Subject: Re: bug#9225: "Can't open server for INBOX"

From: Dave Abrahams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:46:45 -0400

on Sun Aug 21 2011, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi-AT-gnus.org> wrote:

> Dave Abrahams <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> I eventually discovered, in the gnus server buffer, that Gnus marked
>> that server "denied" at some point.  All I had to do was `O' it and then
>> I was able to leave the group.  But shouldn't Gnus try to open the
>> server itself?
>
> No, trying to reopen groups that Gnus has already determined are faulty
> can be very annoying.

Well, the status quo is pretty annoying too: Gnus reports that it "can't
open the server" as though it had tried, when in fact it could if it
would only make the attempt.  That certainly discourages the user from
trying the one thing they need to do to get past the problem: ask Gnus
to close and open the server.

The accurate message would be "refusing to try to open server for INBOX
because it failed once."  Does that really seem like reasonable
behavior?

I think users would prefer something like "opening server for
INBOX failed 10 minutes ago; do you want me to try again?"  Or better,
"opening server for INBOX failed less than 60 seconds ago; close and
reopen manually to force a retry," and after 60 seconds have Gnus be
willing to try again to open the denied server.

> I've now made the expiry thing just ignore denied groups instead of
> erroring out.

Hmm, not sure whether that's an improvement.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com