Installer Updates and Changes for Build 2010 13.Jan.2002 --------------------------------------------- New functions: -------------- Hint(379) Xover->Nav->Back added. Keyboard Shortcut: CTRL+B added for Xover->Nav->Back keydef.ini: cB 275 Nav - Back Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+D added for Xover->Act->Decode Attachment keydef.ini: cD 274 - Decode binary attachment Forbidden filetypes: -------------------- The list of file-extensions which MyNews will REFUSE to lauch has been extended: These filetypes have been added: .REG .PIF SCR are screen-savers are sent over Usenet and eMail mainly as Trojan Horses ! PIF are program information files - they can start whatever they want - are are always Viruses The list of file-extensions which MyNews will NEVER launch itself is now: EXE COM BAT CMD SCR INF REG PIF However the binaries are written to disk - and you can start them with the Windows Explorer - if you know what you are doing ! These filetypes has been added to the "external list of forbidden attachments". MyNews will not lauch them (does refuse to call an external viewer): WMV is more and more used with embedded hyperlinks which are opening webpages. Such webpages often behave bad - some even sent viruses. WMV can contain generally "active content" and must be handled with CARE ! ASF is more and more used on Usenet. It contains ACTIVE SERVER FILES and nobody knows what they will contain tomorrow. So it is forbidden. The list of "forbidden extensions" is located at: mynews\data\filetype.txt You can edit it manually if you want to add extensions yourself. You can add more "critical extensions" or you can remove wmv or others from my list. (ON YOUR OWN RISK !) The actual list of 'forbidden extensions' is now: HTM HTML ASF WMV Default installation options: ----------------------------- The option "Use global filter file on ALL newsgroups" is no active by default The default global filter file contains now a lot of comments. The words "viagra" and "pheromones" are now triggers for "dont download message, only header". These windows are now ALWAYS hidden at the startup of MyNews: XOVER, DATA, VIEW. Whoever urgently need the ability to show these windows at startup should insert these lines into "mynews.ini": [server] xover_startup_hide=0 view_startup_hide=0 data_startup_hide=0 The "hide multiparts (2/n)" flag for the Xover-Window (internal reader) is now active by default. This prevents newbies from getting mad if they see thousands of parts.... default now: [reader] hide_multi=1 The "Close inactive viewer windows" option is now active by default. This closes VIEW, DATA and XOVER whenever the windows are closed or ESC is pressed. If someone wants to keep the windows open - but just to change focus then he can disable the feature in the INI file: default now: [desktop] onewindow=1 Default communities: -------------------- The Express setup permits to specify quickly a community. This activates that community to the newbie-user and adds some newsgroups. Here two new communities - and their newsgroups: [startrek] adult=0 1=mynews.startrek.discussion 2=alt.binaries.startrek [mp3] adult=0 1=mynews.mp3.discussion 2=alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.d 3=alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.new-age 4=alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.soundtracks ############ > Build 2010 - 13.Jan.2003 Bugfix: Expiry of single article files If the headers of a single article file could not be analysed (corrupt) then MyNews issued the event message: "Could not read headers. Not expired". Now such corrupt articles are also expired. And a warning is written to the logs. This is a part of the "automatic repair during expire". Bugfix: Xover - Analysis of filenames in "Re:" Replies: Mynews did no longer analyse and show filenames in REPLY headers. Now the filename in REPLY headers is analysed if the messages has more than 100.000 lines. This is necesary because some binary posts are also made within reply lines. (Even multiparts...) The Analysis of filenames is STILL NOT done within automatic download checks ! The the fetch of replies depends ONLY on the setting of the "Reply-Size" filter. Consitency of database (xover): If a message is labelled as "KEEP" in the history, then it is ALWAYS shown as "keep" in the xover list. In rare cases it happened that the two flags (Xoer-List & History) were out of sync. Now the interna reader re-syncs to the History. This will now ALSO apply to crossposted messages in another group. If a message is labelled as KEEP in one group, then it will be also shown as "keep" in another crossposted group ! Bugfix: Joining of Multipart Replies (Re: .... (1/10)) .... MyNews did not JOIN a message when the subject started with "re:" These are usually (incomplete) replies to multiparts. The joining was disabled because every such reply caused a warning. The problem with this method is/was, that multipart replies (which happen often) were only decoded in the "Show all hidden lines" mode. Now MyNews issues a warning - and updates the StatusLine after Join (### messages could not be joined - see log) If a message has MORE than 100.000 bytes than it is also joined. If that fails (because a user is replying with a full binary top quote (newbies do this) then a warning appears. BugFix: Expire of manually removed messages in the BASE file: MyNews accepts now also #! rdels in the base file during expiry. The "Keep" flag does not prevent a removed message from expiry then. Also all other kind of messages are no longer kept in the base if they are marked as expired. Bugfix Join of Cleaned parts: This construction caused problems (shown as incompletes): Subject: ...... [2/9] ..... (ALL/30) .... The "(ALL/30)" is created by the cleanup mode during JOIN (root servers only) and disturbed the completeness analysis because a second part indicator was used then (the file-indicator).... Fixed now. As soon as L/##) is found no more analysis is done. BugFix - Join (with a marked block) and hidden lines Marking a block and using "Join" did also join ALL HIDDEN multiparts within that block. This caused MyNews to do a LOT of joining (and filled up the disk quickly with old stuff - because everything is joined again). Now all hidden lines are NO LONGER joined within blocks. Newbie-Help: Write explanations and examples to a newly created, empty filter file. ############# > 13.01.2003 Minor Bugfix: Xover -> Action -> Decode attachment The status line shows now: "Decoded: " Previously the word "Decoded" was not shown, just the naked filename appeared. Connect-errors (4xx codes): Server busy, too many connections, try later, .... These messages are now AGAIN visible in the event log. Especially access to ver ybusy free hosts may fill up the event log with these messages - but because 2 other lines are also still displayed this missing line was just confusing. Later versions of MyNews might support automatic retries in such cases. (Greetings to Mike from BigGulp :-) Missing dialog for indicator [C] added: (Scheduler - Full Version) The 'beginners dialogbox' for clicks to the [C] Indicator is now also available. It contains just the 'regular' functions for the scheduler and will make the use of the "Timer" menu in the Status window less necessary. I am using the scheduler myself all the time (to fetch marked and missing msgs) so I've implemented these functions. BugFixes: Xover - Remove messages finally The functions permits now also removing messages from the database. In fact just the #!rnews header is overwritten by #!rdels - which indicates that the message is no more available. Root-Server might still _try_ to access such messages. Normal users dont need this - it jsut issues confusing messages if the base file has been removed meanwhile by an expiry. Messages are now marked in the display LIST as deleted ONLY if the delete was sucessful. If the removal did not work, then the message stays visible. It is possible to remove the header with the "Delete" key (function). Messages are now flagged in the history as EXPIRED. This prevents ALL subsequent accesses to that message. ReadBags has been modified to accept ALSO #! rdels ##### lines as bag-messages. So MyNews is ABLE to re-read such messages from bag-files and WILL DO THIS ! Other bag-reading programs might SKIP such messages - and report a lot of skipped lines. This is very unusual - but the case happens. Bugfix: Xover -> Remove messages This function failed if a message with the same number was already in the "deleted.ntx" folder. Now MyNews is creating alternative names in this case: mynews\deleted.ntx\\00000005(01).ntx The counter (99) grows up to 99 copies - then it also gives up. If the error-code of the MOVE message indicates a '5' (sahring violation), then it is possible that the file is still in use (transmissted to some actually). In such cases it is possible to remove the message just after the next startup of MyNews - or perhaps later if the upload is done. BugFix: Data -> Save This function could not store crossposted messages if the message did belong to another group. Now the message is fetched with a different method (by msgid, rather than article #) The used number in the proposed filename is now fetched from the header-list. ################# > 12.01.2003 Expiry: The crosspost-storage trees are now also expired. These are the !xtree.dat files withoin each group directory of the server folder. The expiry is done ONLY if the download option: "Accept crossposted headers" is activated. Else it is SKIPPED. The expiry is based on the header low and high watermark counters. Entries in the xtree which have a lower number than the watermark counters indicate are removed. Entries with an illegal header-number (<=0) (>high watermark) are treated as "errors" and removed. Errors during expiry are displayed in the log and the event log. This WILL happen a lot of any "old" xtree is still existing from a previous MyNews revison (older than this one). But because it is also a kind of "automatic repair" such errors should disappear quickly. The progress display in the logfile uses these characters: . Entry is still used x Entry was removed (expired) < Entry was illegal (header-number <=0) > Entry was illegal (header-number > high watermark for headers) In case of an error the old xtree is kep in the directory as: !xtree.old (and could be restored manually). This expiry is ALSO done if just a single group is selected for expiry in the grouplist. This is another step in automatical removal of data from MyNews by expiry. Just these topics are still open - here files should (can) be still expired only manually: HOST-Directory: The watermark and volume entries for all hosts you've ever contacted TEMP-Directory: Old temporary files which were not removed due to problems. LOG-Directory: Colleciton of old logs which are not removed automatically by the DATA-settings. FILES-Directory: Old decoded binaries - you perhaps want to store them elsewhere (Archive). MSGS-Directry: Old download files - where the download was aborted (and currently downloaded files). Minor bugfix: "First time fetch 1000 headers" did fetch 1001 headers. Fixed now. Bugfix: Negative counts in Status: Marked & Missing Messages In rare cases it happened that these two counter became negative. This happened especially if UNDO was used for messages while they were downloaded. Now this condition is detected and the counters are then reset to zero (they disappear). ################### > 11.01.2002 Conventional (blocking) Xover: Does now ALSO recognize Xposted Headers and adds the msgid to the group-local Xtree. This should avoid ALL cases of duplicate headers for external readers and the internal header list. Bugfix: Duplicate local messages: Locally posted messages were added to the XOVER list of a group whenever the headers were fetched again from another MyNews host. The reason was an active XPOST detection - but the locally posted articles were NOT added at posting time to the Xpost detection tree (!xtree.dat) The bug should be fixed now. Locally posted messages are now directly added to the local !xtree. This prevents MyNews from adding the header a second time to the xover list. This bug (and its fix) had been visible ONLY on external news-readers. The internal tiny reader does remove all duplicate message-ids by definition. XmanExpireHeaders(): Usage of local !xtree.dat completely removed. Is no longer used. Xover: Usage of local !xtree.dat complteley removed. Is no longer used. New Xover-Navigation Feature: XoverWindow - Nav - Back CTRL+B This moves the current line to the previous position (after skip, next, find, all other movements). It was always bad to "find back where one has been before" in case of pressing any key too quickly. Now the "BACK" Function offers a chance to 'step back' the way. The functions stores the last 100 positions. The last positions are lost after REFRESH or whenever a new group is opened. In case of fails the status line shows a yellow message. It is not possible to step back to 'Hidden' lines. For using CTRL+B the keydef.ini file must be updated: x73 217 Nav - Find next F3 cB 275 Nav - Back V 269 Nav - Navigate universal Bugfix: Autoposter-Filecounter. The new (automatically inserted) filecounter in the subject did show: [1/29] ... This is bad because it breaks the subject sorting at [1/29] [10/29] [2/29] Now the first number shows 1-3 leading zeros depending on the amount of files: [01/29] [001/290] [0001/3400] Huge JPEG picture limitation raised. MyNews did not display pics with more pixels in either X or Y than 2048. (Just one image buffer with 2048x2048xRGB was reserved). Now MyNews allocates dynamically MORE memory for larger pictures. This will be slow (especially if the computer is old and has not enough mem (128 MB should still be enough and fast) - but slow is still better than an error message. There is no more limit on the display size. The only error which could occur would be, that Windows cannot allocate aough memory to display such huge pics. Expiry of Database Files: The *.dat files which contain the active database files were renamed to *.old files during expire (if they were not deleted at all). Now the files are renamed to *.bag This permits to feed expired files easily into another MyNews or use them as backup for all files which were available. Also the backup can now very easily be re-fetched with MyNews. (even directly from a CDrom or DVD backup). The previous method ALWAYS required renameing from *.old to *.bag (which is - of course - not possible on CDrom or DVD-read only media and required copying the data to harddisk, first !) Bugfix: XoverWindow - Authors are shown with "green" backgnd (as good) even if the are not. This has been probably caused by a missing setting of the background color if a message was fetched (Line+Size-Count are green) and special subject line conditions happened. Now the background is ALWAYS resetted to standard color - so the problem should be fixed. ############ > 10.01.2003 DebugInfo added to find the sporadous GPF in XoverAnalysis 2nd attempt to add icon follow ups to upstream feed now ########## > 08.01.2003 Icon-Follow-Ups are now added to the outgoing feeds (for root-servers) ########## > 07.01.2003 ########## > Build 2009 - 29.Dec.2002 Real Innovation: 'Travellers Mode' (Full version only) For a long time I wanted this feature for myself - and I've seen also request in the newsgroups for such a tool. So people who are often not at home at their PC but want to follow the binary (and download large binaries) are now also able to control the downlaod behavior of their MyNews at home. This is the method: Your HOME PC is running all the time - and fetches headers or whatever. Your PORTABLE NOTEBOOK is with you. And on your way you fetch just headers - select what you like (mark for download) and use download with a special "remotely order" account on your home pc's MyNews. You HOME pc will fetch everything you want - and you dont need to download it from a hotel or a company. This is what you do: You create a special account on your home pc. This is then an "all headers" and "remotely order" account. It is not possible to download messages with such an account. it is just possible to ORDER messages at this host. The host decides itself when he fetches the messages (which is easy with full automatic). The "remotely order account" needs these permissions: *,username,password,rpixgwho The 'h' grants access to all headers (even if the msg is not yet fetched) The 'o' makes this a true order account. The 'order' account cannot download msgs. Just order. If you are not at home (travelling, in the office, on vacation), then your Home-MyNews is running fully automatic: It logs in (perhaps uses a dialup at specific hours), fetches new headers, perhaps fetches some msgs automatically AND IT FETCHES THE MARKED MESSAGES automatically. Be sure that your Home-PC runs well. You can find it from remote by LOGIN with mynews (with your personal community) or with a dynamic DNS system. On your travel you have your notebook computer with you. There you are having also MyNews installed. The free version is enough. You fetch headers from wherever you want (your NSP, your own MyNews, other MyNews). Then you select the messages for downlaod which your HOME PC should fetch. Then you contact your home-pc with your ORDER account - and fetch bodies - just as usual. Your Home PC does not have the messages - and adds them just to its DOWNLOAD FILE (which will be fetched later). And your own MyNews is just told, that the message was stored for remote order. This is pretty fast. You can do this as often as you want. If you come back home, then all the messages you've remotely ordered are on the harddisk of your HOME PC. That's all. Folks ! Binary newsgroups even if you are 8 weeks away from home without DSL. Bugfix: Local "input-MyNews messages" deliver welcome message before FD_CONNECT. Assumes the incoming data to be the welcome msg now. Could be race and hazard in Win-2000. Bugfix: It should be possible to cancel now a running Block-Join. Authentication: Authentication can now be also used if it is not activated. In this case any wrong authentication is also accepted - but meeting a correct login will use the permission for that account. Local Proxy access & Local 'all header access' The permissions can be now also granted by authentication with username+password. This permits to activate these options also for local/LAN users even if the local/lan permission is generally switched OFF. Remote Proxy Operation: (Full version only) The selective access permits now to give remote users (not in my LAN) proxy access. This