Subject: bug#48801: 28.0.50; [PATCH] Feature suggestion gnus-retrieve-headers check for nov-is-evil when agent is enabled

From: Alex Bochannek <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2021 22:35:38 -0700

Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]> writes:

> Alex Bochannek <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> I think your concern is that when `gnus-nov-is-evil' is set globally, it
>> will effectively disable the agent for everything? Maybe this logic
>> should reside in `gnus-agent-retrieve-headers' instead?

I looked some more into it and it comes down to whether or not the
component groups see a `nov-is-evil' during their initial header
retrieval. If they do, the overview files for the agent include the
necessary information and the cache appears to used as well. However, I
don't see a way to set `nntp-nov-is-evil' for a group in a way that
would still be true when it is part of a virtual group.

As an experiment, I globally set `nntp-nov-is-evil' to `t' and disabled
the agent to see if it even works. I ran into a lot of problems where
Gnus lost track of the unread messages for simple NNTP groups. Is this
expected or is this potentially a bug?

-- 
Alex.