[Pan-users] Re: Pan for windows .122 (Steve Davies build) crashes when trying to read alt.fan.howard-stern (Duncan)

[u6bj4fl02]

>> I am using Pan for windows, version .122,

>> two groups I follow with Pan (alt.binaries.howard-stern and
>> alt.fan.howard-stern)
>> 
>> After getting new headers, I had no trouble reading
>> alt.binaries.howard-stern, but whenever I try to read
>> alt.fan.howard-stern, Pan crashes.  There are no error messages 
>>that I can see, it just closes, and when I start it up again, it has 
>>forgotten which messages I had read in alt.binaries.howard-stern before the 
>>crash.

>I can't help with the crash itself, but the forgetting, I can help 
>with.
>Pan doesn't save the info for a group while you are working in it, only
>when you switch groups or quit pan.  It therefore appears that it dies 
>on the group switch before it does the save, possibly /doing/ the save,
>rather than loading the new group.
>
>So... Either quit pan after the one group and restart, hopefully 
>getting a save and clean quit rather than a crash, or subscribe to some other 
>group you don't have to be interested in (preferably low volume), and switch 
>to it before attempting to switch to the crasher group.
>
>The idea is to separate the group save and get it done before trying to
>switch to the crasher group.  If it still crashes without saving the 
>one group, perhaps the crash is in trying to save the group rather than in
>loading the new one.
>

Thanks, I tried this, and it is definitely crashing when switching to
the one particular group, because the info for the other group was
correct the next time I opened Pan, after doing a clean quit before
trying the crashing group.  


>Also, have you tried loading the crasher group first?  Does it crash 
>when you do so, before loading the other group and therefore before it has
>anything to save in the first group when you switch?

I just upgraded to .123, and it is still having a problem with the one
group.  I tried entering the group first thing, after starting Pan,
and it still crashes.

>Finally, this may or may not be related to the disappearing groups bug
>others are seeing, that should be fixed in SVN now, and in 0.123, when
>it's released, but I'd still recommend filing a bug on it.  Include the
>results of the above suggestions as well, hopefully pinning the problem
>down a bit further when Charles starts trying to find it.

>> I have Pan configured to use two servers, with one set as primary 
>>and the other as fallback.  I have a HOME variable defined in my
>> environment, and Pan uses %HOME%\.pan2 to keep its files in, 
>>instead of the .pan2 directory in the directory where pan.exe is located.

>Using the $HOME (that's how it would be on *ix) variable for storing 
>the datafiles would be a (possibly undocumented) feature, not a bug, as it
>normally points to the user's home dir on *ix.  If it's a problem, 
>create a batch file (or whatever they call them on MSWormOS now) that either
>clears the variable or sets it appropriately, before launching the real
>pan executable.  Another alternative is setting the $PAN_HOME variable 
>to a directory to use in place of $HOME/.pan2 (so it points to the dir to 
>use in place of .pan2, not the parent $HOME dir). You can then set your pan
>shortcuts to launch the batch file rather than the real executable.

I don't consider this to be a problem, I just included this
information in case it might be contributing to the problem I am
reporting.  I created the %HOME% variable because I was using some
other *nix programs that were ported to MS and they needed it.  I had
a slight panic the first time I started Pan after creating the
variable, and finding that Pan had "forgotten" every setting,
including server settings.  I eventually found the new %HOME%\.pan2
directory, and was able to restore my old settings by moving the
contents of the old .pan2 directory into the new one that Pan had
created.


>I'm not sure what the state of documentation is on the MS version, but
>wherever it says where .pan2 is stored, you may wish to request that
>be updated to mention the $HOME/%HOME% thing (and $PAN_HOME/%PAN_HOME% 
>as well) too.  If that's in the readme shipping with pan, file a bug to 
>have it updated.  If it's off Darren A's wiki, consider updating it there,
>whatever.


I didn't see a readme for the windows build.  The only documentation
I've found is this page: http://pan.rebelbase.com/manual/ , which
isn't very helpful ;)

I don't know who Darren A is, or where his wiki is.  I guess I need to
look around some more.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.