> Can't open message (594)!
> MSGAPI: MERR_NOENT: File/message does not exist

This is very old news, but I don't think I ever documented it. It's what
happens in the UNIX version of timEd when you start writing a message
destined for a Squish message base but in the background a message is
imported into the same echomail area by another program, eg. HPT.

I don't think you actually lose any messages but the index seems to get
corrupted somehow. The way I fix it is to run sqconver (from
MSGAPI/SMAPI/XMSGAPI) over the broken msgbase, then replace the original
msgbase with the newly created one. Obviously you wouldn't want to do this
while HPT is trying to toss messages into it, though.

I don't think this happens in the OS/2 version because of file locking,
meaning HPT (or Squish) can't write to the .SQD file while timEd has it
open. Then again, back when I used OS/2 I don't ever recall having locking
violations, so I'm not sure. Maybe Squish just waited until the msgbase
became writable.

In UNIX, file locking works quite differently than in DOS, Windows &
OS/2. From Wikipedia:

"Although some types of locks can be configured to be mandatory, file
locks under Unix are by default advisory."

In simplistic terms this means HPT & timEd need to cooperate with each
other with regards to not clobbering each other's files, but they're
clearly not doing that.

The timEd code is broken though. It shouldn't be doing this (pseudocode):

ma = MsgOpenArea("artware")
mh = MsgOpenMsg(ma)
txt = GetTextFromUser()
MsgWriteMsg(mh, txt)
MsgCloseMsg(mh)
MsgCloseArea(ma)

Instead it should do this:

txt = GetTextFromUser()
ma = MsgOpenArea("artware")
mh = MsgOpenMsg(ma)
MsgWriteMsg(mh, txt)
MsgCloseMsg(mh)
MsgCloseArea(ma)

I have no idea if the same bug (or a different bug...) occurs when writing
to *.MSG format bases.

The main reason I'd not bothered to attempt to fix it is because it's (from
what I can tell) a fundamental design problem with timEd. Also, it only
affects me very occasionally on account of me only posting to very
low-volume echomail areas.

It's also a design fault with Scott Dudley's design of the MSGAPI. A
well-written API shouldn't allow data corruption of the very thing it's
allowing you to access. Of course it's easy to say that in hindsight all
these years later.

I think from now on I'll be using GoldED or Msged just to avoid needing to
run sqconver again. I'm pretty sure both of those write to Squish
messagebases the correct way (see above psuedocode).

In an ideal world I'd write my own very basic message editor in Python and
bypass the MSGAPI altogether but doing that is pretty low on my list of
Things To Do(tm). :-)

Regards
Andrew

--- timEd/FreeBSD 1.11.b8