on new shell. alpine not getting to inbox despite .pinerc changes

[quine]

Hello group...

Tried alpine. Runs ok, looks like pine. But reports "cannot open inbox quine". After .pinerc modification it opens an INBOX but it is not my normal INBOX. Here is what I did..

1. It runs

2. It will not open INBOX. All my other folders seem to be fine.

3. I made changes to my (existing) .pinerc as suggested by alpine_help.sh

4. INBOX now opens but with 1 very old message. All my normal INBOX stuff is gone.

5. Tried logging into oldshell.sonic.net and ran pine. Got same broken INBOX as in #4

6. Quit pine, changed my .pinerc back to the way it was before #3 and ran pine again. INBOX now back to normal.

So... How do I really modify my .pinerc so that alpine points to the same INBOX as pine does on the old shell when my original .pinerc is in place? Changing .pinerc is fine with me, but the changes suggested by alpine_help.sh do not seem to work. Here is what alpine_help.sh told me to do...
.
* set your inbox-path, like this:
inbox-path={imap.sonic.net:993/ssl/user=quine}
* set your folder-collections like this:
folder-collections={imap.sonic.net:993/ssl/user=quine}INBOX.[]
I added above to existing .pinerc and commented out the existing lines.

[joemuller]

Thankfully, alpine allows you to specify multiple sources for your inbox - this is done by altering the 'folder_collections' setting in .pinerc. Full documentation can be found here, but I'll give an example:

Code: Select all

folder_collections = {imap.sonic.net:993/ssl/user=quine}INBOX.[], mail/[]

The first entry is the default location that alpine/pine stores messages. So long as your IMAP connection works, both locally-stored and remote (IMAP) messages should show up together in your Inbox.

Let me know how it goes!

[quine@sonic.net]

Hi Joe... Tried your suggestion... Still does not work... Initial message on running alpine is:

cannot open folder /var/spool/mail/21/17/quine

from the shell I tried:
cd /var/spool/mail/21/17/quine
-sh: cd: /var/spool/mail/21/17/quine: No such file or directory

Tried folder-collections= using the dash '-' as that was in the original... Then tried using the underscore as you wrote it in your example which did get my other folders, but still no INBOX. I also saw this message going to the folder list when the dash was used with your string.

Mail on imap.sonic.net:993/ssl/user=quine
Folders on imap.sonic.net:993/ssl/user=quine in INBOX.

Mail
Local folders in mail/

Perhaps that gives you a clue

Thanks for the try, let's keep trying please... I can use oldshell.sonic.net but do not know how long that will be around...

Matthew (quine@sonic.net)

[joemuller]

Matthew,

Hi Joe... Tried your suggestion... Still does not work... Initial message on running alpine is:

cannot open folder /var/spool/mail/21/17/quine

from the shell I tried:
cd /var/spool/mail/21/17/quine
-sh: cd: /var/spool/mail/21/17/quine: No such file or directory

Direct access to your mail spool via /var/spool/mail/... is not possible on the new server. You can fetch and save to local files/folders if you absolutely want/need access to the raw files - see the 'Mail Drop' functionality in Alpine's documentation.

The 'inbox-path' setting tells Alpine where your default INBOX is located. Unless you have reason to do otherwise, setting this up to point to Sonic's IMAP server is what you want:

Code: Select all

inbox-path={imap.sonic.net:993/ssl/user=quine}

It is a bit dense, but the online documentation for Alpine gives some excellent examples.

-- Joe

[quine@sonic.net]

Hi Joe... I tried that too, setting inbox-path. Did it again leaving the folder_collections alone... Ran alpine.. So... Now I get no initial error message, but the INBOX opened contains no messages and if I send a message to myself from another email address, I never see it...

Bottom line is that alpine is not looking at the same inbox as pine on the old server... Is it not possible for you to see what "inbox" I am really pointing to on the old server and point at the same one over on the new one? Here is another clue... If I go over to oldshell and run pine with the NEW .pinerc (your latest suggestion for inbox-path) pine also opens the wrong inbox...

so...

inbox-path=/var/spool/mail/21/17/quine -- fails on alpine, works on oldshell and pine
inbox-path={imap.sonic.net:993/ssl/user=quine} -- fails opening wrong INBOX on both alpine and pine

Thanks,
Sorry to consume this time, but I do not know how long oldshell.sonic.net will operate... It is clear that whatever pine on oldshell is pointing at is not the same as alpine on the new shell even when the .pinerc files are identical.

Matthew

[joemuller]

Both 'pine' and 'alpine' use the same configuration files - a global config at /etc/pine.conf, and a per-user config at ~/.pinerc. The oldshell.sonic.net and shell.sonic.net mount your home directory at /home/q/quine/ and have full access to the files stored there.

By default, both 'pine' and 'alpine' look at your current environment (see 'env') to see if you have $MAIL set. On some systems, this will default to your home directory, but for other systems, such as oldshell.sonic.net, it will point directly to the mail spool folder (e.g. /var/spool/mail/.../.../quine). This is what gets used to set up your default 'Inbox' if your leave 'inbox-path=' blank.

Aside from using a different method of access (IMAP w/ SSL vs. maildir spool), both (new) shell.sonic.net and oldshell.sonic.net have access to the same emails for your account. We opted to discontinue direct 'maildir' spool access on the new server, so that's why the old /var/spool/mail/ directories no longer work there.

What I'm unclear on, is whether you're keeping mail on sonic's mail servers or doing the equivalent of POP-ing them into 'local' mbox files in your home directory (thus my reference to ~/mail/ before). If you happen to have an old copy of the .pinerc file that worked on the old shell server, could you either send it to me via a private message or email to support@sonic.net?

-- Joe

[quine@sonic.net]

Hi Joe thanks.

.pinerc on both shells seems to be the same file. If I modify it on one, I see my modifications on the other...

OK, this must be involved... I looked at env. On both shells MAIL is set (see below), but where? I looked (ls -al) I have no .login or .profile in my home directory so where are these being set?

oldshell MAIL=/var/spool/mail/21/17/quine
new shell MAIL=/var/spool/mail/quine <--- the empty inbox that will not receive mail from outside sonic

I created a .login on the new shell and set MAIL to /var/spool/21/17/quine (exported it) then ran alpine. But that didn't work..... I get an error message "can't open folder /var/spool/mail/21/17/quine"

I sense we are getting closer... The env on the two shells is different even though they point to the same .pinerc... Since there is no .login or .profile on either shell I don't know where that MAIL is set...

And no I am not that I know of POP-ping anything that I know of...

thanks I will send my .pinerc to you as support simply going to attach it...