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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!tellab1!extel!larry
From: larry@extel.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news.notes
Subject: Re: detecting problems with notesfile
Message-ID: <74400001@extel.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 13:18:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: extel.74400001
Posted: Wed Sep 25 13:18:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 05:38:00 EDT
References: <1445@rocksvax.UUCP>
Lines: 18
Nf-ID: #R:rocksvax:-144500:extel:74400001:000:783
Nf-From: extel!larry    Sep 25 12:18:00 1985


Newsinput here (11/70) regularly dumps its guts.  I suspect the problem
is due to fields in things like message-ids longer than notes allows.
Scanf is used to tear these fields apart and contains no limiter on the
length of a field.  It seems the stack gets trashed in newsinput.c which
then leaves a lock file around and sometimes (though less often) corrupts
one of the newsgroups.  I can get newsinput to dump readily by manually
having it digest the news articles in the news systems copy of the offending
news group.

One little trick I use is to delete all lock files before running nfarchive.
This is a little dangerous but so far has not caused any problems.

When I get a "failed gethrec" error from nfarchive I resort to removing
the entire group.

Larry
ihnp4!extel!larry