WILL block the MyNews which acts as a proxy during sending out the current article and is not recommended for general use - but only for "travellers". The permission letter for the remote proxy mode is 'y' It is not further documented. Handle with care. Bugfix: "GroupWindow -> Load -> New/All hd/msg" These functions did download headers for ALL groups with the new, async header fetch. Now these functions are using again the old routines and should work properly again. Free Version: Xover - Good, Kill, ServerKill Lists: These three lists are now also available in the FREE version. They permit easy survey who are friends and spammers in newsgroups. It is NOT possible to use the good list for automatic downloads with the free version. This requires a FULL version. Xover - Multipart Order: (not recommended for newbies) It is now possible to use the "ORDER" function on a multipart (1/n) header. MyNews will issue a warning dialog in ALL cases - because ordering many part might take a lot of time. So the user MUST confirm that order. If a block of lines is marked for ORDER then every single multipart must be confirmed. If 'View -> show all hidden lines" is selected and multiparts are included then NO confirmation is required because the user can SEE what he wants. Keep in mind that ordering a multipart will BLOCK the download for subsquent orders. Ordering a 50 part video or audio file is always a bad idea. I strongly recommend to MARK them for DOWNLOAD and start the BODY download later. This might be waste of time - but if an order (of 100 Megs) is already in progress then the next ORDER (and even for a very short text msg) has to WAIT until one of the download threads has finished the current message. If the actual order thread is busy on a slow server then this can take minutes ! And the ORDER function does NOT start a multi-host-download because this is nearly unmanagable with the current complexity of multihost and farms. Severe Bugfix: Re-Registration The Builds 2000-2007 had the problem that the password for a username was wrongly transmitted. A randomly generated string was sent as a password. It is not possible to re-register these names, because the password was never visible. Now the password is properly sent (and stored at the registrataion server) as before. It should be no longer a problem to re-register a free version after re-installation. Memory Watch is now checking up to 50.000 items (previously: 10.000 items) ############ > 29.12.2002 Severe Bugfix: Sending own messages upstream (post, autopost, feed) tried to give back the same memory twice. The resulting effects were unpredicatble behavior of subsequent operation. Fixed. User: Severe Bugfix: MyNews could not connect to hosts which answer to connect with "201 - no posting allowed...." This is mostly the case on free (public) news-servers. Now all versions of MyNews permit a connection to such hosts. Bugfix: Popup LogWindow (Spy) The window popped up also for warnings. Now it appears only for events again. Memory usage for XOVER window: The 'author' is no longer held in an own allocated memory area. This improves the speed of scanning a group's message list before it is shown. The sorting 'by author' is now slightly distorted because the subsequent DATE is used to sort now - which usually starts with the day of the week :-(( If necessary then this will be fixed again (on costs of sorting speed). The previous version was better because it did use the real (calculated) date as a secondary sorting criterium. The 'msgid' is no longer held in an own allocated memory area. This improves the speed of scanning a group's message list before it is shown. The sorting by "message-id" (host in the msgid) is slightly affected because the secondary sorting crterium (date) is no longer used. Threading might be a but slower now. The XOVER list is no longer scanned for duplicate entries during the initial scan. If there are any duplicate entries then they are detected by the threading - and now written to the warning log. Such duplicate entries are only caused by malfunctioning crosspost detection and should not happen at all. They WILL happen during the display of the "missing messages list". These three changes are MAJOR changes to the reader functionality. It is possible that unwanted side-effects and non operational functions occur. In depth testing is necessary. Bugfixes: Hunting memory consumption: 1) The HostName in the sockets was kept forever to avoid NULL compare. Now the Hostname is released as soon as the socket is re-used (ResetSocket) 2) DlgText2 (bold text) and DlgTextY (yellow backgnd) did not release their memory after closing the dialog box. