69 new of 124 responses total.
Re 54: there was a discussion of the uptime problem in the current system announcements item, resps 51-55.
Hi Iain. Thanks for the Backtalk bug reports. I think both of those bugs are pretty fixable.
/c and /a are full, or almost so
Here's what I got when I quit the mail program just now: & q /a: write failed, file system is full /a: write failed, file system is full Saved 1 message in mbox ! So. /a is full.
Bad guests, over super-soft quota. :P
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I got write failed a few times yesterday, and a new user got it the first time he tried to send an email a few days before that. Re 53 direct dial, problem resolved itself somehow, no hardware changes that I know of. Write failed both in email and in bbs yesterday.
Today I dialed in several times and it sounded like it was connecting, but timed out in 45 seconds. Just got through with no trouble now. Should I set it at 60 seconds?
Yes.
I fixed the problem, which keeps recurring, by not using the dialing program of Procomm but instead typing in atdt 7613000. This connects almost immediately instead of a 20 second wait time. Why? I had been having this problem for a week already. Is anything different at the grex end?
I found the original version of procomm plus and that dials fine and the cursor works. The version that the grex batch file points to has some bugs in it somewhere, I tried comparing settings and did not see any differences in general modem options, where should I look for problems? (The arrow keys will not work even when I connect with atdt in the bat version). I will go back to do things the slightly longer way. I should figure out just what the batch file Jim wrote is doing. He said Procomm will scatter copies of itself around if you put procomm directory on the path.
Check what terminal emulation gets chosen.
We fixed that, it was set to ANSI but we changed it to VT102 (I think - maybe the change did not get made permanent? I will check again).
I'm guessing procomm is probably sending some init string along with the dialing, which confuses things.
Most unix-es don't know ANSI from a hole in the ground. Thank-You Micro$oft. If you use the micro$oft telnet program to telnet to a unix host the 'negotiation' of the connection will result in a TERM of 'ANSI'. I'm so sure this was not deliberate on the part of micro$oft. I'm so sure this was not another deliberate act on micro$oft's part to deliberately screw things up. Unix hosts need merely symbolically link the vt100 entry in the /usr/lib/terminfo/t directory to /usr/lib/terminfo/a/ansi to accomidate brain dead micro$oft users. (If you are an older version of unix you need to duplicate the vt100 stanza of /etc/termcap as ANSI|ansi).
ANSI is a valid termcap, and in this case it's not an inherent weakness
of Microsoft, but of most UNIX implementations, that ANSI isn't recognized.
Who uses Windows telnet anyways?
Lots of people use Windows telnet. Far, far too many. That's because it comes with Windows, and most users aren't savvy enough to know how to improve the situation. But I agree with jazz that the weakness with ANSI is with Unix implementations. Grex has a pretty decent ANSI termcap, but that's an exception.
The program itself has a host of other weaknesses: a very poor scroll
buffer implementation, poor terminal capability support, bad colours, and a
tendency to stop responding at random intervals. If a user's not savvy enough
to go to download.com and install something better, then they really deserve
what they get - I still insist computers should not be for the stupid. :)
/a is *still* at 100%.
Procomm seems to use ANSI as a default. The problem is apparently a missing procomm .kbd file, whatever that is, in the version of it that somehow created itself in another place on my computer when I put procomm on the path and ran a batch file. I have no idea where this place is. The original version access without the batch file works fine.
In addition to #74 - and probably because of it - I found 135 brandnew items upon entering BBS.
I fixed my Procomm problem by discovering a few pcplus files lurking in the WP directory and deleting them. It now works even with pcplus on the path, which Jim thought had been the problem. I am attempting to figure out what is on my computer and what it does so I can learn to transfer all the useful stuff to another computer before the last 1.4M fills up with files. (First thing to do is eliminate Windows 3.1 and four viewer programs based on it.) All sorts of files lurking in odd places, some came with, some added later. The new computer is half the size and four times the HD size, and the old one about the size of a PS/2 386 tower but on its side.
Unfourtunatly, i'm forced to use Windows Telnet, as my employers would not be impressed if i started downloading & installing files onto their computers. If i could, i'd get a nice SSH client & make use of my other shells. But i can't. *sigh*
Mail from my current ISP is bouncing. The message I get back says: Hi. This is the NetZero mail server. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out. <drew@cyberspace.org>: 204.212.46.130 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 553 <drew@cyberspace.org>... One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. Giving up on 204.212.46.130. Huh!!??
This is a message from Grex's spam filter. Talk to Marcus about it, maybe he can tell you how to get it through. I'd guess that this particular message resembles closely a common spam message. Try changing the subject line.
Changing the subject does not work. Perhaps all mail from this site is rejected automatically? Seems logical - it is effectively possible for anyone to get an account and be active without passing any kind of ID check - if only for just enough time to spew out a single burst of spam. Still, the message says "host doesn't like *recipient*...", and I recall a file successfully making it here from there.
None of grex's anti-spam checks look at *just* the subject value, and
actually, very few pay any attention to the subject value except for
logging purposes.
The "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the
earth abideth for ever." messages indicate a mail configuration error in
the server. There is almost certainly nothing you, as a user, can do
about this problem, because it has nothing to do with any part of your
mail. Changing the subject line will definitely have no effect, because
this error is generated before grex ever sees your mail. Legitimate
mailers that properly follow the guidelines of RFC 821 and RFC 1123 will
never encounter this problem. Spam mail packages (and other PC based
mail packages) frequently encounter this problem when talking directly
to grex, for various obscure technical reasons.
You have the following options:
(1) don't use this vendor for email.
(2) if you must use this vendor for email, don't forward mail from it
to grex.
(3) if you must use this vendor, and want email forwarding to work
you will need to get their postmaster or system adminstrator
to contact postmaster@cyberspace.org .
Is Grex having problems with the mail que? For about three days whenever I try to use Pine to check my mail I get the message "cannot open folder /var/spool/mail/blight --no such folder." I sent myself some mail from another email account and Pine is still unable to find my mailbox. The only things I have changed are that I'm now using secure shell to login instead of ordinary telnet and I changed my shell from csh to bash. What can I do about this?
That's the wrong name for your e-mail file; it should be /var/spool/mail/b/l/blight You can tail that file to get your latest messages. For a longer term solution, though, I'm not sure.
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Re resp:83 - Your MAIL environment variable is supposed to be the full
path of your system mailbox, which in your case is
/var/spool/mail/b/l/blight, as Mark pointed out. I have a vague
recollection, which could be mistaken, that secure shell doesn't set
this variable properly. If that's the problem, then you can fix it by
adding this line to your .profile file:
MAIL=/var/spool/mail/b/l/blight; export MAIL
RE: resp:86 - Apparently the problem was the missing mail environment variable. I added that line to my .profile file and everything seems to be running fine now.
for the past two days, I haven't been able to get backtalk to respond. I can bring up the' conference entrance' page, but I get no response from any buttons. Has anyone else noticed this, or have I somehow buggered up my netscape options? Funny, I can browse other sites successfully...
I've seen this happen recently. I created a WWW page on Geocities, but whenever I access it, their pop-up banner comes up, and that disables all ability for me to click on buttons on Grex. It also disables my ability to click on other windows. Exiting Netscape doesn't fix the problem; I have to reboot my machine to be able to use my mouse within Netscape after this happens. I've been avoiding Geocities since I discovered this problem, obviously.
Dialing in in -3000 and -5041 is a little challenging. The modem answers then promptly dumps the call. Hence, my appearance in Backtalk.
I've noticed the can't click stuff thing in netscape, but have absolutely no idea what to do about it
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Re all the netscape problems: Re-booting your computer usually solves that problem for me, I usually notice the problem after visiting a geocities site, which makes me think that Geocities is using (espicially) bad java. (any java is bad, but this is /exceptionally/ bad java)
No problems with Netscape in Backtalk here. But then, I never go anywhere near Geocities.
sometimes I'll start netscape and that's as far as it gets...
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Sounds like a Netscape for Windows bug.
i currently use netscrape with windoze 98, and i haven't had the mouse problem at geocities. i simply minimize the ad banners as they pop up, and when they're done loading i close them. that way i can look at whatever i want to see at geocities with minimal bother from pop-up ads.
I don't see ads on geocities with lynx, except for ads for geocities.
Yes, God bless lynx! Whenever ppl talk about ad filtering, I pat myself on the back for using lynx when I'm simply out for content. One nice trick I've found is that when I first bring up Netscape in the morning, I also bring up a blank window in the composer. While I go through the various sites that I check for news and so on each morning, when I see an article that I want to read, I just drag the link into the composer window. When I'm done, I save that to an html file, which I read via lynx at my leisure.
Midway through this session on Grex, picospan started showing me all the items I'd forgotten - and also all retired items - as new and active. Right under the item name, and the name and date of the person who entered it, it shows a little sign saying "<retired item>" or "<forgotten item>".
After posting that item, I began to notice the problem on other sites as well. Closing and re-starting Netscape seems to have cleared it up for now. (Netscape Communicator 4.05 running under Linux)
Re 101: Assuming you are using Picospan, it sounds like "set noforget" somehow got set. I've installed a few small Backtalk fixes - mostly response previewing should work a little better, not trying to dispaly HTML versions in conferences where HTML is turned off.
Re:#102: Netscape for Linux is up to 4.6 at last check, if the older version is getting odd you can try updating.
From party user "br", I have a report that "talk" is broken. I played a bit with it myself. If one does "talk grexuser," it seems to hang after the message "checking for invitation on machine" or something like that.
File system is full!
Which 'File system is full!!'? duh.
Instead of complaining about it, erase all your files! duh!
<jshafer is overwhelmed by bdh's helpfulness>
Unless it's /tmp that's full. Then erasing your own files wouldn't help at all.
(the mathom program seems to be having problems. the first two times [today] that I tried to use it to look at my mathom, it gave me a core dump. both times, I was trying it by a shell escape from the "more" pager. the third time, I tried at an "Ok:" prompt and discovered that none of the people I checked had mathom, including me.)
(That may not have survived the move to the current hardware...! Probably have to mail Valerie, since I don't think she has time for Agora any more.)
Wow...I'd forgotten about mathom entirely...
is there a mathom/gribblie exchange rate?
The mathom got wiped out and needs to be restored from backup.
About 10:00 this morning I was trying to paste some text into an open pico file in my directory and Grex hung. It was pasting very s-l-o-w-l-y before it hung. The materials were supposed to go to the ACLU for the suit. I managed successfully to paste the stuff into an M-Net pico file, so I assume the trouble was on Grex. Any ideas?
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Re #116: Yeah, I've found that pasting a big wad of text into Pico is sometimes very slow, and I can speed things up by pasting a chunk at a time. (It's a pain, though, so if I have more than a couple of paragraphs I upload the file and then ^R it.)
(If you do that, make sure you save the file as a plain text file. Reading a word-processor file into pico is not likely to give good results. (I know Mark knows this, but some trying to follow his advice won't.))
What Dave said.
What 'suit'? Is there an ACLU based 'suit' that I am unaware of being merely a 'guest'? Is there some dark secret that ought to be known by all 'grexers' that I for one am unaware of? Am I an 'ex-parti' subject with out being properly informed of it?
Yes.
It's your punishment for ignoring the motd.
or not reading coop one...
You have several choices: