[Pan-users] Re: update on freeze, high CPU getting new headers: GNOME!

[Duncan]

alistair <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Wed, 19 Nov 2008
22:28:33 +0000:

> I have been having this problem as well, but only very recently, it is
> making Pan almost unusable!
>>
>> Some history... since I have been using Pan for a looong time one of
>> the first things I do when I install a distro is install Pan.  When
>> Hardy came out I switched from Fedora to Hardy and all was good, never
>> had any speed problems except when loading huge lists and running out
>> of memory.  When Intrepid came out I duly upgraded and Pan slowed to a
>> hopeless crawl.  For that and several other reasons I re-installed
>> Hardy but the Pan problem persists.
>>
>> Having read the earlier threads I have tried compiling  using various
>> versions of GCC with no effect.
>>
>> The fact that the version of Pan I used to have was fine but the clean
>> install I did a couple of weeks ago wasn't suggests a new package has
>> been created using more more recent libraries and there is some
>> incompatibility in the libraries.
>>
>> Further, the problem seems to be related to header display.  I have a
>> rule set up that allows me to display only the last couple of days
>> headers (please bring back the Display New Headers filter!) this often
>> results in a fairly small displayed list which can then be manipulated,
>> filtered etc reasonably quickly.  As soon as that rule is turned off it
>> grinds to halt as Pan tries to display the much larger list.
>>
>> Anyway I'll try XFCE see what effect that has

FWIW, I (well, gmane) apparently didn't get the message you quoted and 
your headers referenced, so your message appeared unthreaded, tho I do 
have a couple messages earlier in the thread (the OP, and my reply).

Anyway... Something just clicked between this thread and something else I 
read the last few days.  What version(s) of gmime do you have installed?

On Gentoo, the pan package depends on gmime 2.2.* series; I have 2.2.23 
installed and haven't seen the problem.  There's also the 2.4.* series, 
which on Gentoo can be installed "slotted", which means in parallel with 
the 2.2 series.

Now there's an open upstream gnome/pan bug on making pan compatible with 
gmime 2.4.*.  There's a partial patch available, but 2.4.* is missing a 
function that pan depends on, so in addition to the partial compatibility 
patch, that function needs patched into pan in ordered to fully support 
gmime 2.4.*, and that has yet to be done, according to the bug, and to 
the gmime lead developer who posted on the bug.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=541676

Now, pan shouldn't even compile against 2.4.* as is, or with that partial 
patch, due to that missing function.  And in theory pan compiled against 
gmime 2.2 shouldn't work loading 2.4.  However, it's just possible... 
maybe some distributions tried to patch gmime 2.4 to include the missing 
functions from 2.2, and something didn't work right...

If a distribution's GNOME depends on gmime 2.4 and there's no parallel 
library installation possible on that distribution, perhaps pan IS trying 
to load against gmime 2.4, and working just well enough to yield this 
problem.

Or maybe the libraries are both installed but 2.4 is loaded and pan tries 
to work against it, only using 2.2 functions when 2.4 doesn't provide 
them -- but the 2.4 functions are different enough to cause problems.

If xfce still has gmime 2.2 dependencies, then switching to it would 
either install 2.2, or ensure it's loaded when pan loads, so pan gets all 
the right functions and works well.

So... you folks having this problem, check which versions of gmime you 
have installed, and which versions pan and gnome depend on.  Then check 
xfce.  As I said, pan shouldn't work with 2.4 at all, or crash when it 
tries to load the missing functions if it does, but if those errors are 
trapped and worked around... maybe, just maybe, it's possible that's the 
problem.

It's worth checking, anyway.  If you don't have gmime 2.2 installed at 
all, we've likely found our problem.  If you do, and gnome depends on 2.4 
but xfce depends on 2.2, we still may have found our problem.

In any case, AFAIK Ubuntu, yes, 8.10, is STILL running a security 
vulnerable pan 0.132, despite patches being out since late May, and 0.133 
being released with that patch and some other fixes as well, on August 
1.  And yes, there's an Ubuntu security bug, with their security team 
CCed, open on it, and has been for months.  So obviously neither pan nor 
the security of their users running pan is very high priority for them.  
That being the case, it's not surprising that their shipping pan would be 
goofed up in other ways as well.  <shrug>  Obviously I'm not very happy 
with them right now.  I know I'm no longer recommending them due to this.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/fedora/+source/pan/+bug/235747

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman