On Sun, Aug 08, 2010 at 04:27:53AM +0000, I wrote:
> I have been using mutt 1.4.2.1i for quite some time on my Solaris 10 system
> with the Gnome desktop manager. Gnome has an inbox monitor program that
> was working perfectly with mutt 1.4. It would indicate new mail, and when
> I double-clicked on the monitor icon, it would launch mutt in a pop-up
> xterm window and immediately stop indicating new mail. I would read and
> process my mail and exit mutt without any problems.
>
> I just switched to mutt 1.5.20 which is working fine, except that I now
> have a strange new problem with the Gnome mail monitor. When it indicates
> new mail I double-click on the icon and it launches the new version of mutt
> just fine and stops indicating new mail. However, if I do anything that
> changes the inbox file, such as deleting a message, then the Gnome mail
> monitor sees this change and begins indicating that there is new mail, when
> in fact, there is none. This happens whether mutt is still running or has
> been exited.
>
> I can understand that the monitor is seeing an update on the inbox file
> timestamp due to the content changing, but my question is why didn't this
> ever happen with mutt version 1.4.2.1i? What was the old version doing that
> the new one is not? I'm using pretty much the same config file settings.
Charles Jie <ch...@keya.com.tw> wrote:
>Thank you for your question and hints. I have seen similar problem with
>mutt 1.5.20 since half an year ago. (And reported it the other day)
>You said: "if I do anything that changes the inbox file, such as
>deleting a message, then the Gnome mail monitor sees this change and
>begins indicating that there is new mail". This is a good discovery. It
>looks that mutt 1.5.20 forgets to clear or set something which would
>avoid the mail monitor or mutt itself think there is new mail.
>(I've rewound my mutt back to 1.5.18, which runs perfectly.) Would you
>please check the file status of the mailbox with the 'stat' command?
> This is my test on mbox.mutt with mutt 1.5.18:
> (1) Before I leave the mail box 'mbox.mutt':
> ----[23:45:20] $ stat mbox.mutt
> File: `mbox.mutt'
> Size: 38403 Blocks: 80 IO Block: 4096 regular file
> Device: 805h/2053d Inode: 687405 Links: 1
> Access: (0600/-rw-------) Uid: ( 500/ jie) Gid: ( 500/ jie)
> Access: 2010-08-08 23:45:10.000000000 +0800
> Modify: 2010-08-08 23:35:02.000000000 +0800
> Change: 2010-08-08 23:35:02.000000000 +0800
>
> (2) After I left the 'mbox.mutt':
> ----[23:46:36] $ stat mbox.mutt
> File: `mbox.mutt'
> Size: 13651 Blocks: 32 IO Block: 4096 regular file
> Device: 805h/2053d Inode: 687405 Links: 1
> Access: (0600/-rw-------) Uid: ( 500/ jie) Gid: ( 500/ jie)
> Access: 2010-08-08 23:45:10.000000000 +0800
> Modify: 2010-08-08 23:35:02.000000000 +0800
> Change: 2010-08-08 23:46:47.000000000 +0800
>
> Note: The time of 'Change' is updated to newer than the time of 'Acesss'.
> (Because I deleted a message in it.)
>
> Please help check if your mutt 1.5.20 does the same thing or not.
> (You need to delete a message in it.)
I do not have stat(1) on Solaris 10, but used the various flags to ls(1) to
extract the time info. When I open the /var/mail file using mutt 1.5.20,
the timestamps are:
Access: 2010-08-08 11:29:52.572974000 -0700
Modify: 2010-08-08 11:28:44.000000000 -0700
Change: 2010-08-08 11:29:52.568102000 -0700
I then delete a message and close mutt and the time stamps are:
Access: 2010-08-08 11:30:11.512795000 -0700
Modify: 2010-08-08 11:30:11.512869000 -0700
Change: 2010-08-08 11:30:11.512869000 -0700
So the question is should mutt be updating the access time every time it makes
a change to the spool file? What has changed in this regard from 1.4 to 1.5?
Can any of the developers comment on this issue? Thanks.
Regards,
--
Jeff
