Subject: Pine locks up for several seconds when reading - why? (repost)

From: Tom Zerucha <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 96 17:11 EDT

I am using Linux pine 3.95.  When I browse an index and mark several
messages as deleted, and start reading, or go back from reading to the
index, pine often stops and does something that requires lots of disk
accessing (maybe it is checkpointing the mailbox).  It is not swapping
pages in virtual memory, and there is no banner saying what it is doing,
but it will lock up for several seconds to a minute (the more messages the
longer), but remember keystrokes.  Expunging takes the same amount of
time, but isn't any faster after one of these apopletic seizures.

Why does it do this, and how do I make it stop.

(please cc my actual account as well as responding to the list)

[email-masked]
finger [email-masked] for PGP key

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 15:32:59 -0700 (PDT)

One way to see if Pine is doing a checkpoint is to "enable-mail-check-cue"
Then you'll see one asterisk in the upper left corner while it is checking
for new mail, and two asterisks while it is checkpointing the mailbox
state.

-teg

---

From: Tom Zerucha <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 96 17:19 EDT

OK, I get two asterisks, so it is saving the state of the mailbox.  How
do I make it stop doing this every few minutes or so?  It is really
annoying since it will buffer keystrokes for the 10-30 seconds or more it
takes, so I may inadvertently delete messages or worse.

[email-masked]

---

From: Ed Greshko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 05:42:59 +0800 (GMT)

> takes, so I may inadvertently delete messages or worse.

	If you were using pine 3.95 you could go to setup/config and
find the following "feature":

mail-check-interval      = <No Value Set: using "150">   

	You might even read the help menu and find:

        OPTION: Mail-Check-Interval
 
This options specifies, in seconds, how often Pine will check for new
mail.  If set to zero, new-mail checking is disabled.  There is a minimum
value, normally 15 seconds.

	SUPRIZE!!!!  Your header information shows.....

Message-ID: <[email-masked]>

	So, guess what.....that feature is available to you!  You
just failed to do "information research".

	Regards,

		Ed

-- 
Edward M. Greshko                       Technical Manager, Electronic Commerce
                                        Control Data Asia/Pacific Region
Voice: +886-2-715-2222 x287             6/F, 131 Nanking East Road, Section 3
FAX  : +886-2-712-9197                  Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C

---

From: Tom Zerucha <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 96 21:42 EDT

> find the following "feature":

mail-check-interval...
 
I did.  But I set it to 65535, and 30000 and other numbers.
It seems to work better at 3600, but it says "mail-check" and not
folder checkpointing.  I assume this controls both?

[email-masked]

---

From: Ed Greshko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 22:19:37 +0800 (GMT)

> folder checkpointing.  I assume this controls both?

	No, it does not control checkpointing.  Only mail-check can
be set via the config.  For checkpointing you need to modify the
os-XXX.h file and recompile.  An excerpt fromt the os-sol.h file
shows:

#define CHECK_POINT_TIME (7*60) /* Check point the mail file (write changes
                                   to disk) if more than CHECK_POINT_TIME
                                   seconds have passed since the first
                                   change was made.  Depending on what is
                                   happening, we may wait up to three times
                                   this long, since we don't want to do the
                                   slow check pointing and irritate the user. */
 
#define CHECK_POINT_FREQ   (12) /* Check point the mail file if there have been
                                   at least this many (status) changes to the
                                   current mail file.  We may wait longer if
                                   it isn't a good time to do the checkpoint. */

	Hope this is of some value....