Subject: bug#45855: 28.0.50; gnus does not start if one of the nntp backend fails to authenticate

From: Alexandre Duret-Lutz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 12:09:23 +0100

Hi,

I'm using a setup like this:

      (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil ""))
      (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
            '((nntp "news.epita.fr")
              (nnmaildir "mymail" (directory "~/.mail/mymail/"))
              (nntp "news.lrde.epita.fr"
                    (nntp-open-connection-function nntp-open-ssl-stream)
                    (nntp-port-number 563)
                    (nntp-address "news.lrde.epita.fr"))
              ))

Two days ago the server news.lrde.epita.fr:563 was badly configured, and
would fail to initiate the TLS connection.   During the startup of Gnus,
I would see a message like

> Warning: Opening nntp server on news.lrde.epita.fr... failed:>>>
> (gnutls-error nntpd<1> gnutls-e-invalid-session);

and then another one (that I have not kept) explaining that Gnus would
simply ignore this server and continue.

This is perfect: I'm told that something is wrong with one backend, but
I can still use the other ones.

Now, today, the TLS settings of news.lrde.epita.fr have been fixed,
however the authentication is still not working on this server.

When I start gnus, I see

> Opening nntp server on news.lrde.epita.fr...done
> Authorization Rejected

and then Gnus simply stops loading, leaving me with its nice logo to
contemplate.  I had to comment out that server from
gnus-secondary-select-methods in order to read my mail.

It seems weird to me that the TLS error is handled as a warning,
but that the authentication error is a hard one.  Would it be possible
to handle both error conditions similarly?  (Preferably disabling
that server in both case.)

Thanks!

In GNU Emacs 28.0.50 (build 2, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.24, cairo version 1.16.0)
 of 2021-01-10 built on goulash
Repository revision: 5960e9cf5770dab2bd3abfb8640f6553bfa1b190
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12010000
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG CAIRO SOUND GPM DBUS GSETTINGS GLIB NOTIFY
INOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE HARFBUZZ M17N_FLT LIBOTF
ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 XDBE XIM MODULES THREADS LIBSYSTEMD
JSON PDUMPER LCMS2

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz