[net.bugs.4bsd] mail / uux

gill (08/08/82)

	I almost put my fist through the crt today ...

	After typing away for about an our going in and out of
mail and emacs (using ~v), I decided to send off my creation
with a resounding control d.

	What do I get? "uux failed. code 101." Great. Seems the
first system in the destination route wasn't in my L.sys. So what
did lovely mail do? It threw my mail away.

	Now listen: I don't think what I write is so fantastic, but
to have an hour of fine consideration discarded without cause is
inhumane!

	The bug in mail is that it doesn't check for the return code
from pclose after spawning uux. It may also not check for the return
code from sendremote(), but I decided not to waste any more of my
time playing with it; trying the same thing on rabbit and looking
at their source code revealed that someone had the same thing
happen to them.

	If anyone wants to know how to fix their mail and save
a few pieces of nearby equipment, drop me some mail.

	Gill Pratt

	physics!gill or gill@mc

p.s. Looking bad at this article it seems I don't make clear what
the fix does; it saves the mail in dead.letter just as if you
sent to a non existant person on your local machine.