huntting@csn.org (Brad Huntting) (11/21/90)
I recently upgraded to nntp 1.5.10 so I could use the LOADADV feature. Unfortunately I was then swamped by emacs freaks (no offence intented) complaining that their readers (GNUS and GNEWS) broke.... *Sigh*... We have worked out a client side hack that fixes the problem, but the hate mail is still pretty bad. Does anyone know when/if this bug will be fixed, and/or if anyone has a patch for it? thanx, brad
sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) (11/21/90)
The problems with CNEWS and GNUS will be fixed in the next release of
NNTP, which will most likely be called 1.5.11. The 1.6 release is also
in the works, but it not ready for release at Christmas as hoped.
I am looking for a few good beta testers. Please send mail to nntp@tmc.edu
if you are interested. GNUS sites and CNEWS sites especially are wanted.
--
Stan internet: sob@bcm.tmc.edu Director, Networking
Olan uucp: {rutgers,mailrus}!bcm!sob and Systems Support
Barber Opinions expressed are only mine. Baylor College of Medicinecedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) (11/21/90)
In article <1990Nov20.221152.10825@csn.org> huntting@csn.org (Brad Huntting) writes: I recently upgraded to nntp 1.5.10 so I could use the LOADADV feature. Unfortunately I was then swamped by emacs freaks (no offence intented) complaining that their readers (GNUS and GNEWS) broke.... *Sigh*... We have worked out a client side hack that fixes the problem, but the hate mail is still pretty bad. Does anyone know when/if this bug will be fixed, and/or if anyone has a patch for it? Client side hack ? I can imagine: Set nntp-maximum-request to 1 and wait several minutes for a small newsgroup to load. You deserve your hate mail :-) ! About the hack to fix it. I usually post it once a week in gnu.emacs.gnus (that is how often the problem comes up :-), but here it is: In article <9011091453.AA09160@mandrill.cv.nrao.edu> bglenden@MANDRILL.CV.NRAO.EDU (Brian Glendenning) writes: Yesterday GNUS stopped working - the symptom is that when I try to enter a newsgroup with more than 2 unread articles it just hangs forever. I am trying to find out what software the newshost has changed, I suspect nntp but I don't know yet. I vaguely recall people discussing something like this. Unfortunately I didn't pay enough attention, and now I can't read the old discussion. If this is a known problem could someone send me the fix. My recollection is that this involves a performance loss. True? OK, this is about the 30th time people have mailed me or posted here and asked for the solution. I hope the net excuses me for sending a short summary of the solution (again). There are many solutions and "solutions" to this problem, some of them are quite primitive and make using GNUS almost unbearable, others are so much work that nobody has yet troubled himself to do it. I understand the most popular solution is the "Disable-Timeout-Kludge". It works like this: 1. Grep the header files of NNTP 1.5.10. 2. Find where TIMEOUT is defined 3. Comment it out 4. Recompile 5. Et voila: Everything works just fine 6. (If it doesn't check that you removed the "(setq nntp-maximum-request 1)" and "(setq nntp-buggy-select t)" lines from your "~/.emacs" file, if you ever had them there) Negative consequence: There used to be a timeout for idle NNTP connections of about 2 hours. This is gone. I (in fact this university) can live(and post) with this just fine, but your mileage may vary. Carl Edman Theorectical Physicist,N.:A physicist whose | Send mail existence is postulated, to make the numbers | to balance but who is never actually observed | cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu in the laboratory. | edmanc@uciph0.ps.uci.edu
mberkley@sanjuan.uvic.ca (Mike Berkley - 721-8752) (11/22/90)
> On 21 Nov 90 03:21:57 GMT, cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) said:
CE> About the hack to fix it. I usually post it once a week in
CE> gnu.emacs.gnus (that is how often the problem comes up :-), but
CE> here it is:
CE> 2. Find where TIMEOUT is defined
CE> 3. Comment it out
CE> Negative consequence: There used to be a timeout for idle NNTP
CE> connections of about 2 hours. This is gone. I (in fact this
CE> university) can live(and post) with this just fine, but your
CE> mileage may vary.
But this university cannot live with this fix - our administrator
(rightly) exhumed the buggy NNTP 1.5.10 after he found 86 nntpd's
running (no timeouts).
Vick Khera's fix is much more acceptable:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** /tmp/,RCSt1a13658 Mon Oct 29 14:16:52 1990
--- serve.c Fri Oct 26 11:44:52 1990
***************
*** 126,131 ****
--- 126,135 ----
(void) close(2);
(void) dup(0);
(void) dup(0);
+
+ #ifdef TIMEOUT
+ (void) setbuf(stdin, NULL); /* Fix buggy select code */
+ #endif
/* If we're ALONE, then we've already opened syslog */
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Vick Khera Gradual Student Department of Computer Science
ARPA: khera@cs.duke.edu Duke University
UUCP: ...!mcnc!duke!khera Durham, NC 27706 (919) 660-6528
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Berkley
mberkley@sanjuan@UVic.CAcedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) (11/23/90)
In article <MBERKLEY.90Nov21164110@sanjuan.uvic.ca> mberkley@sanjuan.uvic.ca (Mike Berkley - 721-8752) writes: > On 21 Nov 90 03:21:57 GMT, cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) said: CE> About the hack to fix it. I usually post it once a week in CE> gnu.emacs.gnus (that is how often the problem comes up :-), but CE> here it is: CE> 2. Find where TIMEOUT is defined CE> 3. Comment it out CE> Negative consequence: There used to be a timeout for idle NNTP CE> connections of about 2 hours. This is gone. I (in fact this CE> university) can live(and post) with this just fine, but your CE> mileage may vary. But this university cannot live with this fix - our administrator (rightly) exhumed the buggy NNTP 1.5.10 after he found 86 nntpd's running (no timeouts). Vick Khera's fix is much more acceptable: [...] Please ! Not again the same discussion we have every week on gnu.emacs.gnus. The main point against this fix is that it impacts the preformance of NNTP for the users. The consensus was that this probably wasn't quite as bad as setting nntp-maximum-request to 1 in gnus, but still significant. There can also be made another point against this hack. There is a bug in the NNTP software, which is at the core of the problem: The mixing of high-level system-buffered I/O and low-level I/O, and that is simply not a good thing. Removing buffering is simply another kludge to disable the effects of this bug. Turning of the TIMEOUT removes at least one instance of this "cross-programming" (If I may coin the term :-). So, decide what tradeoffs you will make in your installation, but know the advantages and disadvantages of all options. Carl Edman Theorectical Physicist,N.:A physicist whose | Send mail existence is postulated, to make the numbers | to balance but who is never actually observed | cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu in the laboratory. | edmanc@uciph0.ps.uci.edu