Subject: PROBLEM: Another Pine is Accessing

From: [email-masked] (Tony Lorimer)
Date: 2 Dec 1994 05:21:49 GMT

Hi All Pine Users,

Has anyone had the following problem:

I am currently using the ipop3d server to service all my PC users on our 
network.  Some users use the PC mail packages only to detect whether new 
mail has arrived and then go into PINE on our UNIX system to read their mail. 
My problem is that when they fire up PINE after a few minutes they get the
error message:
"Another Pine accessing your INBOX. Session chnaged to read only."

Now I know for sure that it is the ipop3d server setting the lock on the
users mailbox. 

My PINE version is 3.91

Has anyone else had this problem ????.
Is this a bug/feature with the interaction of PINE and ipop3d ???.

Please _HELP_

--

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Tony Lorimer 	([email-masked])         Phone:  +612 4365700
MDIS - McDonnell Information Systems Pty Ltd   Fax  :  +612 4392439
Sydney Australia                               Voice:  +612 4365751
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From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 12:26:54 +0000 (GMT)

I think you'll find it is indeed an interation between Pine and the POP 
server.

POP mail clients check for new mail by periodically connecting to the POP 
server.  This will grab the mail folder lock from any other process (IMAP 
server, POP server or Pine session).  When this happens the Pine user 
will be notified that the mail folder has become read-only (but the 
message will incorrectly say it is another Pine session ... in fact it is 
just another mail client).

Mike Brudenell
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Computing Service, University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, UK
Phone: +44-(0)1904-433811  FAX: +44-(0)1904-432767

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 01:46:48 -0800

Yup, ipop3d is quite capable of stealing the read/write token away from 
Pine.  It's a feature.  The only advice I can give is ``don't use POP 
when you're using Pine''.

There is no workaround when using POP.  The POP3 specification is quite 
emphatic about having exclusive access to the mail box file.

If all you want is a periodic probe for new mail, you can use an IMAP 
connection to the server instead of POP (this assumes you have the source 
code for your PC-based probing software).  Use the IMAP EXAMINE command 
instead of the normal SELECT, and it won't steal the read/write token 
away from any Pines that have it open.

-- Mark --

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From: [email-masked] (Lars Viklund)
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 17:01:32 GMT

A related question: I use pine for reading mail (using IMAP) both at work
and from home (over a dialup PPP connection). Normally I leave pine running
on my workstation at work and when I access my mailbox from home the IMAP
server will steal the lock (and the pine running at work will have the 
mailbox open read-only). All this is fine, but when I come back to work I
would like to reopen my mailbox read/write without having to restart pine.
Is this possible?

--
Lars Viklund                                       | Email: [email-masked]
Programming Environments Laboratory                | Phone: +46 13282689
Department of Computer and Information Science     | Fax  : +46 13282666
Linkoping University, S-581 83  LINKOPING, SWEDEN  | Telex: 50966 UNILIN S

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 15:55:32 -0800

At the present time, it is not possible to reopen your INBOX read/write
without restarting Pine.  It is technically possible and the low-level
calls to do it are straightforward.  It's just a matter of building a user
interface to do this. 

I'm not the user interface designer; I do the low-level stuff.  Here is my
understanding of what's going on, but don't take this as gospel: 

The problem with adding a command to do this is that such a command would
pretty much do all of the work of exiting and restarting Pine.  Since Pine
is running short of single-letter commands, do we really want to spend one
of the last available characters to do something you can do with the 6
character sequence qpine<return>?

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From: [email-masked] (Barry Bouwsma)
Date: 5 Dec 1994 09:31:32 GMT

>calls to do it are straightforward.  It's just a matter of building a user
[...]
>character sequence qpine<return>? 

    My idea is that when a folder becomes read-only, those commands
which require the folder to be open no longer have any effect.
Specifically ``X'' for expunging messages.
    If the ``X'' command were to switch from its normal ``eXpunge''
meaning to that of attempting to reopen the folder, no more letters
would be used, and there would be no need to exit Pine, especially
for those of us who have established connections to folders all over...
    Similarly, ``X'' could try to re-open a folder which has become
closed due to acces error, of which I shall write more in private.

-- 
 Barry Bouwsma, back from Euro-bike-tour in Ann Arbor, Michigan
    Please direct mail to  <[email-masked]> (MIME-aware)
Unemployable System Crasher, seeking work with the Internet that will put me
somewhere near the Appenzell, Switzerland; have pivo and zmrzlina, will travel

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From: [email-masked] (Christopher W. Curtis)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 17:23:30 GMT

In <[email-masked]> Mark Crispin <[email-masked]> writes:

When another Pine session tries to open the inbox, the first session goes
read-only.  I've always found this awkward - you would think that the second
session would say "inbox already open - opening readonly" instead of "yanking
file lock - your other session is now readonly."  But regardless of this,
since the first session can tell that the inbox has been re-opened, couldn't
it be possible to put the read-only pine session into some sort of loop to
reopen the inbox (read/write) once the second lock is gone?

--
T |        Christopher Curtis       |    Those who would sacrifice     | O
E |   Sun Lab System Administrator  |      liberty for security        | S
A | Florida Institute of Technology |        deserve neither.          | /
M |       Melbourne, Florida       N|N            -Benjamin Franklin   | 2