Re: [Pan-users] Command line use; download of nzb files does not stop

[Graham Lawrence]

 Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2011 19:16:10 +0000 (UTC)
 Excerpted mostly From: Duncan

I hope this amuses, and doesn't tug anyone's off-topic whiskers too much.

>> Turns out the problem was my quoting the quotes with \.
>
> IIRC I mentioned that quote-escaping, since what that was effectively
> doing was killing bash's interpretation and removal of the quotes, so
> they were passed on to pan itself.  I wasn't quite sure how pan itself
> dealt with quotes, since they'd normally tend to be stripped before it
> got the commandline, but it seems they do have an effect.

In fact the effect of the \s is that Pan does nothing at all.  Which
might make you ask... then what was all that business about Pan in
perpetual download mode?  The full truth is probably unrecoverable,
but contains at least the following elements:-
Quoting, in all its infinite varieties, and with shells within shells,
confuse me.  Like that old limerick, I'm never quite sure "who does
what, and with which, and to whom";
Early in this struggle, I checked that the nzb itself was good by
starting it in Pan in gui mode and, seeing the files appearing in
Thunar's window, closed Pan, blissfully unaware that its Task Manager
still lurked in the shadows, loaded for Goodfellas;
I removed the downloaded files and ran that infamous pan command line,
replete with superfluous \s &s and if;
The command did one thing right, it started Pan and its Task Manager
pounced.  Files began dutifully appearing in Thunar and I said "great,
its working".  Happy in my delusion, my fate was sealed.
For debugging computer problems, there are basically 2 methods; the
"pukka sahib" approach of logical analysis and deduction, which may be
more effective in the long run, but is laborious and dreary; meanwhile
the riff-raff among us much prefer jumping to conclusions, which
always presents itself in that most alluring guise, A Stroke Of
Genius!
No prize for guessing which method I succumb to.
I Ctrl-ced Pan and removed the downloads, and ran it again, only this
time as part of the script.  I may have done that 2 or 3 times before
I was satisfied and let it download the entire file.  I believe this
perpetual restarting and removing downloaded files got Pan royally
pissed off.  The download completed, and kept right on going, and I
sent my first email on the subject.  I stopped Pan, disposed of the
excess files, found the rest good, and decided to download a new file;
and the nightmare began.
Convinced that Pan command was good, imagine my consternation to find
Pan downloading, not the new file I'd asked for, but the same old
files as before (still knew nothing of Task Manager at this point).
As if Pan were saying to me "forget about Mean Streets, bucko! For
you, its gonna be Goodfellas FOREVER!"
I made like Lady Macbeth, repeatedly scrubbing/removing
bloodstains/rar files, only to see them begin reappearing before my
horrified eyes.  "Out, out, damned rars!"
Indeed it is possible that at one point I was on my knees, whimpering
tearfully "oh stop! just stop! please stop!"
Of course, once one hits bottom, things can only improve; and at last,
entirely by luck, in the File Menu, I stumbled across the lair of the
beast, and drove the stake of Ctrl-a Delete through its heart.

>
> But I'm not sure if that answers your question or just sidesteps it.

See above, I think I drove it to distraction