[Pan-users] Re: Problems with some replies

[HarryB]

On Friday 12 December 2008 3:53:58 am Duncan wrote:

Hello Duncan,

I've snipped some parts of the message in the hopes I don't get too lost...

>
> > Here is an example from one of my test posts:
> > <address@hidden>
>
> Hmm, I read this list as a newsgroup on gmane (gmane.org, which provides
> a mailing-list to web and a mailing-list to news gateway and archives the
> lists as newsgroups, which I prefer to mailing lists -- I use pan to read
> the pan mailing list as a newsgroup! =:^), which munged that to prevent
> spam since it looked like an email address.  I'm going to do some testing
> of my own, but meanwhile, if you could post that with a space before any
> @ symbols, it might help as gmane shouldn't munge it in that case.  From
> the below it does seem it may be important.
>

Ok, here is the ID that I originally sent:
 <qkg0l.6947$UI2.3956 @bignews6.bellsouth.net>
But, that test was sent to 0.test .

Here is the ID of the new tests that I posted in alt.test:
<76n4k4lcv85ar78d2o0rfr603d6pqsmi80 @4ax.com>
In case that gets munged, it's:
<76n4k4lcv85ar78d2o0rfr603d6pqsmi80 [at] 4ax.com>
The subject is: Pan Troubleshooting.

What I did was post a test message and then a series of replies, all from Free 
Agent. (FA was on another computer and after posting the first message I 
realized I was still using the old [fake] email address that I had entered in 
the profile years ago. I changed it to the [still fake] one I now use for the 
subsequent posts.) I then attempted to reply to those using Pan. At the 
bottom of this message are my observations.

> Oh, and you didn't say which way you had been posting before changing it,
> or whether changing it made a difference!  As we're zeroing in on the
> references header and it'll contain those message-IDs, it could.  If you
> aren't doing so already, try a new test thread with it toggled opposite
> to however it was to begin with.  If you're lucky, that's all it'll take.
>

Yes, I should have mentioned that, I'm sorry that I didn't do so. Originally I 
was posting with the default setting of not checked, so the ID was not a 
date/time stamp. And no, I didn't notice any differences.

> > There is another option there, but I don't know what it does: "Add
> > "user-Agent" header".
>
> This should add a header such as the following:
>
> User-Agent: Pan/0.133 (House of Butterflies)
>

Ok, yes I see how it is reported in the header.

> That would be unique between clients as well (some may use X-Newsreader
> or a similar header instead, or in addition), and while it could have
> been the problem, the below seems to indicate that the problem is in the
> differing references header, instead.
>
> BTW, neither you nor I have mentioned this yet, but it may be helpful in
> your investigations so I will now, in case you didn't know:  You can use
> the View > Body pane > Show all headers in body pane toggle (I think the
> default hotkey is "h", I've changed some of the defaults here so can't
> say for sure) to see/not-see full headers, including references, user-
> agent, Message-ID, etc.
>

Thank you, that is very helpful!

>
> As for the correct location in the thread... the way it works is this:
>
> The references header lists parent and grandparent and great-grandparent
> (but not siblings at any level)... up to the original post.  As the level
> of nesting gets deeper and therefore the references header longer, it's
> allowed to cut some of the middle ones out (as you did).  The original
> post message-ID should never be removed, however, and the immediate
> parent should also never be removed.
>

Thank you. That was also very helpful and I was able to see that as I looked 
around in the headers.

>
> But, as long as the parent remains, it should find the right place in the
> thread, and as I said, hopefully we can nail this down and either solve
> or work around the problem, so this will be just a temporary issue.
>

In the tests I ran today from Pan, I was again unable to get a message past my 
ISP's filter if there were more than two IDs in the references line. And, in 
keeping with what you wrote, I did observe that if the first ID in the 
reference line was the ID of the original message and the other one was the 
one being replied to (I think you called it the "parent"), the message seemed 
to be placed in the proper location in the thread. I had already mentioned 
that in my last message, but this was consistently the case each time I tried 
today.

But, the picture changed when I tried to reply to a message when Pan had been 
set to, "Add "Message-Id header". As long as there is only one of those IDs 
in the reference line (with the time/date stamp) it was fine. But, if there 
was more than one (and I would remove the intermediary one in order to get 
the reply to slip past my ISP's filter), the message wouldn't end up in the 
proper location in the thread - it would show up as a reply to the original 
message. IOW, the parent ID seemed to be ignored if the intermediary ID was 
removed. Plus, a new line would appear in the header after it was posted 
which read, "X-Invalid-Header: <ID of the parent message>. This may not help 
solve anything, but I did notice that behavior.

I also ran another test in which both the original message as well as all 
replies were from Pan. The ID of that short series of tests is:
<pan.2008.12.12.20.02.56 @nospam.net>
This test confirmed what I had already observed earlier today that the ISP's 
filter blocks any replies from Pan that have more than two IDs in the 
reference. And it also duplicated what I saw when I remove an intermediary ID 
*if* it has the date/time stamp.

I don't know if the tests I did today provide any additional information, but 
I hope something will come of it because I really do like Pan and wish to use 
it as my regular newsreader now that I am moving to Linux.

Thank you for trying to help,
Harry