Got a weird one here. My account receives system mail from Nagios and I can read it using “mail” at a shell prompt. I can also delete it all using “delete *” command. The problem is when I exit the mail app and launch it again, all the messages are still there. If I type “delete *” twice the second attempt results in the following message: “No applicable messages.”
Why are these e-mails coming back? Is there a commit I have to perform after the delete or something?
On 2012-11-08 02:26, DiskCrasher wrote:
>
> Got a weird one here. My account receives system mail from Nagios and I
> can read it using “mail” at a shell prompt. I can also delete it all
> using “delete *” command. The problem is when I exit the mail app and
> launch it again, all the messages are still there. If I type “delete *”
> twice the second attempt results in the following message: “No
> applicable messages.”
Try alpine instead.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))
Using Alpine gave me a hint with their Expunge command. I re-tried mail and it works if I type “quit” instead of “exit” after deleting the messages. Doh.
On 11/08/2012 05:06 AM, DiskCrasher wrote:
>
> Using Alpine gave me a hint with their Expunge command. I re-tried mail
> and it works if I type “quit” instead of “exit” after deleting the
> messages. Doh.
yep, it is working as intended…by using ‘exit’ you were shutting down
the mail system in a way causing it to undo the ‘deletes’…
from man mail:
Disposing of mail
After examining a message the user can delete `d') the message or reply
`r') to it. Deletion causes the mailx program to forget about the
message. This is not irreversible; the message can be undeleted `u') by
giving its number, or the mailx session can be aborted by giving the
exit `x') command.
–
dd
On 2012-11-08 08:51, dd wrote:
> yep, it is working as intended…by using ‘exit’ you were shutting down
> the mail system in a way causing it to undo the ‘deletes’…
It is a feature or consequence of the mbox format used for mails. It is
a single file with each mail separated from the next with a text like this:
From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Nov 3 15:07:59 2012
(without a “:” after the “from”. Deleting emails involves writing a copy
of the whole file without the deleted post - so instead they are marked
as deleted, and the action is postponed. If instead it aborts, there is
no real delete (but the delete mark might stay: this happens with
thunderbird sometimes).
However, I have never caught alpine at the act.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))
On Thu, 08 Nov 2012 01:26:01 GMT, DiskCrasher
<DiskCrasher@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
>Got a weird one here. My account receives system mail from Nagios and I
>can read it using “mail” at a shell prompt. I can also delete it all
>using “delete *” command. The problem is when I exit the mail app and
>launch it again, all the messages are still there. If I type “delete *”
>twice the second attempt results in the following message: “No
>applicable messages.”
>
>Why are these e-mails coming back? Is there a commit I have to perform
>after the delete or something?
wild a** first cut, the two mail clients interfere with each other. Use
just one.
?-)