Hi Russell,

>>>>> Nlmaint and maybe other compilers don't have that technical
>>>>> limitation.
>>>>> Perhaps its time some people got rid of Makenl, its
obviously not
>>>>> up to FTSC standards.

>>>> NLMaint has caused a variety of problems - unpredictably.

>>> User error?

>> No :)  From what I understand, the dos version is very bad and doesn't
>> process segments correctly, and I've heard that it drops regions.

> Were you able to figure out what causes it to "act" funny?

No, not at all.  The only reason I thought to try touching the files in the
Update and master directory was because I'd remembered seeing someone's
comment that this had resolved the problem for them :)  I carried the idea
a bit further by importing the new segments into the Update directory just
before the zone list, and nodediff run.

>> The Linux version I am running worked fine for me in the begining,
>> then randomly would not process new segments that came in from RCs.
>> Sometimes it would drop whole regions from the nodelist.

>> I got around that problem by having my script copy all new segments
>> into nlmaints' Inbound directory, running it in test mode to move them
>> into the Update directory, and then touching files in the update
>> directory and in the Master directory before the zone 1 list run on
>> Tuesday nights, and the thursday nodediff run. In recent weeks and
>> months, there was no problem at all with it. The problems I mentioned
>> happened perhaps a year ago..

> So it has been running fine for a year, then in all likely hood, there arn't
> problems with NLMAKE, but possibly with what it gets fed?

NLMaint, not NLMAKE :)  Again, if this were true, why did the 2nd run work
ok? The 2nd run created a completely new (and correct as far as I could
see) zone1 list, and correct nodediff, without the errors the first one had
shown.

The big differnce between the two runs was that on the second run, I
removed all the *.305 files and re-imported the segments :) It could be
that the original segments were corrupted I suppose..


>> Then, this Tuesday's Zone 1 segment was created for the other zones,
>> and my own listings in net 261 (1:261/38 and 1:261/100) were
>> missing..as though my RC had submitted a segment from a period before
>> I moved to that region in June (he hadn't done that though) :(  There
>> may have been other errors in that zone list, but this one is the one
>> that I've heard about 

>> I didn't notice that error, but was made aware of it by one of my
>> downlinks from Z2 on Friday afternoon, well after the Thursday
>> nodediff run.

>> This thursday, around the time the nodediff should have been processed
>> on my system, I was curious because I was on my bbs checking mail, and
>> didn't get the normal, "Nodelist.298 has been updated to
Nodelist.305"
>> message from my bbs..

>> I stopped all the cron jobs so I could check the nodediff before it
>> got sent out all over zone 1, and took a look.. NlMaint had an
>> erroneous date (sometime in 2001, not this Friday's date in 2002), and
>> the wrong CRC on the diff, and that's why my bbs's nodelist compiler
>> wouldn't apply the diff.

>> I removed all the *305 files from nlmaint's subdirectories, and ran my
>> nodelist/nodediff script again manually.. this time, it created a
>> perfect Zone 1 segment, and a perfect diff.. as far as I know, at
>> least.  I haven't heard of any problems down the line :)

>> So.. it can be flukey.. I'll be watching it very carefully in the next
>> few weeks 

> Very strange......

Yes, that's true.

Take care,
Janis

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