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

[Duncan]

address@hidden posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:41:00
-0500:

> 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.

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?

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'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.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman