[Pan-users] Re: Migrate settings from old pan

[Duncan]

Beso <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted
below, on  Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:16:50 +0000:

> i have the a pan version installed and configured for 2 different users
> on the same pc. now, i'd like to remove one pan config and put the other
> user's one in its place but whenever i do:
> 
> rsync -av /home/user1/.pan /home/user2/ && chown user2\:
> /home/user2/.pan -R
> 
> 
> and try to restart pan it cannot read the old db and work with it. in
> the past it used to work very well and the stuff that is strange is that
> the pan version used to generate db and sync the groups is the same for
> both the users.

It would have helped had you mentioned the pan version, since old-pan 
(0.14.x, now "unsupported" to an extent, tho we do try to help if we can) 
is different than new-pan (0.90+, 0.132 the latest release, nearly a year 
old now, Aug 2007, so the version most distributions are running) in that 
regard.

I can't figure out quite where to put this but I should mention that I 
know you from the Gentoo lists, so know you are running Gentoo/AMD64.  
FWIW, I just checked, 0.132 is stable on Gentoo/AMD64, but, well, see the 
next paragraph.

The complication is this:  old-pan's default data and config dir was 
~/.pan.  New-pan's default data and config dir is ~/.pan2.  I'd normally 
assume the new version, since the old one is close to five years old 
(August 2003), and as i said, officially unsupported now, tho we try, but 
your command as given uses the old .pan default location, so maybe you 
are still using old-pan, crufty as it is.  Complicating things further is 
the PAN_HOME environmental variable, which if set, tells (new) pan to 
look there for its config and data.  Thus, it's quite possible the .pan 
location is indeed a new-pan config, even if it's the old-pan default 
location.

So I'd guess at one of the following:

1) Despite your statement to the contrary, you are using a modern pan 
(presumably 0.132) now, but had been using an old pan with the old user, 
thus it's the default old-pan dir, and the new version simply isn't 
seeing it as it's looking at the new default dir, and even if it did see 
it, wouldn't be able to do a whole lot with it since most (but not all) 
files are different.

2) You and the previous user are both using new-pan, 0.132, but the 
previous user had set the PAN_HOME variable pointing at the old default 
location (~/.pan), and the new user doesn't have the var set so when pan 
starts it is looking in the current default location (~/.pan2) instead of 
the real location (~/.pan).  That's simple enough to correct, simply 
rename the dir, or set and export the PAN_HOME variable appropriately (or 
for that matter, use a symlink if you want).

Question:  Does the .pan dir in question have a file preferences.xml or a 
data subdir, with the file config.xml?  The former, preferences.xml, 
would indicate a config for a newer pan (0.132, presumably, but certainly 
0.90+), while the latter data/config.xml, would indicate a config for an 
older pan (0.14.x).  Does the filename agree with the version pan gives 
in the about box when you run it?

It's also possible one or more files from the old config are missing or 
corrupt.  Can you still verify that they work as the old user?

Finally, I'm not used to using rsync for local transfer so I can't read 
that command line as correct on sight, but I assume you're sufficiently 
familiar with it not to have screwed that part up.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman