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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mtune!gladys!bakerst!kathy
From: kathy@bakerst.UUCP
Newsgroups: unix-pc.general,news.admin
Subject: rnews problem solved
Message-ID: <762@bakerst.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Jun-87 22:53:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: bakerst.762
Posted: Sun Jun  7 22:53:05 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Jun-87 04:16:05 EDT
Organization: It's a mystery to me ..., Winston-Salem, NC
Lines: 64
Xref: utgpu junk:5226 news.admin:450



       The Case of the Long-Ignored Incoming News

In our last episode, dear readers, we were stuck with a an
ever-increasing collection of incoming, spooled news in the
/usr/spool/news/.rnews directory - and an apparently
nonfunctioning and/or on_vacation rnews where there had
previously been a fully functioning, hard-working rnews
before.

After some Trials and Tribs and Great Frustration, I decided
the problem was related to expire.  Reason: The source code
says rnews won't run if expire is running; and when I'd try
to run rnews, it would kick in, and then stop - as if it
woke up, saw expire running, and went back to bed.

But expire *wasn't* running full-time, of course.  Was there
some reason why rnews *thought* expire was running when it
really wasn't?

I found the apparent reason today: a file in /usr/spool/news
called .rnews.lock and dated the Day News Died.

I grepped thru all the docs, man files, and code that I
have, and found no mention of such a file ...  In fact, I even
grepped for just "lock" and turned up only a few references,
mostly to "block"s.  Did I miss something?  I have 2.11 docs
and man files, 2.11.8 source.

I'm still not sure what happened.  I did expire/archive all
my news that day in preparation for backing up my 3B1.  I
recall starting an expire and stopping it - but then running
expire to completion after that.  Assuming I'm not
"disremembering" - which I don't think I am but anything is
possible - I'd've thought the second expire would have killed
any lock file left over from a previous incomplete expire -
if, in fact, that's where the .rnews.lock file came from.
Perhaps not.  Any enlightenment out there?

There were also a couple of other .something files - sorry,
but I was so fixated on the .rnews.lock file that I don't
remember what they were.  Anyway, the one problem is solved.
And I thought someone, somewhere else just might benefit from
the news about the .rnews.lock file.

I still haven't figured out why my 3B1 doesn't want to
process news incoming from my 3B2/300, but maybe there's
another subtle reason for that that'll turn up one of these
days.

Meanwhile, I caught all the incoming unix-pc news and reposted
it, so no one who's getting the unix-pc groups from me need
worry about having missed anything during the Time of Troubles.



Kathy Vincent                         kathy@bakerst.UUCP
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