Subject: New feature in Pine 4.55 ?

From: Michael Abbott <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 07:02:57 +0000 (GMT)

I've just upgraded pine from 4.53 (I think) to 4.55 (on FreeBSD);  I
retrieve my mail directly from my mailbox, /var/mail/michael on the same
machine.

Previously pine would leave my mailbox empty after retrieving my mail.
Now it leaves behind the message below.  This message is definitely being
created by pine, and not by the mailer daemon as it seems to claim.

Why has this message suddenly started to appear, and how can I get rid of
it?

Many thanks,
	Michael Abbott

>From MAILER-DAEMON Wed May 14 06:42:06 2003
Date: 14 May 2003 06:42:06 +0000
From: Mail System Internal Data <[email-masked]>
Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
X-IMAP: 1052894497 0000000003
Status: RO

This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not
a real message.  It is created automatically by the mail system software.
If deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created
with the data reset to initial values.

-- 
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---

From: Michael Abbott <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 07:29:21 +0000 (GMT)

On Wed, 14 May 2003, Tim Baur wrote:
> guess you didnt bother to google for the answer, considering the first
> page is full of answers. and no, this is not a "new feature" in 4.55, as
> it's existed in every 4.x version.

Well, *something* has changed:

before upgrading to pine 4.55:
	After running pine my incoming mailbox /var/mail/michael is empty
	and running `from` displays nothing.  This is how I like it.

after upgrading to pine 4.55:
	Before running pine my incoming mailbox has an ordinary incoming
	message in it and `from` shows me who it's from.  After running
	pine it has the message under discussion and `from` displays
	MAILER-DAEMON.

On Wed, 14 May 2003, Tim Baur wrote:
> 1) What is this mail "DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA"?
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not a
> real message.  It is created automatically by the mail system software. If
> deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> The above message is placed automatically in your mailbox by the mail
> server when you use Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) or a POP (Post
> Office Protocol) client such as Netscape that needs unique message
> numbers. In its heading it stores information such as the last unique
> message number for your mail.

This analysis does not seem to be applicable.  In particular, I am not
using IMAP or POP to read the message, and it is definitely not being
placed into my mailbox (the file /var/mail/michael) until I run pine.

I have seen these messages in the mailboxes run by pine, and I'm not
concerned about them.  However, this message has started to appear in my
main incoming mail box.

I suspect you may be confused between my use of pine and some other use of
this system.

>
> If you delete it, your whole mailbox area will be re-scanned to assign new
> message numbers. This will take some time and some folders may be missed,
> causing you to lose information.
>
> If you use IMAP, which allows you to manipulate your messages on the
> server, or if you use Netscape, make sure you do not delete the above
> message!
>
> Under normal circumstances, the only way you will see the mail system
> message is if you check your mail using a Unix based mail program such as
> Pine. Sometimes, when there is a "glitch" in the system, it will become
> visible to mail reading programs such as Eudora and Netscape.
>

---

From: Tim Baur <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 00:34:29 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 14 May 2003, Michael Abbott wrote:

> I suspect you may be confused between my use of pine and some other use
> of this system.

No, I'm not.

-tbaur

                                FEATURE: quell-folder-internal-msg

This feature determines whether or not Pine will create "pseudo messages"
in folders that are in standard Unix or MMDF format.

Pine will normally create these pseudo messages when they are not already
present in a standard Unix or MMDF folder. Their purpose is to record
certain mailbox state data needed for correct IMAP and POP server
operation, and also for Pine to be able to mark messages as Answered when
the Reply has been postponed.

Sites which do not use IMAP/POP for remote mail access, and which need to
support mail tools that are adversely affected by the presence of the
pseudo-messages (e.g.  some mail notification tools) may enable this
feature to tell Pine not to create them. Note that Pine's "Answered" flag
capability will be adversely affected if this is done.

Note too that, even if this feature is enabled, Pine will not remove
pseudo-messages when it encounters them (e.g. those created by UW's imapd
or ipopd servers.) This feature has no effect on folders that are not in
standard Unix or MMDF format, as pseudo-messages are not needed in the
other formats to record mailbox state information.

---

From: Michael Abbott <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 07:53:10 +0000 (GMT)

>                                 FEATURE: quell-folder-internal-msg

Ok.  Now I am partly enlightened, and partly confused.

