Re: [Pan-users] Messages require multiple clicking to view

[Duncan]

On Fri 03 Jan 2003 17:29, Sam Alexander posted as excerpted below:
> About one out of every 5 times I click on a post, I get a red X to the
> left (instead of a letter) and the post won't come up in the Body pane.
> I can then either right-click on message and choose Read or click off
> the message and reclick it, and the message will generally come up.  
>
> Why does this happen?  And what does the red X mean?  I assumed that it
> meant the message isn't available on the server, but many of the
> messages that come up fine have the red X.  

You assume correctly.  You don't mention the news server you are using and 
getting this with, but a couple of them are notorious for simply saying the 
article doesn't exist, when they are to busy to get it for you right then.  
Thus, it's likely a bug in your news server, not in PAN, but there's a slight 
possibility it's pan.

Another possibility on the news server is if it's actually set up as a cluster 
of machines, each with its own message store.  It's possible they aren't all 
quite synced correctly, such that sometimes you get connected to a server 
that has it, sometimes you get connected to one that doesn't.  I believe 
UsenetServer had this problem for some time after they implemented their "all 
you can suck for $16" plan last year, as it was more popular than they 
expected and they had to rush new servers into production before they were 
fully synced with all the others.  I am not sure if they are still having 
that problem or not.  (I was following alt.binaries.news-server-comparison at 
the time, but decided it wasn't worth following continuously when I got Cox 
and access to their better news servers, so wasn't there to see whether they 
ever fixed the reported problem or not.)

Just be glad it isn't MSOE you are using.  When OE gets the doesn't exist 
error, it deletes the overview from the list, and you don't get another 
chance at it, unless you reset the group, losing all previous state 
information for it, and redownload all the overviews.  At least PAN just 
gives you the red x, and you can try again.

-- 
Duncan
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin