Re: [Tin] Newer versions falsely show empty groups

In Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

a positive getart_limit fetches the last "limit" articles (so you may
miss some unread articles if the limit is too small), a negative number
will fetch all unread arts plus the last "limit" read articles (for propper
threading). I would avoid positives numbers (as (auto)catchup may mark
unseen articles as read).

I gave this a try and those falsely-empty groups do show articles
in 2.6.4 with "getart_limit=-500". But it's not going to work for
me. I'm used to subscribing to busy groups with lots of idiots
arguing and only check them when I'm bored enough. If I check
aus.cars now with "getart_limit=-500" I download 3.9M, which is
worse than Tin 2.0.1 with "getart_limit=500" which downloads 2.3MB.

I don't think that aus.cars is a real high traffic group (looks like < 100
arts/day), but if you read it rarely a negative getart_limit may result in
significat more traffic (as its base is your lowest read article number)
than a positive getart_limit.

if you don't care much about the group you could do
(this is with negative getart_limit)
'c'atchup the group in the select (top most) level
enter the group
'#' mark range
'1-$' all articles
'Z' unread
you now have <= -getart_limit unread articles in the group. if you don't
read anything and quit tin and till the next start of tin there would be
say 1000 new articles next time you see all the articles from the last
session plus the 1000 new articles. (don't do the "# 1-$ Z" dance again).

with a postive getart_limit you'd see not more than that limit and if that's
lower than e.g. 1000 you'll miss some of those new articles...
if you don't care: fine.

It looks like the groups display empty in newer Tin versions if
there are fewer than getart_limit articles in them on the server:

if you can't enter the group, then the server didn't come up with any
overview data for thr group (in the requested range).

if you can enter the group but see no articles then all articles are read
(should not happen with show_only_unread_arts=OFF; use 'r' to toggle
show_only_unread_arts and what the top status bar (in group-level)), e.g:

show_only_unread_arts=ON
                 news.newusers.questions (0P 500/0+ 0* 0o 0K) M
                                                 ^articles to show
                                             ^^^getart_limit
                                          ^threads to show
vs.
show_only_unread_arts=OFF
               news.newusers.questions (5P 500/11  0* 0: 0o 3K) M
                                        ^  ^^^ ^^

Empty with "getart_limit=1000":
alt.bitcoins - 709 articles

the logs would be helpfull, getart_limit with a positive number
should issue [X]OVER "high_mark minus limit"-"high_mark"
(in case of high_mark minus limit would be < 1 it will be set to 1).
so that should NOT lead to "empty group".

Oh, OK. That might not be a practical option for me. I just tried
"tin -u -r -v" after commenting-out getart_limit in tinrc and by
the sixth group of 169 in my .newsrc it had already downloaded
about 40MB and I had to stop it because I can't spare very much
more internet data. Maybe I could do it over free WiFi somewhere if
it's a one-off thing but that won't be any time soon.

initially building the cache = download overviews for all articles
in all subscribed groups. that may be a lot of data (dpending on the
number of groups and articles per group), but that's done just once.

Well Tin does "enter" the groups (displays the group name above an
empty space with "*** No articles ***" at the bottom). It doesn't

what else is in the top status bar? and what after pressing 'r'?