:: Re: [DNG] strange mutt pauses
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Author: Hendrik Boom
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] strange mutt pauses
On Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 05:40:25AM +1000, onefang wrote:
> On 2021-04-14 17:49:45, dng@??? wrote:
> > On 14-04-2021 16:19, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > > I have an unreliable connection between my server and the rest of the
> > > world.
> > > Yes, I'm going to have to deal with that; it's not what I'm asking about.
> > >
> > > I have a reliable wired connection from my laptop to my server.
> > > And I run mutt on my server, connecting to it by ssh.
> > >
> > > What puzzles me is that every now and then, communication from my laptop to
> > > mutt mysteriously pauses. After a while, it resumes.
> > >
> > > Using a separate ssh connection to root on the server (which I use to
> > > monitor my unreliable connectino to the rest of the world), I've noticed:
> > >
> > > That separate ssh connection stays up when mutt blocks. But using
> > > ifconfig on that separate ssh connection tells me that pppoe connection to
> > > the rest of the world is off when mutt blocks.
> > >
> > > Why does mutt block, not even letting me type into the editor for an email
> > > I plan to send, when the ppp connection is down? What does mutt have to do
> > > with an internet connection? Isn't that postfix/s job?
> > >
> > > -- hendrik
> >
> > Most likely it does do a domain name lookup which times out by lack of a
> > ppp connection.
>
> I've been using neomutt. On ASCII it was renamed to mutt, on Beowulf
> they named it back to neomutt, and the mutt package is actual mutt. I
> dunno which one you are using.


I'm running ascii, and the package mutt is installed, so I suspect based on
what you say it must be neomutt.

>
> ASCII was on my old desktop, and Beowulf is on my new super desktop. I
> use a local IMAP server running on the same computer in each case. The
> ASCII version on the old computer would do that sort of mysterious pause
> where all you can do is wait for it to unpause. The Beowulf version on
> the new computer does that rarely. It was very annoying under ASCII, not
> so much under Beowulf.


That sounds like the pause I'm experiencing.

>
> I use fetchmail to gather emails from my various email providers, that
> dumps them into my local IMAP server.
>
> I suspect the difference was the computers, not the version of neomutt.
> Or it could just be if the check of IMAP stumbles across the fetchmail
> process updating the IMAP folders. Or perhaps this later version mostly
> fixed that pause. Maybe some combination of the three.


I do not use IMAP. postfix just puts everything in to my mbox of incoming
email.

Anyone know how synchronisation between mutt and postfix works? I presume
it's only needed when exiting mutt and it rewrites the file... or is the
mechanism something different?

>
> The Beowulf version does have a problem with showing the O old email
> marker as N new email (a known bug). Which is even more annoying. I'm
> considering installing ASCII in a VM on this new super desktop, and
> running the ASCII version in it. If I do that, I might find out if the
> pause gets worse.
>
> (For reference, old computer was an 11 year old AMD system with 8 GB of
> RAM, new super desktop is an AMD Threadripper with 256 GB of RAM.)


Mine is about as old; but only 2GB of RAM.

-- hendrik