Hi Sabahattin,
Thank you for all this good information.  I have had the same problem, (it 
comes from being subscribed to four Email lists), and just hadn't gotten around 
to asking about it.
BTW, are you related to Ibrahim Gucukoglu?  I know him from another list.  
Sorry if this causes any offense.

Sarah

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Sabahattin
Gucukoglu
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 1:35 PM
To: Braillenote List
Subject: Re: [Braillenote] e-mail problem


Hi Paul,

On 1 Aug 2004 at 21:28, Paul Henrichsen spoke, thus:

> Hi, Jonathan or Dean. I was downloading my e-mail this evening via a 
> network connection. It took forever to get the 433 messages on the server.
> I hope in 6.1 that this is much faster than over half an hour. I almost go
> to the end and was informed that the e-mail program could not find the file
> specified. After that, nothing happened. I pressed escape and exited and
> thought I'd start from wheer I left off. No such luck. Keysoft starts again
> from the beginning even though a check of my e-mail inbox told me there was
> 415 messages. Wouldn't it be smarter to delete the messages from the server
> as they are downloaded instead of waiting until the end? I am again
> downloading the same 443 messages and am currently stuck at message 21. I
> have been stuck at this same message the entire time I have been writing
> this one on my desktop computer. No matter how long I have waited, I am
> told I am stillat zero percent with a message size of 4,345. Progress beeps
> have now stopped with zero percent of the message received. There must be a
> better way to download e-mail. Delete each message from the server as they
> are downloaded, at least so you don't have to start from the beginning each
> time you download.

I know how you're feeling.  I tried this trick with just over 1200 
messages on my server while I was staying at my friends after Sight 
Village.  I did not elect to delete messages from the server, but I will 
soon explain what you are seeing if you have.

First of all, the email database is stored in the "email folders.cdb" file 
in \FlashDisk\Keylist .  Since all of your mail is still on the server 
(see next point, below), you can safely delete this file if you know that 
you have no mail in your BrailleNote that is actually important, or that 
you have downloaded in previous sessions.  If you have, then you're going 
to have to delete the downloaded messages yourself, manually, from the 
folders.  And if you believe me, it's going to take a very, very, very 
long time as the database is slowly and painfully updated.

The BrailleNote is not really suited to storing large quantities of mail 
or recovering from network interruptions, or even failing gracefully.  Its 
database technology for the email system and its networking code, at least 
in version 5.1, is pretty tragic.  You would do well to help the 
BrailleNote along by doing server-side filtering, if you can; if you 
can't, well, you're going to have to download all your mail all over 
again, and just make sure there's room for it first.

To explain why your suggestion isn't feasible, I'm afraid, the problem 
lies in the POP3 protocol.  RFC 1939 requires that a client send the QUIT 
command before the update state is entered and the maildrop is acted upon. 
 The server keeps a state table of deletions you have requested with the 
dele command, but it only acts upon them when the quit command is sent, 
and never otherwise - not even when a disconnection happens for some other 
reason.  Some POP3 services allow you to sin against this so-called 
limitation and ignore the fact that the connection was closed by means 
other than the quit command.  However, the purpose of this standards-
enforced limitation is to ensure reliability of mail retrieval, and since 
the standard does provide mechanisms for using the POP3 service as a semi-
permanent mail repository, there is really no reason why PulseData 
shouldn't make a best effort to use them.

Unless you can reduce the amount of mail you have to download, there is 
nothing more you can do.  You can only do everything you can to keep the 
connection between yourself and the POP3 server alive, and that requires 
administration of the POP3 server.  The minimum timeout, according to RFC 
1939, is 10 minutes.  Many sites sin against this, unfortunately, due to 
heavy load, but increasing the timeout to assist the BrailleNote is a 
start.  Because the BrailleNote pauses for such inordinate lengths of 
time, without quickly issuing a QUIT command as recommended by RFC 1939 in 
cases of catastrophe as in disk full or resource unavailability 
conditions, the net result is that the POP3 service will have to undo all 
changes, shut the connection, and leave you with all the mail.  When you 
reconnect, of course, the mail is fresh, as if not downloaded.  Since the 
BrailleNote does not check with the server whether it has downloaded mail 
it already has, as other clients do, perhaps using the provided RFC 1939 
UIDL utility command or by calculating a hash of the mail against mail 
already in the local repository, it simply goes right ahead and 
redownloads, aggrivating your disk full condition, probably the reason why 
it stopped in the first place.  So, before starting again, make sure your 
FlashDisk has the room for it.

Cheers,
Sabahattin
-- 
Thought for the day:
    Communist (n): one who has given up all hope
    of becoming a Capitalist.


Sabahattin Gucukoglu
Phone: +44 20 7,502-1615
Mobile: +44 7986 053399
http://www.sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/
Email/MSN: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


___
To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit
http://list.pulsedata.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote



Reply via email to