29894 - newsrc corruption

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect, P3)

Description

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

as reported by Ken Dowling in n.p.m.mail-news

I started clean, no .mozilla directory. I set up this news 
server, subscriped to the newsgroups and exited. Checked the newsrc file 
and it was ok. I hadn't yet downloaded any article listings and all the 
newsgroups were listed, sans article numbers...

netscape.public.mozilla.announce:
netscape.public.mozilla.mail-news:
netscape.public.mozilla.seamonkey:
netscape.public.mozilla.unix:
netscape.public.mozilla.general:
netscape.public.mozilla.layout:
netscape.public.mozilla.prefs:
netscape.public.mozilla.ui:
netscape.public.mozilla.xpcom:

Then I started mozilla back up, clicked on the first newsgroup, 
n.p.m.announce, and downloaded the article listing. Then marked all 
read. Looked in the newsrc, the article numbers were listed, but the 
mark all read had not yet been committed. No corruption yet. Clicked on 
the next newsgroup, n.p.m.general, and downloaded it's article listing. 
Checked the newsrc. The mark all read from the first newsgroup had been 
committed and the article numbers were listed for the second newsgroup. 
However, the file was now corrupted with addition lines at the end of 
the file.... (Ignore the wrapping in the article numbers, it was pasted 
from my xterm)

netscape.public.mozilla.announce: 1-188
netscape.public.mozilla.mail-news:
netscape.public.mozilla.seamonkey:
netscape.public.mozilla.unix:
netscape.public.mozilla.general: 
2-16357,16432,16435,16445,16463,16464,16586,16587,16634,16653,16658,16732,16772,16778,16779,16812
netscape.public.mozilla.layout:
netscape.public.mozilla.prefs:
netscape.public.mozilla.ui:
netscape.public.mozilla.xpcom:
ayout:
netscape.public.mozilla.prefs:
netscape.public.mozilla.ui:
netscape.public.mozilla.xpcom:


Notice the extra lines after the first n.p.m.xpcom. This continued and 
got worse as I continued to download the rest of the newsgroups.

Comment 1

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

marking as beta1, accepting.

I'll work on reproducing and fixing it tonight.

Comment 2

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

adding the reporter (ken) to the cc list.

Comment 3

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

i'm seeing the corruption, and I have a guess at what's causing it.

I'll report back in a minute.

Comment 4

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

I'm so ashamed.  here's the problem.

when you mark all read, it compresses the newsrc line.

in some cases, that can make a two line newsrc file entry an one line entry.

I was not truncating the file when I re-opened it for writing, I would write one
line where two were, and it was leaving garbage at the end.

the simple fix is to truncate the file.  testing the fix now.

nice catch, Ken!

Comment 5

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

fixed.  thanks again to ken for finding this nasty bug.

ken, to get a quicker response (that using the newsgroup) you can log all news
bugs directly to me.

Comment 6

[Kenneth J. Dowling]

This one is back in 2000030316.

Comment 7

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

ken, same steps to reproduce?  same platform? 

Comment 8

[Kenneth J. Dowling]

Was same platform, same steps. Now it works properly again with build
2000030409. Strange.

Comment 9

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

As per reporter's last comments, marking VERIFIED.