[Pan-users] Loading Newsgroup Headers

[David Kelly]

Using either 0.14.2 or 0.14.2.91 under FreeBSD 5.2.1 I got the great 
idea to disable "automatic load of new headers" when I started dealing 
with a 1.5M header newsgroup.

Launch pan, double-click on the newsgroup, and the bottom status line 
says its loading NNN of 1.5M something headers. This is never followed 
with "scoring...", "filtering...", or "updating display panels." 
Process size grows to something between 700M and 1000M. I have already 
dealt with 1G of RAM, 1.5G of swap, and kernel per-process data limit 
is set at 2G.

Once I have a bloated application and blank panels nothing I have found 
will cause the headers to be listed. Can toggle the "Read" flag under 
filters thinking I'd trigger a re-filter and re-list.

Tried visiting other newsgroups but didn't have any unread messages 
there so "A" was used to load new. Back to the big newsgroup and still 
nothing other than its name at the top of the panel. Finally use "A" to 
load new headers and all that is loaded is the new headers. Browsing 
under ~/.pan/data/news.myisp/ I find the previous 350 MB cached headers 
has become 5 MB of only the latest new headers.

Have re-enabled the automatic load of new headers on selection of a 
group. It works as expected now. Select the group and its cached 
headers are read from local disk, filtered, and displayed. Moments 
later the download of new headers begins.

Yes, pan does write error messages to stderr. But they are the same 
messages in either version, whether the group header load works or not.

Am I simply not holding my tongue right? Am I missing something in the 
operation of pan?

--
David Kelly N4HHE, address@hidden
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Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.