Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Readnews skipping postings Message-ID: <5516@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 14:41:19 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5516 Posted: Tue Oct 30 14:41:19 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 31-Oct-84 06:30:58 EST Distribution: net Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 52 Has the new (2.10.2 or whatever) readnews incorporated some new version of code or added some processing that attempts to be "smart" about skipping over postings that it thinks you've already seen? I ask this because I just noticed a strange behavior which I cannot explain, and which I do not recall seeing under the older readnews. I suspect that this is a symptom of what I would call a "serious" bug (defining "serious" to be something that causes a reader to miss postings, or adversely impact the ability to read the news). I normally run readnews with simple shell scripts that call readnews on a group of newsgroups, with the format "readnews -n net.xxx,net.zzz,net.qqq" and so on, grouping the newsgroups into categories as I wish. I just was reading using the following script: readnews -n net.flame,net.followup,net.misc,net.politics,net.women I was reading messages in net.misc, and suddenly noticed that I had skipped over some posting numbers. Normally, this wouldn't be unusual -- I would assume that the item had been in both net.flame and net.misc, and I had already read it as the system went through net.flame. However, I had just started this process, having "q'd" out of it before lunch, and had begun in net.misc; there was nothing new in net.flame when I began reading again. I entered the missing article numbers, and found that they were NOT addressed to net.flame at all -- they were posted to net.motss, net.politics, and net.misc (in that order). I then "q'd" out, edited my .newsrc net.misc entry to point to before those items, and ran readnews with the script again. Again it skipped those items!!! I then "q'd" again, re-edited .newsrc, and did a "readnews -n net.misc" directly. THEN it would display those skipped items. I surmised that having the "net.motss" entry as the first posting had some effect. I did a "readnews -n net.misc -x -t Homophobic" to look for any similar postings, and found some which I had never seen before, and some which I recalled reading. (Why would some be skipped and some displayed? I saw some followups but had not seen the base items!) OK, so I thought that maybe adding "net.motss" to my shell script might have an effect. I again re-edited .newsrc to point before those skipped items, and also added to the shell script, so it read: readnews -n net.flame,net.followup,net.misc,net.politics,net.women,net.motss I then executed it again. IT AGAIN SKIPPED THE ITEMS IN QUESTION!!!! I am now at a loss. What is going on? I now cannot trust a simple readnews command to show me all the stuff that is there! I'll have to waste my time keeping mental track of every damn article number, and specifically ask to see any that are skipped, to make sure that I have really seen them! HELP!!!! Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA