Subj : Newslink Help
To   : Patch
From : Digital Man
Date : Sat Oct 01 2005 01:11 pm

  Re: Newslink Help
  By: Patch to All on Sat Oct 01 2005 10:46 am

 > I'm hoping someone can assist me with my current road-block in setting up th
 > BBS.
 > 
 > I'm trying to get the 'Newslink' working, I've read the docs, followed the
 > instructions exactly as it's been written.  When I force a callout I see tha
 > the three areas that I've configured have messages, but ultimately nothing i
 > imported or exported.
 > 
 > I've gotten the message base definition done, using the internal code prefix
 > of USENET_.
 > 
 > The message sub-boards that I am trying to include are as follows:
 > 
 > alt.allsysop
 > alt.bbs.allsysop
 > alt.anime.tenchi-muyo
 > 
 > The internal code for each of these, respectively is as follows:
 > 
 > USENET_ALLSYS
 > USENET_BBS-ALL
 > USENET_TENCHI
 > 
 > The long, and short name for each of these areas is the alt.<address> name.
 > For example, alt.bbs.allsysop is for USENET_BBS-ALL.
 > 
 > Internet is turned on in the Network section for all three areas.
 > 
 > My 'AREA' portion of newslink.cfg has the following information:
 > 
 > AREA USENET_BBS-ALL alt.bbs.allsysop nI
 > AREA USENET_ALLSYSOP alt.allsysop nI
 > AREA USENET_TENCHI alt.anime.tenchi-muyo nI
 > 
 > When I force a call out to NEWSLINK, I can see that there are message
 > pointers for all three areas, for example:
 > 
 > alt.anime.tenchi-muyo import ptr:20059, first_msg: 19792, last_msg: 20059
 > 
 > However, the last line of the connection log shows:
 > Synchronet NewsLink 1.83 session complete (0 exported, 0 imported)

That line says that your import pointer value (20059) is equal to that of the
last message in the news gropu (also 20059) - there are no new messages to
download.

 > And there's nothing in the message areas when I do a new message scan, and
 > each of the files in the Data director for those message areas contain 0
 > bytes.
 > 
 > So what am I doing wrong, can anyone help me set these up?!?  Please let me
 > know if I left any information out that may be neccessary for assistance.

Are you sure that new messages have been posted since your first scan?

Did you have the 'I' flag set in your newslink.cfg *before* your first scan?

From newslink.txt:

   D. By default, NewsLink will only import articles (aka messages) posted
      *after* the first scan of the newsgroups (i.e. it will not import
      *any* articles during the first run). If you want NewsLink to import 
      *all* existing articles for *all* linked newsgroups (potentially many
      *thousands* of messages, depending on the News Server), add the line 
      "FLAGS I" (case insensitive).
      WARNING: Using this feature may cause the initial NewsLink execution
      to take a long time to download all the existing articles (potentially
      many thousands) that may be stored on the News Server.

                                                  digital man

Snapple "Real Fact" #76:
The average person spends 2 years on the phone in his/her lifetime.

.