Re: mail: Sending...failed with exit value 71

[gebser]

At 23:37 (UTC-0000) on Sun, 7 Dec 2003 Glenn Morris said:

= gebser@speakeasy.net wrote:
= 
= > sendmail[4986]: hB725mJ04986: SYSERR(ken): Can't create transcript file 
= > ./xfhB725mJ04986: Permission denied
= >
= > In emacs' *Messages* buffer I'm seeing
= >
= > Sending...
= > Sending...failed with exit value 71
= >
= > How do I find out what 71 is/means?
= 
= It's a sendmail exit code, not an Emacs exit code (after all, Emacs
= has not exited). Why not search for "sendmail" + "can't create
= transcript file", or somesuch?


Thanks for your reply.  As I said in my previous posts, I can send mail 
fine with pine and with xemacs.  For that matter, there's no problem 
sending mail with the 'mail' program or with mozilla either.  So the 
source of the problem isn't with sendmail.

Yes, it may be possible that sendmail is just handing off the "exit
value 71" to emacs and emacs is reporting it.  If this is the case (and
I'm not certain that it is), then it isn't very useful-- from
sysexits.h:

#define EX_OSERR        71      /* system error (e.g., can't fork) */

Moreover, the failure to create the "transcript file" by sendmail isn't
a sendmail problem per se, but an indication of an emacs problem.  As
said, I don't get this error or any other error from sendmail when I
send mail using 'mail', 'mozilla', or 'xemacs'-- just with 'emacs'.  So
sendmail is working fine.  I haven't found any emacs configuration
variable for setting the location of the transcript file and I doubt
that there is one.  So, it must be that there's some other configuration
item in emacs which is bombing when it tries to send the mail.