sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) (10/25/83)
Is there a known problem with UUCP mail dropping the message body of a mail message? In the last month, I have received several messages which arrive with only their headers. This has occurred on two different systems with disparate mail software, so I don't think it is a local problem. On the other hand, it's been infrequent enough that I haven't yet had a chance to see a pattern in the path that the mail travels. I thought perhaps someone out there has already noticed this and prescribed a fix. In any event, I'll try to save the messages in the future. /Steve Dyer decvax!bbncca!sdyer
bees@drux3.UUCP (10/26/83)
I have had the same experience. In the past 3 months, I periodically receive a message header, with no text. The headers have all contained news article information, so I assume they have been the product of the reply 'r' command in readnews. Also, each time I receive one of these, I reply to the sender telling them that I received the header (which I include), but the body of the message was lost. I have never received a second reply from any of them. Some of the messages have been from persons in Denver, where the mail would have been sent via an NSC Hyperchannel, and some have been from other sites, where uucp would have been used. Ray Davis AT&T Information Systems Laboratories Denver {ihnp4|hogpc}!druxy!bees (303)538-3991
smb@ulysses.UUCP (10/27/83)
My guess is that someone accidentally started to reply to a news item, or started to reply but then changed their minds. The reply command will kick you into an editor, then try to mail the remaining text body. Since there's no graceful way to abort in that situation (though truncating the file works), it becomes very easy to send a letter with a null body. We can leave to another time a discussion of whether it's a bug or feature that the mail module doesn't look for null bodies and abort the message.
ekb@machaids.UUCP (10/27/83)
A number of articles which have been received here with null message bodies had a "Lines:" header line which indicated that at one point the article DID have a body. Obviously, it is getting trashed somewhere along the line. -- = Eric Bustad (BTL-HO) ihnp4!machaids!ekb
woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (10/27/83)
I too have received empty messages. I suspect that it is due to people who don't know how to abort a reply once "readnews" has dumped them into the editor. In that case, exiting the editor results in an empty message being sent. For those "responsible" for these empty messages, one kludge to abort a reply is to edit the To: line and make the message go to yourself. GREG -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!brl-bmd | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!kpno} !hao!woods
liz@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/28/83)
What I would like is for the system to put you in the regular mailer to reply to an article. Then you could use commands like ~q which in the Berkeley mailer allows you to cancel the letter... There is "rd" in readnews which lets you do something like that except you don't get the Subject set up automatically -- it could if it was called with "mail -s '<subject>' <person>... Just extending the readnews wish list... -Liz -- Liz Allen, Univ of Maryland, College Park MD Usenet: ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz Arpanet: liz%umcp-cs@CSNet-Relay
dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (11/02/83)
I suspect that most of these are from people getting into readnews' "reply" function, either by choice or accidentally, and then deciding that they don't want to send the letter. If they just quit from the editor, the automatically-generated header is sent anyway as the mail message.
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (11/04/83)
Apparently a few of the decapitated articles are indeed aborted attempts at news followups. But it seems that the vast majority are not, rather they are truly decapitated or dismembered at some point in their travels. (Don't you just love the imagery??) Articles that claim to have 42 lines arrive with only three, often looking like: Newsgroup: net.uselessness,net.sludge Subject: The existence of God scientifically proven Lines: 42 f the other one. The answer is seventeen. Comments? Ted Useless (dippo!leppo!putzo!tedu) It would also appear that this newsgroup (and others) have seen a flurry of articles just like this one, complaining about the problem, but no solutions or explanations have been posted. (The explanation involving the aborted followups only applies to some cases.) Are there any answers?? Guidelines?? Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr (not reachable thru leppo, which is not delivering mail)
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (11/07/83)
The "anti-truncated article problem" (what *is* the word for chopping off the beginning of something? I checked in a dictionary and "frustrated" doesn't seem to be it) has been identified, and two fixes had been posted a while ago. It seems any article whose body begins with a tab (or possibly with white space in general) loses the first block (512/1024 bytes) of the article due to a bug in some versions of "news". A fix to this has been posted, but I guess not all sites have been Good Citizens and dropped it in. A second fix was posted; this fixes it on the other end by fiddling with articles being sent out with white space at the beginning. A third fix is not to submit articles which begin with a tab... Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy