Re: [Pan-users] Articles Pan Can't Read

[Steven D'Aprano]

Mark S Bilk wrote:
> I posted several articles to alt.test, which KNode can read 
> but Pan can't.  I'm using Pan 0.135 from the OpenSuse Linux 11.4 
> 32-bit software repository.  My Usenet source is Astraweb.


Hahah! I reported this same thing a few weeks back... search the 
archives for a post "Empty posts in Pan?" on 21/6/11.

I then reported it to my ISP, who was unable to replicate the fault (or 
if they could, they wouldn't admit it -- eventually they closed the 
ticket and told me to report it to Astraweb.

http://helpdesk.astraweb.com/


Here is a report by somebody else experiencing a similar, if not the 
same, problem:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/python/python/926636#926636

I believe his symptoms are different from mine because we are using 
different news clients. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe he too is 
using Astraweb.


Here are some more examples:

  From:   Paul Rubin <address@hidden>
  Newsgroups:   comp.lang.python
  Subject:   Re: How can I speed up a script that iterates over a large 
range (600 billion)?
  Date:   Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:32:48 -0700
  Message-ID:   <address@hidden>


  From:   Chris Angelico <address@hidden>
  Newsgroups:   comp.lang.python
  Subject:   Re: how to call a function for evry 10 secs
  Date:   Fri, 1 Jul 2011 03:36:12 +1000
  Message-ID:   <address@hidden>


  From:   Stefan Behnel <address@hidden>
  Newsgroups:   comp.lang.python
  Subject:   Re: keeping local state in an C extension module
  Date:   Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:10:22 +0200
  Message-ID:   <address@hidden>


If your news provider is not Astraweb, you may see something different.


More information:

I have checked this on three different computers, using two different 
versions of Fedora Linux (7 and 13), and five different news clients 
(two versions each of Pan, two versions of Knode, Thunderbird and slrn).

Fedora 13, using Knode: no corrupted messages are visible, but that's 
because they simply aren't shown at all. E.g. with all filters turned 
off, Knode shows 1000 messages downloaded, 963 visible, and posts 
showing visible corruption in other clients simply are not displayed at 
all. I haven't yet been able to determine how to instruct Knode to 
download all available posts -- it only downloads the most recent 1000, 
even though there are 10,000+ on the group.

Fedora 7, using Thunderbird, Pan and Knode. Results differ. Pan is 
unable to view corrupted messages at all: they show up in the header 
pane, but cannot be downloaded. Knode and Thunderbird shows them in the 
header pane, with incorrect From address, date or line count (or all 
three), but displays them correctly after downloading them.

(I have screen shots. If anyone wants to see them, email me off-list.)

The slrn newsreader also shows the problem (again, I have screenshots). 
E.g. I have a thread allegedly called "An interesting beginner question: 
why we need colon at all..." Some of the From addresses are clearly 
bogus "the", "python language?", and the alleged line counts are mostly 
0 with one shown as 2149 lines.

The post with an alleged 2149 lines, and bogus From address "python 
language?", is actually:

From: Grant Edwards <address@hidden>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:43:53 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <address@hidden>

I got these by viewing the message in slrn and displaying all headers; I 
can see the same results in Thunderbird and Knode.

Although the above results are about a month ago, the problem persists. 
I see today:


  Path:   news.astraweb.com!border6.newsrouter.astraweb.com!
          news.glorb.com!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed5.news.xs4all.nl!
          xs4all!newsgate.cistron.nl!newsgate.news.xs4all.nl!
          post.news.xs4all.nl!not-for-mail
  Return-Path:   <address@hidden>
  X-Original-To:   address@hidden
  Delivered-To:   address@hidden
  Sender:   address@hidden
  Date:   Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:36:18 -0700
  Subject:   Re: subprocess.Popen and thread module
  From:   Chris Rebert <address@hidden>
  Newsgroups:   comp.lang.python
  Message-ID:   <address@hidden>
  Lines:   45
  NNTP-Posting-Host:   2001:888:2000:d::a6
  X-Trace:   1312961781 news.xs4all.nl 23903 [2001:888:2000:d::a6]:44176
  X-Complaints-To:   address@hidden


shows up in Knode as "0 lines" until I click on it, at which time the 
lines changes to 45. In Pan, the header pane shows it as 0 lines, and 
clicking on it does nothing.


Likewise, Pan reports these two empty posts:

Subject: Re: allow line break at operators
From: Chris Angelico <address@hidden>
Date: 6:39 PM
Message-ID: <address@hidden>
Lines: 0
Bytes: 0

Subject: Re: allow line break at operators
From: Dan Sommers <address@hidden>
Date: 7:56 PM
Message-ID: <address@hidden>
Lines: 0
Bytes: 0


neither of which actually are empty, but neither can be downloaded in Pan.



--
Steven