[Pan-users] Re: Old Pan quits unexpectedly

[Duncan]

walt posted on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:51:55 -0800 as excerpted:

> On 11/27/2009 11:24 AM, Tony Sivori wrote:
>> Pan 14.2.91 on Kubuntu 8.04 (32-bit) with Kernel 2.6.24-23-generic.
>>
>> Quite a while back, Pan started shutting down when I'd read a post.
>> What happens is the when I click the Subject to download the body, Pan
>> instantly disappears. No error, no warning, and it is kind of
>> startling.
>>
>> After Pan crashes, it will reopen with no trouble. The status log is
>> empty, and Pan offers to resume the task it was on when it quit.
>>
>> Seems to be more frequent lately, perhaps once every few hours or so.
>> Anyone else using old Pan experiencing this?
> 
> I've read similar posts before, and IIRC it usually turns out that some
> file in ~/.pan2 got corrupted by the very first crash, and what- ever it
> is that got corrupted is causing the subsequent crashes.
> 
> The quick and dirty test is to rename your ~/.pan2 to something else,
> but don't delete it.  Just let pan re-create it, and then you can try
> copying over some of the config files that are a pain to replace, like
> your newsgroup preferences and list of servers, etc.
> 
> If Duncan is around, he'll have more specific advice for you.

I am, but that's pretty good right there. =:^)

Well... except that he specifically states old-pan (even a version, tho 
it's slightly incorrect, it should be 0.14.2.91), which used the ~/.pan 
directory instead of the newer ~/.pan2 dir.  But renaming the pandir is 
indeed what I'd suggest.

That, and we /are/ dealing with old pan, here.  I'm somewhat at a 
personal loss in that regard as I tend toward the bleeding edge unstable 
new stuff as compared to old and to me, stale long-past history (like 
listening to your (great)? grandparents talk about the depression, or WW 
II)stuff.  However, depending on how much of the /rest/ of the system is 
that old, or updated, it's possible that there's a newer library 
somewhere that pan simply doesn't like.

It's possible to run pan from a terminal window, possibly with one of the 
--debug parameters (try --help to get a list), such that pan will use it 
for STDOUT/STDERR and spit out information that may help tracing down the 
problem.

Meanwhile, I had kept the old-pan binary installed until just a few weeks 
ago, in ordered to try to help out with questions about it, here.  But a 
few weeks ago I deleted it.  To be sure, the sorts of questions it might 
help me answer are more of the UI type, and I figure anyone still running 
it probably knows the UI well enough by now so it's unlikely there'll be 
many more questions it would be of much help with, but the point is, I 
don't even have it to refer back to any more.  So old-pan users are now 
pretty much on their own... unless it's something like this where the 
troubleshooting tips apply in general, or unless some old-pan user that 
knows it well enough to help out is still around and wants to follow the 
list, for that perhaps a couple times a year query...

-- 
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