[Pan-users] Re: Agrivating error

[Duncan]

Larry posted <address@hidden>, excerpted below,  on Wed, 12 Jan
2005 10:01:44 -0600:

> (Null) - file article.c: line 494 (articles_set_decode_state): assertion
> `qty >= 1' failed

Well, normally it's far more helpful if you say what version you had, and
what version you have now.  It's not like we can read minds, you know, or
like you posted thru a list2news gateway such as gmane using PAN (as I do)
so we can at least see what you are using now.  (Your Mozilla Thunderbird
version isn't helpful.)

However, given that there hasn't been a new version in about a year, I
expect it's fairly safe to guess you upgraded to 0.14.2.91.  Keep in mind
that the .9x indicates beta, in this case for 0.14.3.  The last stable
version would be 0.14.2.

Those types of errors are related to changes in the way PAN works with the
GTK i18n (internationalization, i, plus 18 letters, n).  In particular,
they have to do with the way it handles charsets other than US-ASCII, and
yes, it is a known problem with the current version.

Charles was rather busy in real life and took about a year off.  Recently,
he's popped back up and development has depetrified and is moving again.
>From what he has said, he intends to get a new version out with a few
changes relatively soon, probably working up to 0.14.3, then take
advantage of the backend db work done by others in his absence,
implementing sqlite, for what I'd guess would be 0.14.9x leading up to
0.15.0 when it stabilizes. I haven't followed bugzilla (or CVS) close
enough to know whether this issue is resolved in CVS HEAD or not, but
there's a decent chance it is or will be by 0.14.3.  If it's not, it may
not be resolved for some time, until after the sqlite backend stabilizes.

Of course, patches are always welcome, or, if Charles found he was
actually making enough money off of PAN to support himself due to a
sponsorship, I have a feeling he'd not mind dropping his day job to work
on PAN.  He once mentioned the donate link on the home page had collected
all of IIRC 16 or 18 dollars!  It's not that he expects to be rolling in
the dough or anything, but realistically, a man's gotta support himself,
and that's gonna come first causing what is after all just a hobby to get
dropped, if time gets tight.  Thus, with no other major developers, when
Charles took a break, the PAN project stagnated.

Still.. it /did/ mean a chance for others to take over and do some work on
the backend stuff.  That has been needed for some time, and when it
matures, will make PAN much more scalable in large groups with a million
overviews or more, as well as opening up development in areas where it had
been put off until the database backend was implemented.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin