bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Stefan Monnier]

Package: emacs,gnus

Occasionally an NNTP (or IMAP) server refuses to answer.  In Emacs-23,
Gnus then prompted me something like "Unable to open server foo, go offline? "

In Emacs-24, this has disappeared at the server is just marked offline
silently (maybe there's a warning message, but if so I never get to
notice it).

Grepping for "go offline" in Gnus, I see that the code that did the
prompting in Emacs-23 was in gnus-int.el but has been removed, although
there is still a comment that refers to it:

% grep 'go offline' emacs-23/lisp/gnus/*.el trunk/lisp/gnus/*.el
emacs-23/lisp/gnus/gnus-int.el:                          "Unable to open server %s, go offline? "
emacs-23/lisp/gnus/gnus-int.el:              ;; prompting with "go offline?".  This is only a concern
trunk/lisp/gnus/gnus-int.el:              ;; prompting with "go offline?".  This is only a concern
%

Can the prompting be re-introduced, please?


        Stefan



In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.4)
 of 2011-08-03 on ceviche
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11002000
configured using `configure  'CFLAGS=-Wall -Wno-pointer-sign -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE -DSYNC_INPUT -DENABLE_CHECKING -DXASSERTS -DFONTSET_DEBUG -g -O0 -I/usr/include/GNUstep''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: fr_CH.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Server

Minor modes in effect:
  electric-pair-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  url-handler-mode: t
  global-reveal-mode: t
  reveal-mode: t
  auto-insert-mode: t
  savehist-mode: t
  minibuffer-electric-default-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<return> n <switch-frame> ^ <down> <down> <down> C 
<up> O M-x r e p o r t - e m - b u <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
nnimap read 29k [211 times]
nnimap read 33k [597 times]
nnimap read 34k [4 times]
nnimap read 38k [87 times]
nnimap read 39k [3 times]
nnimap read 42k [483 times]
Opening nntp server on gmane...done
Reading active file via nndraft...done
Checking new news...done
Warning: Unable to open server nntp+news due to: Server closed connection

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug nnfolder nndraft nnmh utf-7 rfc2104
gnutls network-stream starttls nnimap parse-time tls utf7 netrc nnagent
nnml gnus-agent gnus-srvr gnus-score score-mode nnvirtual gnus-msg
gnus-art mm-uu mml2015 epg-config mm-view mml-smime smime dig mailcap
nntp gnus-cache nnir gnus-sum nnoo gnus-group gnus-undo nnmail
mail-source warnings server gnus-start gnus-spec gnus-int gnus-range
message format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mailabbrev gmm-utils
mailheader gnus-win gnus gnus-ems nnheader mail-utils wid-edit noutline
outline easy-mmode flyspell ispell eldoc checkdoc regexp-opt thingatpt
help-mode view load-dir electric url-handlers url-parse auth-source
eieio byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile cconv macroexp assoc gnus-util
password-cache url-vars mm-util mail-prsvr reveal autoinsert uniquify
advice help-fns advice-preload savehist minibuf-eldef disp-table cl
all-autoloads company-autoloads debbugs-autoloads epoch-view-autoloads
js2-mode-autoloads load-dir-autoloads markchars-autoloads
minimap-autoloads muse-autoloads info easymenu rainbow-mode-autoloads
register-list-autoloads sisu-mode-autoloads uni-confusables-autoloads
windresize-autoloads package tabulated-list proof-site proof-autoloads
pg-vars bbdb-autoloads agda2 time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image fringe
lisp-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar
mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian
cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face files text-properties overlay
sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process dbusbind
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty emacs)

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> Occasionally an NNTP (or IMAP) server refuses to answer.  In Emacs-23,
> Gnus then prompted me something like "Unable to open server foo, go offline? "
>
> In Emacs-24, this has disappeared at the server is just marked offline
> silently (maybe there's a warning message, but if so I never get to
> notice it).

Yes, it's marked "denied" if you can't open it.

> Can the prompting be re-introduced, please?

No, the go-offline thing didn't make any sense in most situations.  The
offline/online thing is a global Gnus thing, and if (say) your IMAP
connection to Gmail fails, it makes no sense to put Gnus offline with
respect to the other servers.

So I think the current behaviour makes the most sense.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Occasionally an NNTP (or IMAP) server refuses to answer.
>> In Emacs-23, Gnus then prompted me something like "Unable to open
>> server foo, go offline? "
>> In Emacs-24, this has disappeared at the server is just marked offline
>> silently (maybe there's a warning message, but if so I never get to
>> notice it).
> Yes, it's marked "denied" if you can't open it.

It's set to `offline' here, not `denied'.

>> Can the prompting be re-introduced, please?
> No, the go-offline thing didn't make any sense in most situations.  The
> offline/online thing is a global Gnus thing, and if (say) your IMAP
> connection to Gmail fails, it makes no sense to put Gnus offline with
> respect to the other servers.

I totally agree and that's indeed the problem I have: Gnus does put my
IMAP connection in `offline' state where it shouldn't.

Actually for me the prompt made a lot of sense: sometimes the connection
failure was really just transient and I want Gnus to re-try connecting,
whereas at other times the connection fails for good reasons (e.g. it's
a server that I can only access from some places and not from others, or
only when the VPN is activated, or it is down for maintenance, ...) and
I want to mark it offline so it doesn't prevent me from accessing
other servers.


        Stefan

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Yes, it's marked "denied" if you can't open it.
>
> It's set to `offline' here, not `denied'.

Oops.  Yeah, that's true.  I was thinking of non-agented groups, which
gets `denied' in the same situation.

>>> Can the prompting be re-introduced, please?
>> No, the go-offline thing didn't make any sense in most situations.  The
>> offline/online thing is a global Gnus thing, and if (say) your IMAP
>> connection to Gmail fails, it makes no sense to put Gnus offline with
>> respect to the other servers.
>
> I totally agree and that's indeed the problem I have: Gnus does put my
> IMAP connection in `offline' state where it shouldn't.
>
> Actually for me the prompt made a lot of sense: sometimes the connection
> failure was really just transient and I want Gnus to re-try connecting,
> whereas at other times the connection fails for good reasons (e.g. it's
> a server that I can only access from some places and not from others, or
> only when the VPN is activated, or it is down for maintenance, ...) and
> I want to mark it offline so it doesn't prevent me from accessing
> other servers.

The prompting drove me crazy, because it would trigger in the middle of
doing, well, anything, like batch-sending emails.

But I could add an option to enable people to get the prompt if they
want to?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Stefan Monnier]

> The prompting drove me crazy, because it would trigger in the middle of
> doing, well, anything, like batch-sending emails.
> But I could add an option to enable people to get the prompt if they
> want to?

I don't necessarily need the prompt, but the current behavior is much
too silent for my taste: I don't get any message about going offline,
and typically the only way I notice the problem is that "g" keeps
telling me there's no news, even though I know that the last refresh was
sufficiently long ago that at least some spam must have arrived in the
mean time.  And then I have to figure out how to bring it back online.

I'm a sufficiently sophisticated user that I can handle it, but my wife
would just tell me "this «Gnus» thingy of yours doesn't work".

The prompt may not always be welcome, but in practice I almost *never*
want to go offline.  So I'd much rather default to "retry" than to "go
offline".  And for my use, making this decision when Emacs prompted me
worked pretty well.


        Stefan

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> The prompt may not always be welcome, but in practice I almost *never*
> want to go offline.  So I'd much rather default to "retry" than to "go
> offline".  And for my use, making this decision when Emacs prompted me
> worked pretty well.

Right.

The things that can happen in that piece of code are, broadly:

1) We opened the server successfully.  Yay!

2) We couldn't open the server, but it's covered by the Agent, and it
has the data.  Mark it as `offline'.

3) We couldn't open the server, and it's covered by the Agent, which
claims it doesn't know anything about it.  Mark it as `denied'.

4) We couldn't open the server.  Mark it as `denied'.

Previously 2) was special-cased.  It would query you, and if you said
`n', the next time you hit `g', it would (perhaps) fail again, and then
query you again.

