[comp.emacs] Gnu emacs rmail warning!

steven@cwi.nl (Steven Pemberton) (10/28/87)

Reply-To:


Just a warning - our machine crashed while I was in the middle of
running rmail. ALL my mail, old and new got lost! RMAIL was empty
except for the "if you are reading this, the file is empty" message,
RMAIL~ was zero length, and my mail file in /usr/spool (which had
contained 14 new messages) was also empty. BE WARNED!

Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@cwi.nl

nate@cpocd2.UUCP (Nathan Hess) (10/29/87)

In article <98@piring.cwi.nl> Steven Pemberton writes:
>Just a warning - our machine crashed while I was in the middle of
>running rmail. ALL my mail, old and new got lost! RMAIL was empty
>except for the "if you are reading this, the file is empty" message,
>RMAIL~ was zero length, and my mail file in /usr/spool (which had
>contained 14 new messages) was also empty. BE WARNED!

I quote here a portion of the GNU Emacs manual, the section on Inboxes
in the RMAIL chapter.  This might contain the answer to your lost mail
dilemma:


  Copying mail from an inbox in the system's mailer directory actually
  puts it in an intermediate file `~/.newmail'.  This is because the
  interlocking is done by a C program that copies to another file.
  `~/.newmail' is deleted after mail merging is successful.  If there is
  a crash at the wrong time, this file will continue to exist and will
  be used as an inbox the next time you get new mail.


Hope this helps...
--woodstock
-- 
	   "How did you get your mind to tilt like your hat?"

...!{decwrl|hplabs!oliveb|pur-ee|qantel|amd}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!nate
<domainish> :   nate@cpocd2.intel.com		ATT :    (602) 961-2037

ram-ashwin@YALE.ARPA.UUCP (10/30/87)

>    From: steven@cwi.nl (Steven Pemberton)
>    Date: 28 Oct 87 11:53:23 GMT
> 
>    Just a warning - our machine crashed while I was in the middle of
>    running rmail. ALL my mail, old and new got lost!

You might try putting (auto-save-mode 1) in your rmail-mode-hook to ensure
that your rmail-file-name file is autosaved.

-- Ashwin Ram --

ARPA:    Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu
UUCP:    {decvax,linus,seismo}!yale!Ram-Ashwin
BITNET:  Ram@yalecs

interran@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (John Interrante) (10/30/87)

In article <98@piring.cwi.nl> Steven Pemberton writes:
>Just a warning - our machine crashed while I was in the middle of
>running rmail. ALL my mail, old and new got lost! 

I've also lost all of my new mail when my filesystem was full.  That
was GNU Emacs 18.47 on a Sun 3.  rmail couldn't move the new mail into
my directory, but it went ahead and deleted the new mail from my
system mailbox.

John Interrante / interran@shasta.stanford.edu / {decwrl,uunet}!shasta!interran