Re: [Pan-users] .nzb download seems to be going to /dev/null

[Graham Lawrence]

Duncan, I'm using Pan 0.133, and thank you for the very detailed
response.  I hope you just pasted most of it and didn't have to type
it all, because since I ran

strace -feopen pan 2>&1 | grep -v 'icons\|cursors' | grep /home/g > pan.debug

I think I know what the problem is, and it has nothing to do with Pan.
strace was very consistent in its output. After the initial preamble
for each task, it generated nothing but this pattern

[pid  5641] open("/home/g/.pan2/article-cache/part20of78.2Wn&address@hidden",
O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

and it does this for every part in every task.  There is nothing in
/home/g/.pan2/article-cache/ whose name even begins with p.

My neighbor recommended newsgroups to me and offered to share his
account with me if I would split the cost with him.  The first time I
used it all was well, except it posted a warning to the effect that
such downloads could only be made to a single computer, which I
dismissed at the time as an aberration, I was only downloading to one
computer.  This time around is my second use, and now the penny has
dropped.  My neighbor's computer is the single computer referred to,
and it has blocked downloading to mine.

I am very sorry to have wasted your time on this.

On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM, <address@hidden> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. .nzb download seems to be going to /dev/null (Graham Lawrence)
>   2. Re: .nzb download seems to be going to /dev/null (Duncan)
>   3. Re: REQ: verbose option when running GUI-less (Heinrich M?ller)
>   4. Re: Stupid question (Parko)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:45:53 -0700
> From: Graham Lawrence <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: [Pan-users] .nzb download seems to be going to /dev/null
> Message-ID:
>        <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Downloading files via .nzb file, but although Pan seems to be behaving
> normally, the files are not appearing anywhere on my system.  Its as
> if they are going to /dev/null.
> I've had this problem before if I opened the download directory before
> clicking Save, and solved it by selecting, but not opening the
> download directory.
> But that device is no longer working.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:43:56 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Duncan <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Pan-users] .nzb download seems to be going to /dev/null
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Graham Lawrence posted on Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:45:53 -0700 as excerpted:
>
> > Downloading files via .nzb file, but although Pan seems to be behaving
> > normally, the files are not appearing anywhere on my system.  Its as if
> > they are going to /dev/null.
> > I've had this problem before if I opened the download directory before
> > clicking Save, and solved it by selecting, but not opening the download
> > directory.
> > But that device is no longer working.
>
> Pan version?  You're apparently not using pan to post your message (for
> instance on gmane, where the list is presented as a newsgroup), so I
> can't get your pan version from the headers.
>
> Meanwhile, while I haven't used pan for binaries (other than a couple
> showing up on the lists, and a couple attachments posted myself using
> hmueller's git version code) in quite some years and have never used it
> for nzbs, there's a couple debugging tricks that may be of help.
>
> First, run pan from a terminal window and see if it spits out anything
> useful there.  If not, add the --debug option to the pan command line.
> (This used to be documented in --help, but it doesn't seem to be so any
> longer, for whatever reason, at least not in the hmueller git version I'm
> running.)
>
> You can also use strace to see what system calls pan's making.  Be warned
> that the output will likely be way bigger than is practical to sift thru,
> without some filtering.  I'm usually after information on what files it's
> opening, not non-file system calls being made, and file-opens gives me
> enough info so I don't need the other file syscalls, so I start with
> that.  The -f traces thru forks, which may not be necessary there but is
> here, since I use a wrapper script to start pan.  The -eopen tells strace
> to only trace file-open calls:
>
> strace -feopen pan
>
> But that'll still overload you with all the system libraries it tries to
> load, generally trying in several places before it finds the correct
> location for that library on your system, and it'll load icons and fonts
> and the like too.  You can filter that down with a grep that limits it to
> locations in your home dir.  Note that strace outputs to STDERR not
> STDOUT, so you have to redirect it so the grep will work on STDERR too.
> Here, I simply use /home, which should work too, assuming that you're
> saving somewhere under /home:
>
> strace -feopen pan 2>&1 | grep /home
>
> You can narrow that down further if necessary, say ignoring anything with
> icons or cursors in the path, like so:
>
> strace -feopen pan 2>&1 | grep -v 'icons\|cursors' | grep /home
>
> Once you get it narrowed down about as far as seems reasonable, you can
> if desired redirect the output to a file, which you can then open in an
> editor and get search functionality, etc (one line, tho it's two here due
> to wrapping):
>
> strace -feopen pan 2>&1 | grep -v 'icons\|cursors' | grep /home >
> pan.debug
>
> That drops pan.debug in whatever directory you were currently in,
> probably your home dir if you didn't cd elsewhere, since that's where
> terminal windows normally open to.  You can of course add a path to drop
> it elsewhere, if desired.
>
> Interpreting the output:
>
> If the file is opened successfully, the result will be a filehandle,
> showing up as '= 6' or whatever, at the right end.  If there was an error
> (see below), the result will normally be -1.
>
> O_* shows the options used to open the file.  For example, O_WRONLY|
> O_CREAT|O_TRUNC means write/read-only (no execute or the like), create if
> it doesn't exist, truncate to zero and start with an empty file if it
> does exist. 0666 (or similar) is the (octal) permissions mode to create
> the file with, if it's created.  (Obviously, create-mode should only
> appear if O_CREAT is given.) O_RDONLY, read-only, O_DIRECTORY, it's a
> directory not a file (this usually comes with O_CLOEXEC), O_NOBLOCK means
> use a non-blocking call -- it won't wait for the result, the result will
> be returned later.
>
> ENOENT is the most common error.  No directory entry for that file exists
> (and it wasn't accessed with O_CREAT so it's not created), further
> explained with the "(No such file or directory)" comment.  This isn't
> unusual at all, as config files may not exist in which case defaults are
> used, the system looks for libraries in multiple locations before it
> finds them, etc.
>
> REMINDER: If you dump the output to a debug file, remember to remove it
> when you're done. =:^)
>
> --
> 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
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 07:31:57 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Heinrich M?ller <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Pan-users] REQ: verbose option when running GUI-less
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Am Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:44:26 +0000 schrieb Heinrich Mueller:
>
> > Am Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:48:30 -0500 schrieb Ron Johnson:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> $ pan --no-gui -o . -nzb foo.nzb
> >>
> >> This is silent, and though that may be the Unix Way, I hate it because,
> >> well, it's silent.
> >>
> >> Can "you" add a -v/--verbose option to indicate which files have been
> >> downloaded?
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >
> > Sounds like a challenge.
> > If I have the time, I'll take a look into it.
> >
> > Cheers
>
> Done. Check my repository.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:12:44 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Parko <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Pan-users] Stupid question
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:01:52 -0400, Evan Morris wrote:
>
> > I've found 0.135 at
> > http://pan.rebelbase.com/download/releases/0.135/source/, but I have no
> > idea of how to install it. I'm using Ubuntu 10.04.
> >
> > Anyone having a slow afternoon and want to craft an explanation for the
> > truly clueless?
>
> Next time make it easy on yourself and add this to your Synaptic (package
> manager) > Software Sources > Other Software list:
> http://ppa.launchpad.net/klaus-vormweg/ppa/ubuntu
>
> Saves installing from source if your not familiar with the process, or if
> you're like me and are a lazy so-and-so.
> ;)
>
> --
> Defenestrate Windows!
>
>
>
>
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