scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) (04/28/89)
If someone could help me with these problems with rn, it would be
greatly appreciated!!!
The following problems are running on a Motorola Delta System (I
do not know the exact model) running System V/68 Release 3 Version 2
(that's the MC68020 port of System V Release 2 Version 2), news
version 2.11 (b), and rn is updated to patch #40.
Now I have never seen these in any other system I have used, so I am
guessing that these might be particular to the system we are running
(and I wish I could trade it for another that's not SysV!!!!).
1) When a newsgroup is added and one wants list the contents of the
.newsrc file to find a place to put the new group, rn will catch
SIGSEGV, restore the .newsrc, and quits without dumping core. The
problem comes from .newsrc lines that are very long--usually a
newsgroup keeping track of read cross-posted articles:
(I broke the following line up at the backslash)
rec.sport.basketball: 1-1653,1720,1724,1734-1735,1750,1766,\
1777,1781,1783,1788,1793,1813,1816,1823,1834,1839,1850-1851,1871,1877,1882
Many times, the biggest culprit are the unsubscribed newsgroups. I can
go into my .newsrc file and edit this line (and others), and all will be
fine. However, I do not think this is the best solution.
2) When I go to read a newsgroup that I haven't read in a while, there
will be a number of unread articles that has expired here (we keep comp
groups for 4 days, rec 3, and everything else 2 days--space restrictions).
Rn will start the group "skipping unavailable article..." then say
that it reached the end of the group when I know there are articles to
read. For example, my .newsrc file says the following for comp.dcom.lans:
comp.dcom.lans: 1-199,231
but when I do an ls on /usr/spool/news/comp/dcom/lans, I find there are
articles numbered 263 and 279-291. If I edit the .newsrc to say I have
read 1-262, I will be able to read article 263 but not 279-291. One way
we have been getting around this is by editing the .newsrc line to say
1-262,264-278. For me, I can live with it (sort of), but it is very
annoying and is the biggest complaint I get from my user population.
I think it is important to note that (using the above example) that when
I go to edit my .newsrc file so I can read the newsgroup, it says:
comp.dcom.lans: 1-291
So there is a bug here I cannot track down!
3) Another problem we are having with rn (and this is minor in
comparison) is that if the first line after the "MORE" prompt is
indented, rn will not indent it far enough on the first line of the next
page. This is very evident in lists where one would see:
item....
item....
---MORE---
item....
item....
usually, the first line misses by three posistions, but this is not
consistant.
All help would be greatly appreciated!
--
scott barman
{gatech, emory}!dtscp1!scott