1.  What is the difference between the following three mailboxes:

	/var/mail/<user>
	~/mbox
	~/mail/
?
I would *like* pine to do whatever it pleases with everything under
~/mail/, in particular I'd like it to keep full internal information here.
So it seems that quell-folder-internal-msg is not what I want.

I have discovered that if ~/mbox exists then pine will read everything
from /var/mail/<user> into ~/mbox when I run pine.  This is ok, and works
for me.

So previously it seemed there was a transfer of mail thus:

	/var/mail/<user> -> ~/mbox -> ~/mail/

and ~/mbox and on are managed using the "pseudo message".

2.  What has changed when I upgraded to 4.55 (from 4.53, I think)?

Taking a closer look, it would appear that pine is no longer reading
/var/mail/<user> into ~/mbox.  *This* is perhaps the heart of my problem.

I have changed nothing in the configuration (I haven't touched my
configuration), but pine seems to have forgotten that ~/mbox exists.

So now it seems mail goes:

	/var/mail/<user> -> ~/mail/

and /var/mail/<user> is now managed using the "pseudo message".

---

From: Tim Baur <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 01:17:58 -0700 (PDT)

> /var/mail/<user> into ~/mbox.  *This* is perhaps the heart of my

ok. then please review:

http://www.washington.edu/pine/getpine/unix.html

	http://www.washington.edu/pine/getpine/mbox.html

	mbox driver bug and patch

	A bug was introduced in Pine 4.55 which can break the "mbox"
	functionality for some users.  mbox allows you to have a
	traditional UNIX format INBOX in a file called "mbox" in your UNIX
	home directory.  Incoming mail is automatically moved from the
	spool directory into the mbox file.

	[...]

perhaps that's all that is needed to solve your problem, but it won't
change the pseudo messages from appearing.

enable quell-folder-internal-msg ...

also, stating that the pseudo messages "manage" your mbox, or spool file
is not accurate. they dont "manage" anything. they assist in recording
state data, that is all. you should never even see them unless editing the
raw text.

-tbaur

---

From: Eduardo Chappa <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 08:29:13 -0700 (PDT)

*** Michael Abbott ([email-masked]) wrote in the pine-info list today:

:) I've just upgraded pine from 4.53 (I think) to 4.55 (on FreeBSD);  I
:) retrieve my mail directly from my mailbox, /var/mail/michael on the
:) same machine.
:)
:) Previously pine would leave my mailbox empty after retrieving my mail.
:) Now it leaves behind the message below.  This message is definitely
:) being created by pine, and not by the mailer daemon as it seems to
:) claim.
:)
:) Why has this message suddenly started to appear, and how can I get rid
:) of it?

This is a bug in pine4.55. The intent of the message is that it will not
be created in mailboxen that do not contain it. Take a look at this
message by Mark Crispin:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.NXT.4.30.0005051317460.2119-100000%40Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU

If you don't have web access at this moment, it says (among other things)
the following:

<Q>
The infamous "DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE" pseudo-message is no longer
applied to existing UNIX-format mailboxes which don't have it; although it
will still be written to newly-created mailboxes.  There's a new way of
storing the data which is more fragile, but hopefully more flame-proof.
</Q>

If you did not make any changes to the default compilation of Pine, then
an empty mailbox is in "UNIX" (sic) format, and since it existed (meaning
it was not created by Pine), no pseudo message should be added to it. The
above mentioned message was posted in the year 2000. I haven't seen any
explicit change in documentation ever since, and you are right, it stopped
working in Pine4.55, without any documentation change/warning.

  Enabling quell-internal-message (or so) will get you around it, but you
are right, this *is* a bug.

-- 
Eduardo
http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/

---

From: Michael Abbott <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 15:41:25 +0000 (GMT)

On Wed, 14 May 2003, Eduardo Chappa wrote:
> :) Now it leaves behind the message below. ...
> :)

Hmm.  Well, there was perhaps also another bug.  This morning Tim Baur
pointed me to a useful defect report about pine 4.55:

>       mbox driver bug and patch

Applying the workaround suggested in this link solved my problem: I am now
back to processing my mail via ~/mbox, and I'm happy to have the internal
message in ~/mbox -- I just wanted it out of my spool, and everything's
back to normal now.

Two bugs at once!  Sigh.