I think handling 2) with a query, and not querying on 3) and 4) doesn't
make all that much sense.  Either you want to retry errors, or you
don't.

However, if you have a Gnus with ten different sources, some of them
will fail, and being prompted here is just annoying.  Gnus will list
failed groups specially in the group buffer, and you can `M-g' them to
force a reconnect.  I think that model makes more sense, overall.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> However, if you have a Gnus with ten different sources, some of them
> will fail, and being prompted here is just annoying.  Gnus will list
> failed groups specially in the group buffer, and you can `M-g' them to
> force a reconnect.  I think that model makes more sense, overall.

So I don't think this is a bug, and I'm closing this report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Stefan Monnier]

>> However, if you have a Gnus with ten different sources, some of them
>> will fail, and being prompted here is just annoying.  Gnus will list
>> failed groups specially in the group buffer, and you can `M-g' them to
>> force a reconnect.  I think that model makes more sense, overall.
> So I don't think this is a bug, and I'm closing this report.

No, I don't think you realize the extent of the problem.
Failed groups do not show up specially in my experience (maybe they do
on the first connection, but for long-lived Gnus sessions this is
irrelevant).

Here's another take on the problem:
Start "emacs -f gnus" with a setup that uses IMAP.
Then when prompted for your IMAP password, type in a wrong password.
Result: Gnus just keeps on going, treating the server as "offline".


        Stefan

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:31:34 -0500 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote: 

>>> However, if you have a Gnus with ten different sources, some of them
>>> will fail, and being prompted here is just annoying.  Gnus will list
>>> failed groups specially in the group buffer, and you can `M-g' them to
>>> force a reconnect.  I think that model makes more sense, overall.
>> So I don't think this is a bug, and I'm closing this report.

SM> No, I don't think you realize the extent of the problem.
SM> Failed groups do not show up specially in my experience (maybe they do
SM> on the first connection, but for long-lived Gnus sessions this is
SM> irrelevant).

SM> Here's another take on the problem:
SM> Start "emacs -f gnus" with a setup that uses IMAP.
SM> Then when prompted for your IMAP password, type in a wrong password.
SM> Result: Gnus just keeps on going, treating the server as "offline".

Maybe errored-offline / errored-denied groups could get 2 special faces
in the group buffer?  That would give a visual indication without
necessarily interrupting the user.

I think strike-through would be a perfect visual emphasis for this.

Ted

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> Maybe errored-offline / errored-denied groups could get 2 special faces
> in the group buffer?  That would give a visual indication without
> necessarily interrupting the user.
>
> I think strike-through would be a perfect visual emphasis for this.

One of the reasons for having the Agent at all is that you're supposed
to be able to read the groups if the server is down.  (Or, as in the
example, you typed the wrong password.)

So I think what Gnus does here is what it's supposed to, but I agree
with Ted's suggestion of marking the groups that are from servers that
Gnus thinks are down specially.

Strike-through is kinda intrusive, though.  Something a bit more subtle
would be nice...  or perhaps just a mark at the beginning of the line,
like what we do with non-Agented groups from servers that are down.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no  *  Sent from my Rome

bug#9244: 24.0.50; Server put offline without any prompt

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:48:13 +0100 Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote: 

LI> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>> Maybe errored-offline / errored-denied groups could get 2 special faces
>> in the group buffer?  That would give a visual indication without
>> necessarily interrupting the user.
>> 
>> I think strike-through would be a perfect visual emphasis for this.

LI> One of the reasons for having the Agent at all is that you're supposed
LI> to be able to read the groups if the server is down.  (Or, as in the
LI> example, you typed the wrong password.)

LI> So I think what Gnus does here is what it's supposed to, but I agree
LI> with Ted's suggestion of marking the groups that are from servers that
LI> Gnus thinks are down specially.

LI> Strike-through is kinda intrusive, though.  Something a bit more subtle
LI> would be nice...  or perhaps just a mark at the beginning of the line,
LI> like what we do with non-Agented groups from servers that are down.

As long as it's a face that can be customized, and which inherits from
the normal group face...  I don't think a separate indicator is a good
idea.

Ted