Subject: Pine NNTP newsreading

From: Matt Simmons <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 23:29:36 -0500 (CDT)

Does pine check periodically for new news like it does for new mail?  Can 
it be set to?  Could it be set to check the currently active newsgroup 
for new news?

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From: Ken Weaverling <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 09:45:24 -0400 (EDT)

Some problems with 3.87 and NNTP news-reading.

The command 'mode reader' should be issued after connecting to NNTP port
in case the host running the remote news reader also happens to feed the
local host.  This is peculiar to INN sites, and it is not a common
occurance even at INN sites. (If another site is feeding your local site,
you would normally read from your normal site, not the remote site.)
However, I am in the process of migating from one system to another and
attempting to move users slowly, so this situation currently exists.  It
shouldn't be hard to add, and just ignore any error message from a non INN
site.  What I get now is 'Group not implemented error'

Another issue.  I defined in the global pine-info file...

news-collections=Local-News *[dtcc.*]

When I expand the folder, it does list the local groups, but when I select
a group, all of the messages in the index say [No Message Text Available].
However, if I change it to be

news-collections=Local-News *[]

It works fine or

news-collections=Local-News *{news.dtcc.edu/nntp}[dtcc.*]

it also works fine.

NOTE: I want to break up the news stuff into the top level groups because 
if they are all in one, then it takes forever to expand the folder.

 Ken Weaverling          [email-masked]
    Manager of Computer Services
   Stanton/Wilmington Campuses of
Delaware Technical & Community College

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 14:11:07 -0700 (PDT)

> it be set to?  Could it be set to check the currently active newsgroup

Hi.

At the present time, Pine does not check for new news.  It can be done,
although there are certain technical difficulties, in the IMAP and local news
case.  I don't think it can be done in the NNTP case without re-selecting the
newsgroup (this is why the NNTP version of rn doesn't offer this).

We will consider this as a new feature to implement in a future version of
Pine.

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 19:58:55 -0700 (PDT)

> The command 'mode reader' should be issued after connecting to NNTP port

This change will be in Pine 3.88.  Thank you for reporting this.

> I defined in the global pine-info file...

We are still investigating this problem.  Am I correct in believing that on
the local machine, you have a /usr/spool/news directory tree and a
/usr/lib/news/active file?  Is the local machine also the NNTP server?

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From: Ken Weaverling <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 00:48:37 -0400 (EDT)

> /usr/lib/news/active file?  Is the local machine also the NNTP server?

No, it wasn't, but I symlinked it and no difference. Besids, I can almost 
guarantee that I altered defines in the code to point to the right place.

More weirdness, With just...

some groups with small number of articles has the empty text message, and 
then those with more articles could have the same article duplicated for 
~40 messages, then another set of ~40 duplicates.

And yes, the local machine is also the NNTP server. If I set it up
for nntp access, it works fine.

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1993 22:09:13 -0700 (PDT)

This is *seriously* wierd.  Can you give me access to your machine and
definite instructions on how to reproduce it?

Is there any possibility that you might have made a mistake in your alteration
of the defines in the code?  This looks very much to me as being symptomatic
of it not accessing the news spool files properly.