPE=da_DK, other LC items set to C] 

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Reiner Steib]

On Fri, Sep 15 2006, Peter Dalgaard wrote:

> Every accented character received in mail from certain senders get
> preceded by the dreaded \201 character. 
>
> I think this happened after I killed an ancient line with
>
> (standard-display-european 1)
>
> to get rid of a UTF8 display problem. It appears to be happening in
> the nnmail step - i.e. there are no \201's in $MAIL, but they are
> there in ~/Mail/misc/mail/12345.  
>
> I tried reinstating the above line, 

Please don't.

> which reintroduced the UTF8 problem, but didn't cure the \201
> thing... (well, maybe I didn't check on newly arrived mail, need to
> recheck).
>
> Any clues? 
>
> [LC_CTYPE=da_DK, other LC items set to C] 

I'm quite sure that there's something bogus in your setup.  I haven't
used Gnus 5.9 since ages, but I guess it should not show this problem
(unless you use standard-display-european).

Could you upgrade to Gnus 5.10.8 or upgrade to CVS Emacs (some
distributions offer it as emacs-snapshot or similar) which includes a
more recent Gnus version and see it the problem persists?

Else, can you send me one of the problematic mails as gzipped
attachment (secret stuff x-ed out)?  If the problem also appears in
news or mailing list article you could simply give us the Message-Id
or the URL to an mbox file if available.

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

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Peter Dalgaard]

Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> writes:

> On Fri, Sep 15 2006, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> 
> > Every accented character received in mail from certain senders get
> > preceded by the dreaded \201 character. 
> >
> > I think this happened after I killed an ancient line with
> >
> > (standard-display-european 1)
> >
> > to get rid of a UTF8 display problem. It appears to be happening in
> > the nnmail step - i.e. there are no \201's in $MAIL, but they are
> > there in ~/Mail/misc/mail/12345.  
> >
> > I tried reinstating the above line, 
> 
> Please don't.
> 
> > which reintroduced the UTF8 problem, but didn't cure the \201
> > thing... (well, maybe I didn't check on newly arrived mail, need to
> > recheck).
> >
> > Any clues? 
> >
> > [LC_CTYPE=da_DK, other LC items set to C] 
> 
> I'm quite sure that there's something bogus in your setup.  I haven't
> used Gnus 5.9 since ages, but I guess it should not show this problem
> (unless you use standard-display-european).

> Could you upgrade to Gnus 5.10.8 or upgrade to CVS Emacs (some
> distributions offer it as emacs-snapshot or similar) which includes a
> more recent Gnus version and see it the problem persists?

That's awkward since it is my department account and they'd rather not
support things not in SuSE. (The 10.0 running on some other machines
is still only emacs 21.3/gnus 5.9)
 
> Else, can you send me one of the problematic mails as gzipped
> attachment (secret stuff x-ed out)?  If the problem also appears in
> news or mailing list article you could simply give us the Message-Id
> or the URL to an mbox file if available.

I can give it a try. Most likely I can reproduce with mail sent by
myself (which should help with the secrecy thing). The ones that bit
me earlier are gone from $MAIL for obvious reasons. Haven't seen it in
news. 

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Peter Dalgaard]

Peter Dalgaard <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk> writes:

> Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> writes:
> 
> > On Fri, Sep 15 2006, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> > 
> > > Every accented character received in mail from certain senders get
> > > preceded by the dreaded \201 character. 
> > >
> > > I think this happened after I killed an ancient line with
> > >
> > > (standard-display-european 1)
> > >
> > > to get rid of a UTF8 display problem. It appears to be happening in
> > > the nnmail step - i.e. there are no \201's in $MAIL, but they are
> > > there in ~/Mail/misc/mail/12345.  
> > >
> > > I tried reinstating the above line, 
> > 
> > Please don't.
> > 
> > > which reintroduced the UTF8 problem, but didn't cure the \201
> > > thing... (well, maybe I didn't check on newly arrived mail, need to
> > > recheck).
> > >
> > > Any clues? 
> > >
> > > [LC_CTYPE=da_DK, other LC items set to C] 
> > 
> > I'm quite sure that there's something bogus in your setup.  I haven't
> > used Gnus 5.9 since ages, but I guess it should not show this problem
> > (unless you use standard-display-european).
> 
> > Could you upgrade to Gnus 5.10.8 or upgrade to CVS Emacs (some
> > distributions offer it as emacs-snapshot or similar) which includes a
> > more recent Gnus version and see it the problem persists?
> 
> That's awkward since it is my department account and they'd rather not
> support things not in SuSE. (The 10.0 running on some other machines
> is still only emacs 21.3/gnus 5.9)
>  
> > Else, can you send me one of the problematic mails as gzipped
> > attachment (secret stuff x-ed out)?  If the problem also appears in
> > news or mailing list article you could simply give us the Message-Id
> > or the URL to an mbox file if available.
> 
> I can give it a try. Most likely I can reproduce with mail sent by
> myself (which should help with the secrecy thing). The ones that bit
> me earlier are gone from $MAIL for obvious reasons. Haven't seen it in
> news. 

