Big problem, or little problem

Richard Michael Todd rmtodd at mailhost.ecn.ou.edu
Thu Sep 9 05:51:30 UTC 1999


In message <9909090227420.2934-100000 at liquid.tpb.net>you write:
>
>What if expire fails with the following error:
>
>Error log:
>can't tag value 0x2d521ae tagboth = 0xfe000000
>---------

I suspect that it's not actually failing with that error; as I read
the dbz.c code, the "can't tag" message is a warning, not an error.
It is, however, as I said, an indication that the .dir/.pag files do
need a rebuild as soon as possible, thru either expire or makedbz.

Now let's look at that expire log:
>Expire messages:
>expire begin Wed Sep  8 23:40:46 MET DST 1999: (-v1 -z/news/log/expire.rm)
>[lots of Group not matched (removed?) messages for nuked groups]
>    Can't read line 3522193, No such file or directory

Hmm.  The obvious question here is what's at line number 3522193 at your
history file.  My first guess would be that that line is corrupt 
(and the "No such file or directory" is the usual Unix coders' sloppiness in 
errno-handling).  Look at the history file around that line number
and see if you can find anything out of the ordinary. 

>
>news# head -3522200 history | tail
><rs0fmu7imkf83 at corp.supernews.com>	935347356~-~935345886	alt.binaries.pi
>ctures.erotica.filipinas/194934
><cancel.8e28.10f9c.28 at default>	935347357~-~935346481	control.cancel/49575656
><8e28.10f9c.28 at default>	935347357~-~935346481	
><7pp3mb$ftt$22 at nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>	935347357~-~935334411	alt.bin
>aries.pictures.erotica.transvestites/411234
><pornsexy at 92507G22O09O22F308.com>	935347357~-~935280394	
><aa882556.46399858 at news>	935347357~-~935335234	
><7ppga1$c28$7 at news.telekabel.nl>	935347357~-~935339073	telekabel.sprin
>ter.binaries/290260
><aa842552.46398926 at news>	935347358~-~935335233	
><aa772545.46395210 at news>	935347358~-~935335229	
><37E4BC0B at MailAndNews.com>	935347358~-~935339391	

Hmm.  Okay, you did, and that looks okay.  

>Ever since this started happening article acceptance is in the low
>100.000's per day leading to woefully incomplete threads (let alone
>binaries - but who cares about those anyway).  Any idea how I can fix
>this?  Run makehistory to rebuild the history file and overview from the
>(traditional INN 1.7.2, by the way) spool?

Oooh, INN1.7.2.  Ignore what I said above about makedbz.  Also, that
tag message may have been fatal in 1.7.*, so that may indeed be your
only problem. 

The low article acceptance rate is a sign of the mis-sized .dir/.pag file
Go ahead and do a 'wc -l history' to find out how big the history file is
and then do 'makehistory -r -s nnnnnnnn' to rebuild the .dir/.pag 
files (where nnnnnnnn is the line count you got from wc). That should
get you back on track.


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