[Pan-users] Re: Headers not downloading & not visible

[Duncan]

signmeuptoo posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:35:22 -0400:

> Hello, I am pretty new to Linux, only have used it for about 3 weeks. 
> I am using SuSE 9.3 DVD, and using KDE.  I have pan running in KDE, or
> at least it was running fine, but now, suddenly, the headers don't
> download and the header pane stays empty/invisible, even the old stuff
> is missing.
> 
> I really NEED pan, as it is the only yEnc newsreader for linux out
> there that works.  Can some one help me figure out what is wrong?  I
> did a google search, and looked at all of my settings and nothing
> seemed to allow me to change anything, I am desperate for help,
> please.

As Ruben says, it may be a fs (file system) error.  Try creating a new
server, just putting the same server address and etc in it, and see if
that works.  If so, you know it was something screwed up with that and you
can either investigate further or simply work from the new server,
deleting the old one (pan's directory is normally a hidden dir in your
homedir, ~/.pan/).  

If the new server doesn't work, try either logging in as a different user
and trying PAN that way, to see if it works, or backing up or deleting the
~/.pan dir (with PAN closed), so PAN creates a new one the next time it's
started.

If /that/ doesn't work, then you know it's something wrong with your PAN
version itself.  Try uninstalling and reinstalling it.

BTW, particularly since you're a KDE user, you may wish to check out
klibido, a KDE based binary news harvester application.  All it does is
save attachments, no posting and no reading text messages, thus the
"binary news harvester" description as opposed to "news reader".  It's
also only just over a year old and doesn't yet have scoring and the like. 
However, what it does, downloading binaries, it does /very/ well, and
without the serious memory issues PAN has on larger groups (> half a
millon overviews or so bogs PAN down pretty hard, in the released
versions, tho current CVS handles things rather better). Yes, klibido does
yEnc.  Also, klibido is /very/ useful if you have multiple servers
available to you, particularly if some or all of them are speed capped. 
My ISP has three news servers, with users allowed four, 384kbps
connections on each.  My overall internet pipe is 4Mbps, so a news
harvester such as klibido that can handle four connections to each of the
three servers, all automatically (PAN does it, but you have to set up the
downloads for each server separately), comes in /very/ handy!

http://klibido.sourceforge.net

If you don't mind running closed source slaveryware, BNR2/BNR3 (Binary
News Reaper) is available for both Linux and MSWormOS.  I'm not sure of
the status of the BNR code itself, but it requires slaveryware Borland
Delphi/Kylex to compile (Delphi on MSWormOS, Kylex on Linux), so it's not
something I'll install, here.  However, the binaries are available for the
download, if it's something you are comfortable running.  This app is a
bit older. BNR2 and BNR3 are very similar, except they use different
databases.  The one BNR2 uses is faster, but not always stable.  Users say
they have to delete the database and let BNR2 redownload headers once a
week to once a month or so.  BNR3 is a bit slower, but the database is far
more stable. BNR2/3 is what klibido will probably be like in a few years,
a binary news harvester, only BNR2/3 are older and have many more features
(so I've been told), including filtering and the like, which will be very
handy for serious binary news users.  Both BNR2/3 do yEnc.  (BNR1, a more
traditional binary news reader, does not.)  I don't have the URL for this,
but it should be googleable, or ask if you are interested and I can get it
for you, as  a number of Cox (my ISP) users are also BNR2/3 users.

As I said, I use klibido for my binaries.  I still use PAN for text,
however.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html