Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!spool.mu.edu!uunet!brunix!doorknob!da From: da@cs.brown.edu (David Ascher) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm Subject: Re: bug in berkeley "popper" program Message-ID: Date: 8 Mar 91 16:15:26 GMT References: <67594@brunix.UUCP> <1991Mar8.142343.8493@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Sender: news@brunix.UUCP Organization: Department of Computer Science, Brown University Lines: 57 In-reply-to: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu's message of 8 Mar 91 14:23:43 GMT In article <1991Mar8.142343.8493@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes: >[Discussing popper] This is a bit extreme. *I* cannot replicate the problem using telnet (and have never seen it using Eudora), so I can confidently say that "if your network connection dies during a popper session, you will lose your mail" is too sweeping a statement. David, please tell us what version of popper you are using, and what the recipe is for replicating the problem. Only then is anybody likely to give you suggestions for a fix. (For the record, I'm running 1.7b4. I logged into popper, did an retr on a BIG message, and pulled the terminator from my ethernet segment. The transfer stopped (of course), popper exitted (eventually), but the mail was left intact.) -- Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu UUCP: uunet!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!s-dorner Well, I love a challenge. =) No, seriously. I simulated the problem again, since I wanted to make sure... Here's my test setup: I send two pieces of mail to a test user. Then, from the server itself, i telnet to popper, user, pass, retr 1. While the message is being sent to the screen, I reboot the mac. Drastic, but effective. When I telnet to popper again, the user has no messages left. This was first brought to my attention when someone lost 40 mail messages at once. Now, I have heard from at least one other person who had this problem. I am using popper v. 1.7 (no Betas in the version.h file), on a Decstation 5000/200 running Ultrix v4.1. This problem also occurs on a Sun Sparc 1 runnning SunOS v4.1. It may be a good idea for people to try out the above test on their machines and let me know if the problem occurs/doesn't occur. I thought that this was a software bug with popper (i.e., it doesn't handle the loss of a connection well), but maybe it is socket-implementation dependent, or even worse, file-system dependent (i.e. what happens to a file which is never "close()"d...) . If people send me their test results, I will compile them and post a summary. Maybe my version of popper is outdated. The SccsId has a date of 7/13/90 in the popper.c file. I will look at the code more carefully and try and understand what is supposed to happen. It's well written so that should be easy. Anyone else please feel free and help out. -- -- David Ascher -- Lead/Sr. Systems Programmer (UNIX) Computing and Information Services Brown University, Providence RI 02912 Internet: dascher@brownvm.Brown.EDU (Internet) UUCP: uunet!brunix!da Bitnet: dascher@brownvm