Re: General question about unread messages in news server

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Actually, I believe the unread numbers are accurate, but they reflect the
full set of news articles on the server, not just the ones brought down
locally. That has a cap as defined in the Options tab of the account
settings.

There seem to be two issues here.

1) When you already have received a list of headers, if you subsequently
re-select the newsgroup, we will only get items newer than the most recent
items. This avoids having older articles that for some reason took a long
time to post and/or synchronize to the news server from appearing at the end
or in the midst of your currently downloaded messages. They're still unread,
but they're not downloaded, so you can't mark them as read.

If you click the More button (or View/Get more news messages), we will go
ahead and get older articles.

2) Article numbers sporadically get removed/readded to groups in ways I do
not understand. As a result, when it gets removed and you read news next,
the local (probably read article) will be removed from the local cache. Then
later, if it is re-added, it's an "older article", and thus due to #1, won't
get downloaded again. Since when we removed the article from the cache, we
also removed its read/unread state, we believe it to be unread and thus it
shows up in the unread count.

For example, I clicked "More" in this group, and got 30 unread messages.
some of them were posts back in August I had made that I had certainly
re-read. When I tried to re-download them, sometimes it said "bad article
number".

I am going to take a stab at there being more than one server supporting
msnews.microsoft.com, and if so, they may not all be in sync, and depending
on which one I end up hitting, I may or may not be getting the same list of
articles. I can check this when I get out from behind the corporate firewall
this evening.

-nh

On 10/3/05 9:58:14 PM, in article
BF6759F6.49AF7%daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Daiya Mitchell"
<daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Michelle,
>
> The numbers are just inaccurate. Nothing you can really do, and everyone
> sees it, I think. I've learned to ignore it. If having the group names bold
> bothers you, you can hit Mark All As Read frequently (opt-cmd-t).
>
> I had never noticed the More button in the toolbar, but now that you mention
> it...
>
> In the Account Settings for News (under Options), you can set how many
> messages to download. So if I subscribe to a new group, and set it for 50
> messages, I get the 50 most recent messages. Every time I connect after
> that, I just get newer messages, whether that's 2 or 3 or 20. If there were
> 60 new messages, I would only get 50.
>
> The More button goes *back* to the time before that initial connection and
> downloads earlier messages than my original 50 (I'm guessing it would
> download 50, then clicking More again would get an even earlier 50, etc).
>
> To make sure you are seeing all the newest messages, the action you want is
> cmd-L, or View | Refresh Message List.
>
> The best way to save newsgroup messages would be to Copy them to a local
> folder that you create, e.g. "Saved from NG" or "Entourage NG Notes".
>
> You can't delete or save newsgroup messages individually, you can only empty
> the entire cache for all the subscribed groups on that server, by the way,
> or Hide a particular message.
>
> Hope that helps,
>
> DM
>
>
> On 10/2/05 9:42 PM, "Michelle York" wrote:
>
>> Maybe I haven't figured it all out. My newserver name will refresh and show
>> more "unread" messages. But when I look, the new unread messages are not
>> NEW, they're old ones that are dated a month ago--they only appear when I
>> click more to see older messages. I've already clicked "more" often enough
>> to theoretically clear out all old unread messages, but more keep appearing.
>> I'm confused.
>>
>>
>> On 10/2/05 11:06 PM, in article BF661893.78E6%teacher24_70@xxxxxxxxx,
>> "Michelle York" <teacher24_70@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> I think that I figured out the answer to my own question. I hadn't noticed
>>> the "more" button in the toolbar. Once I clicked that, the other unread
>>> messages landed at the bottom of the list.
>>>
>>> Now, is there a way to reverse this so that those message drop back off
>>> again? Or is it unnecessary since they reside on the server anyway--not on
>>> my hard-drive.
>>>
>>> And since I'm new to "news servers"--one more question. Is there a way to
>>> save a particular question/response--so that it stays on my
>>> hard-drive--instead of eventually disappearing from those listed?
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/2/05 10:19 PM, in article BF660D58.786F%teacher24_70@xxxxxxxxx,
>>> "Michelle York" <teacher24_70@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I just recently switched over from a regular e-mail listserve for Microsoft
>>>> Help groups to the "Microsoft News Server" version. I've noticed something
>>>> on several of my Microsoft News groups that confuses me. Sometimes, the
>>>> group name on the left column of the screen shows that there are a certain
>>>> number of unread messages--yet when I scroll through the messages in the
>>>> right-hand column (above the message preview), I'm finding NO unread
>>>> messages.
>>>>
>>>> Any clue why? I've even resorted the columns by message status--in case
>>>> I'm
>>>> just not finding the unread ones amongst the ones read. But this isn't
>>>> helping because it STILL shows no unread messages. Where wouldn't the
>>>> "folder" name (as far as showing the unread messages) match the actual
>>>> content of the folder--the message list.
>>>>
>>>> I hope that this question makes sense.
>>>>
>>>> By the way, I'm running Entourage 2004 with the latest update. Working on
>>>> a
>>>> Mac Powerbook--OS 10.3.9.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for any suggestions.
>>>>
>

--
Nathan Herring
MacBU SDE/Development

This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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