[Pine-info] message size changed, Pine won't save: solution?

[Bert Driehuis]

On Thu, 10 Aug 2006, James Miller wrote:


> This refers to Pine 4.64 on a Debian system.


The IMAP server too? Weird, I only notice this when IMAPing to Exchange.


> I use Pine as a sort of pop/imap checker, reading messages that I 

> simply leave on the mail server for a time and deleting those I don't 

> want. Periodically I download the undiscarded messages en masse to my 

> machine for longer-term storage. Pine works for doing this, for the 

> most part. But occasionally Pine tells me message sizes have changed 

> (shrank), and it thus will not save the message: consequently the bulk 

> save I'm trying to do fails. This is annoying.


Doubly so because if you blink, the failing message number goes 
off-screen :-)

My workaround:
  o  I use "; N 1-n" to select the range to be saved
  o  I save the lot to my archive folder (archive/200608)
  o  if it fails, I usually missed the message number; I repeat the save
      which usually goes much faster second time through
  o  using "J nr" I go to the offending message and unselect it with ":"
  o  rinse, lather, repeat until all proper messages are saved
  o  eXpunge (the few unsaved messages will be at the top now)
  o  select the borked messages with ":"
  o  Enable header mode ("H")
  o  Export the messages to a temporary file, say: ~/mail/t.t
  o  Goto that folder (it will show as "t.t" in the folder list)
  o  Save all messages to your archive folder.

If you're adventurous, you could export the lot and not bother with 
trying to use Save. I prefer to use Save where it works because Save 
always preserves the e-mail headers and with Export it's easy to forget 
enabling Header mode.


> I assume the message size change raises some security flag and the 

> program is trying to protect the host machine from a malicious e-mail?


No, it's more likely intended to protect you from bugs in your IMAP 
server. You must realize that your IMAP server reports corrupted data 
when this happens! For all Pine knows, it may be turning your mailbox 
into sushi behind your back.


> Well, I'm sure the messages I'm trying to download in bulk now are not 

> malicious, and I'm not sure why the message size change occurs.


I don't know about your IMAP server, but Exchange seems to do it for two 
reasons: one is for stuff it "knows" about (non-delivery notifications 
and calendar items spring to mind; why it can't report a proper size for 
some of those is beyond me), the other is when a "virus checker" has 
slaughtered a message. I mean, "disinfected" a message.


> That doesn't even especially interest me, but I would like to be able 

> to download these messages to my computer from the server. Is there a 

> way I can force to program to ignore the message size difference and 

> download these messages anyway?


Not to my knowledge. I've read through the code that's involved here and 
didn't find an easy workaround. The elaborate workaround I use is 
spelled out above.


> I experimented with Mutt, btw, and it was able to download those 

> messages just fine, not giving any sort of error or failure message 

> related to the message size changing. Input will be appreciated.


I don't own stock in either Pine or Mutt, so if Mutt works you may 
consider using it to maintain your archive :-)

I'm not aware of any gross hacks to ignore size errors, but if this 
issue ever starts to annoy me to the point that I'll cobble one up, this 
mailinglist will surely be informed (and if I missed any such hack, 
chances are I will quickly learn of it here, as will you).

Cheers,

 				-- Bert