Subject: bug#51053: 27.2; gnus-save-newsrc-file-last-timestamp not cleared when quitting gnus

From: "Roland Winkler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2021 23:26:19 -0500

I need to synchronize my gnus sessions across multiple machines
using rsync.  That seems to work mostly as expected within a running
emacs session if I quit gnus, rsync all files and restart gnus.  In
particular, gnus will then use the .newsrc.eld file from the other
machine.  But gnus-clear-system does not clear
gnus-save-newsrc-file-last-timestamp.  So when gnus wants to save
again the .newsrc.eld file, it compares the timestamp of the file on
disk against the old timestamp of the old file from the previous
gnus session.  That old file is already gone anyway.
- Instead of clearing gnus-save-newsrc-file-last-timestamp when
quitting gnus, could it also make sense to (re)set this variable
whenever .newsrc.eld is read?

(I am new to the world of gnus.  I hope I am not missing yet more
obstacles for what I would like to achieve.)

In GNU Emacs 27.2 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.5)
 of 2021-06-07 built on regnitz
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12004000
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)