OK, here's the grub:

This is a copy of my inbox

>From pd@pubhealth.ku.dk  Fri Sep 15 22:40:38 2006
Return-Path: <pd@pubhealth.ku.dk>
X-Original-To: pd@turmalin.kubism.ku.dk
Delivered-To: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk
Received: from turmalin.kubism.ku.dk (turmalin.kubism.ku.dk [192.38.18.4])
	by slim.kubism.ku.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2137117554
	for <pd@turmalin.kubism.ku.dk>; Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:40:38 +0200 (CEST)
Received: by turmalin.kubism.ku.dk (Postfix, from userid 105)
	id 0D60FD4D0; Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:40:38 +0200 (CEST)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:40:37 +0200
To: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk
Subject: test =?iso-8859-1?Q?tegns=E6t?=
Message-ID: <450B0FC5.mailI5111Q376@turmalin.kubism.ku.dk>
User-Agent: nail 11.4 8/29/04
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk (Peter Dalgaard)

test æøå
-----------------------------------------------------

and the nnmail file shows up in "less" (C-x i seems to be stripping
the \201's) like this:


Return-Path: <pd@pubhealth.ku.dk>
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on
        turmalin.kubism.ku.dk
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham
        version=3.1.3
X-Original-To: pd@turmalin.kubism.ku.dk
Delivered-To: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk
Received: from turmalin.kubism.ku.dk (turmalin.kubism.ku.dk [192.38.18.4])
        by slim.kubism.ku.dk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2137117554
        for <pd@turmalin.kubism.ku.dk>; Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:40:38
+0200 (CEST)
Received: by turmalin.kubism.ku.dk (Postfix, from userid 105)
        id 0D60FD4D0; Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:40:38 +0200 (CEST)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:40:37 +0200
To: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk
Subject: test =?iso-8859-1?Q?tegns=E6t?=
X-Gnus-Mail-Source: file:/var/mail/pd
Message-ID: <450B0FC5.mailI5111Q376@turmalin.kubism.ku.dk>
User-Agent: nail 11.4 8/29/04
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk (Peter Dalgaard)
Lines: 2
Xref: turmalin.kubism.ku.dk mail.misc:77462

test 201æ201ø201å
--------------------------------------------------------------
Gnus message-buffer:

From: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk (Peter Dalgaard)
Subject: test tegnsæt
To: pd@pubhealth.ku.dk
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:40:37 +0200

test \201æ\201ø\201å
--------------------------------------------------------------
.emacs looks like this (pardon the crud...)


;;; Added by Tony


(setq load-path (append '("/home/bs/pd/Tony/ecb-1.96"
			  "/home/bs/pd/Tony/eieio-0.17"
			  "/home/bs/pd/Tony/semantic-1.4.4"
			  "/home/bs/pd/Tony/speedbar-0.14beta4")
                     load-path))

(setq semantic-load-turn-everything-on t)
(require 'semantic-load)
(require 'ecb)


;;; Original .emacs
(require 'tex-site)
(autoload 'bibtex-mode "bibtex" "" t)
(require 'ess-site "ess-site" 1) ;; don't fail if absent
(global-set-key "\e\e" 'ESC-prefix)
(global-set-key [remove] 'delete-char)
(global-set-key [delete] 'delete-char)
(setq sentence-end-double-space nil)
(setq comint-input-ring-size 256)
(setq auto-mode-alist
      (cons '("\\.?web$" . indented-text-mode) auto-mode-alist))
(setq auto-mode-alist
      (cons '("snd\\.[0-9]*" . text-mode) auto-mode-alist))
(setq text-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
	 (auto-fill-mode 1)
	 )
      )
(setq c-mode-hook 
      '(lambda ()
	 (setq c-indent-level 8)
	 (setq c-continued-statement-offset 8)
	 (setq c-brace-offset -8)
	 (setq c-brace-imaginary-offset 0)
	 (setq c-argdecl-indent 8)
	 (setq c-label-offset -8)
	 )
      )
(setq TeX-default-mode 'LaTeX-mode)
(setq LaTeX-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
	 (setq TeX-directory "~/tmp/")
	 (setq TeX-dvi-print-command "dvips -Pps1")
	 (defun TeX-kill-job ()
	   "Kill the currently running TeX job."
	   (interactive)
	   (stop-process "TeX-shell" t)
	   (send-string "TeX-shell" "kill %latex\n")
	   )
	 )
      )
(setq LaTeX2e-hook
      '(lambda ()
	 (defvar LaTeX-command-style
	   '(("." "latex2e"))
	   '(("." "latex2e"))
	   "*List of style options and LaTeX commands.
 
If the first element (a regular expresion) matches the name of one of
the style files, any occurrence of the string %l in a command in
TeX-command-list will be replaced with the second element.  The first
match is used, if no match is found the %l is replaced with the empty
string. In LaTeX2e the command is always latex2e")

	 )
      )




;;(cond ((eq  system-type 'usg-unix-v)
;; S plus configurarion

;;(load "/home/bs/pd/S-mode-4.8.MM6.XE1/S-site")

;; Want to use default directory for running S
;;       (defvar S-directory (file-name-as-directory (getenv "PWD"))
;;  "*The directory S is run from.  It must end in a slash.
;; Provided as a default if S-ask-for-S-directory is non-nil.")
;;       ))
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
      '((nnml "")
;; 	(nnimap "mail.pubhealth.ku.dk"
;; 		(nnimap-address "mail.pubhealth.ku.dk")
;; 		(nnimap-stream ssl)
;; 		(nnimap-list-pattern ("ifsv-info"))
;; 		(nnimap-server-port 993)
;; 		(imap-username "pd")
;; 		;;;(nnimap-authenticator login)
;; 		)
	)
      )
(setq mail-signature t)
(setq nnml-get-new-mail t)
(setq gnus-message-archive-group 
'((if (message-news-p)
	"misc-news" 
	"misc-mail")))
(setq gnus-local-organization "Little, if any")
(defun lbr-fix-asr ()
  (and (message-news-p)
     (string-match "alt\\.sysadmin\\.recovery$" gnus-newsgroup-name)
     (or 
      (or (mail-position-on-field "X-No-ahbou")
	  (insert "yes")
	  )
      (or (mail-position-on-field "Approved")
	  (insert "bofh@biostat.ku.dk")
	  )
      )
     )
  )

(add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'lbr-fix-asr)

(setq nnmail-split-methods 'nnmail-split-fancy
)

(put 'downcase-region 'disabled nil)

;(define-mail-alias "dsts" 
;"p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk,
;bxc@svs.dk,
;eva@mi.aau.dk,
;ded@novo.dk,
;susanne@iesd.auc.dk,
;nimmo@allerup.dpi.dk")

;;;;Add a (: hc:fancy-split-spamassassin) rule to your nnmail-split-fancy
;;;;variable
(defun hc:fancy-split-spamassassin ()
   (save-excursion
     (set-buffer " *nnmail incoming*")
     (call-process-region (point-min) (point-max) "spamc" t t nil "-f")
     (goto-char (point-min))
     (when (re-search-forward "^x-spam-flag: yes$" nil t)
           ;; edit the following to the group where spam is to be dropped
           "mail.spam")))

(setq user-mail-address "p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk")
(setq mail-aliases t)
;;(setq imap-log "*imap-log*")
;;(setq imap-debug "*imap-debug*") 
(custom-set-variables
  ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 '(browse-url-netscape-program "firefox")
 '(case-fold-search t)
 ;;'(current-language-environment "Latin-1")
 ;;'(default-input-method "latin-1-prefix")
 '(delete-selection-mode nil nil (delsel))
 '(gnus-select-method (quote (nntp "news.net.uni-c.dk")))
 '(gnus-summary-show-article-charset-alist (quote ((8 . utf-8))))
 '(gnus-use-cache t)
 '(imap-ssl-program (quote ("openssl s_client -ssl3 -connect %s:%p -quiet")))
 '(message-header-hook nil)
 '(message-send-mail-partially-limit 10000000)
 '(metamail-environment (quote ("KEYHEADS=*" "MM_QUIET=1" "MM_USEPAGER=0")) t)
 '(nnmail-split-fancy (quote (| ("Gnus-Warning" "duplicate" "mail.dupes") (: hc:fancy-split-spamassassin) ("sender" "r-help*" "mail.R") ("sender" "r-devel.*" "mail.R-devel") ("sender" "r-core.*" "mail.R-core") ("sender" "bioinfo.*" "mail.bioinfo") ("sender" "owner-r-help.*" "mail.R") ("sender" "owner-r-devel.*" "mail.R-devel") ("subject" "\\*\\*\\*\\*\\*SPAM\\*\\*\\*\\*\\*" "mail.spam") ("sender" "owner-r-core.*" "mail.R-core") ("cc" "[Rr]-core.*" "mail.R-core") ("to" "[Rr]-core.*" "mail.R-core") ("x-mailinglist" "suse-amd64" "mail.amd64") "mail.misc")))
 '(ps-paper-type (quote a4) t)
 '(scroll-bar-mode (quote right))
 '(show-paren-mode t nil (paren))
 '(transient-mark-mode t))

(custom-set-faces
  ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 '(message-cited-text-face ((((class color) (background light)) nil))))

;;;-- Implement "R core indentation style"--------------------------------
(add-hook 'c-mode-hook '(lambda() (c-set-style "bsd")))
(add-hook 'ess-mode-hook
      '(lambda()
         (if (or (string< ess-version "5.0")
		 (string= ess-version "5.0"))
             (ess-set-style 'C++)
           (ess-set-style 'C++ 'quiet))
         ;; Because
         ;;                                     DEF GNU BSD K&R C++
         ;; ess-indent-level                    2   2   8   5   4
         ;; ess-continued-statement-offset      2   2   8   5   4
         ;; ess-brace-offset                    0   0   -8  -5  -4
         ;; ess-arg-function-offset             2   4   0   0   0
         ;; ess-expression-offset               4   2   8   5   4
         ;; ess-else-offset                     0   0   0   0   0
         ;; ess-close-brace-offset              0   0   0   0   0

         (add-hook 'local-write-file-hooks
                   '(lambda()
                      (delete-trailing-whitespace)
                      ))
         ))

(add-hook 'perl-mode-hook
          '(lambda() (setq perl-indent-level 4)))


(defun R-devel ( &optional args) 
   (interactive "P")
   (setq inferior-R-program-name "~/misc/r-devel/BUILD/bin/R")
   (R args)
   )


(defun up-slightly () (interactive) (scroll-up 5))
(defun down-slightly () (interactive) (scroll-down 5))
(global-set-key [mouse-4] 'down-slightly)
(global-set-key [mouse-5] 'up-slightly)

(defun up-one () (interactive) (scroll-up 1))
(defun down-one () (interactive) (scroll-down 1))
(global-set-key [S-mouse-4] 'down-one)
(global-set-key [S-mouse-5] 'up-one)
      
      
(defun up-a-lot () (interactive) (scroll-up))
(defun down-a-lot () (interactive) (scroll-down))
(global-set-key [C-mouse-4] 'down-a-lot)
(global-set-key [C-mouse-5] 'up-a-lot)

(set-input-mode (car (current-input-mode))
		(nth 1 (current-input-mode))
		0)
;;(standard-display-european 1)

;; Fuglagervej 10...
(setq calendar-latitude 55.6972)
(setq calendar-longitude 12.4758)

;(set-keyboard-coding-system 'iso-8859-15)




-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Peter Dalgaard]

Peter Dalgaard <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk> writes:


> OK, here's the grub:

Possibly better idea: Have a look in

http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~pd/gnus-trouble/

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Reiner Steib]

On Fri, Sep 15 2006, Peter Dalgaard wrote:

> Peter Dalgaard <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk> writes:
>
>> OK, here's the grub:
>
> Possibly better idea: 

Yes, better.  Please even gzip the files in order to prevent the web
server messing up the characters.

> Have a look in
>
> http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~pd/gnus-trouble/

$ HEAD http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~pd/gnus-trouble/mail-misc-77462
403 Forbidden
Connection: close
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:49:12 GMT
[...]
viandante:/tmp/ste$ HEAD http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~pd/gnus-trouble/var-mail-pd 
403 Forbidden
Connection: close
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:50:04 GMT
[...]

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

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Peter Dalgaard]

Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> writes:

> On Fri, Sep 15 2006, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> 
> > Peter Dalgaard <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk> writes:
> >
> >> OK, here's the grub:
> >
> > Possibly better idea: 
> 
> Yes, better.  Please even gzip the files in order to prevent the web
> server messing up the characters.
> 
> > Have a look in
> >
> > http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~pd/gnus-trouble/
> 
> $ HEAD http://staff.pubhealth.ku.dk/~pd/gnus-trouble/mail-misc-77462
> 403 Forbidden

Drats. Foiled by umask again. Better now?


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Reiner Steib]

On Sat, Sep 16 2006, Peter Dalgaard wrote:

> Drats. Foiled by umask again. Better now?

Works perfectly for me even with plain Emacs 21 / Gnus 5.9 from SUSE
10.0 (both with and without -no-site-file) with the following minimal
settings (I've catted your spool file to ~/INBOX).  Also with
LC_CTYPE=da_DK I don't see any problem.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(custom-set-variables
  ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 '(delete-selection-mode nil nil (delsel))
 '(gnus-secondary-select-methods (quote ((nnml ""))))
 '(mail-sources (quote ((file :path "~/INBOX"))))
 '(scroll-bar-mode (quote right)))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Here's a screen shot:
http://theotp1.physik.uni-ulm.de/~ste/comp/emacs/gnus/screen-shots/emacs-21-gnus-5-9-dalgaart.png

Even when loading your .emacs file it works correctly.  Are you using
Emacs as an X application or on the console (or xterm, emacs -nw)?
(But even with -nw it works for me.)

Maybe the admin [1] messed up the site-start.el file.  Please try with
-no-site-file.  And also show us the output of `M-x
describe-coding-system RET RET' and `C-h v
default-enable-multibyte-characters RET'.  What's the coding info (at
the left part of the mode line; "0" = Latin-0 in my screen shot) in
the summary and article buffer?

Bye, Reiner.

[1] Apropos admin: You could install a newer Gnus (5.10.8) in your
    HOME directory, if you like.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Those blasted \201 characters

[Peter Dalgaard]

Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> writes:

> On Sat, Sep 16 2006, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> 
> > Drats. Foiled by umask again. Better now?
> 
> Works perfectly for me even with plain Emacs 21 / Gnus 5.9 from SUSE
> 10.0 (both with and without -no-site-file) with the following minimal
> settings (I've catted your spool file to ~/INBOX).  Also with
> LC_CTYPE=da_DK I don't see any problem.
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (custom-set-variables
>   ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
>   ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
>  '(delete-selection-mode nil nil (delsel))
>  '(gnus-secondary-select-methods (quote ((nnml ""))))
>  '(mail-sources (quote ((file :path "~/INBOX"))))
>  '(scroll-bar-mode (quote right)))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> Here's a screen shot:
> http://theotp1.physik.uni-ulm.de/~ste/comp/emacs/gnus/screen-shots/emacs-21-gnus-5-9-dalgaart.png
> 
> Even when loading your .emacs file it works correctly.  Are you using
> Emacs as an X application or on the console (or xterm, emacs -nw)?
> (But even with -nw it works for me.)
> 
> Maybe the admin [1] messed up the site-start.el file.  Please try with
> -no-site-file.  And also show us the output of `M-x
> describe-coding-system RET RET' and `C-h v
> default-enable-multibyte-characters RET'.  What's the coding info (at
> the left part of the mode line; "0" = Latin-0 in my screen shot) in
> the summary and article buffer?

Sorry about the delay, but a cold and various other matters got in the
way. I have now tried killing the 

(: hc:fancy-split-spamassassin)

line, leaving spam detection to the mail server, and that seems to
have helped.

So if you want to dig deeper, you should probably try finding out how
constructs like

(defun hc:fancy-split-spamassassin ()
   (save-excursion
     (set-buffer " *nnmail incoming*")
     (call-process-region (point-min) (point-max) "spamc" t t nil "-f")
     (goto-char (point-min))
     (when (re-search-forward "^x-spam-flag: yes$" nil t)
           ;; edit the following to the group where spam is to be dropped
           "mail.spam")))


could end up MULE-kicking the incoming buffer.

(I'll get back to you if it didn't help after all...)
 
> Bye, Reiner.
> 
> [1] Apropos admin: You could install a newer Gnus (5.10.8) in your
>     HOME directory, if you like.


Yes, but this is my office setup, and "things are not supposed to work
that way". If at all possible, software should be installed by our
systems people, and they have a well-founded need to stay with what is
in the standard distributions. So if the problem is fixable in .emacs,
that is strongly preferable.

(I realize that this scenario is maddening for software maintainers -
I am one myself in another capacity. Then again, I'm also way too
familiar with the "version leapfrog syndrome" that was common before
the advent of organised distributions.)

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907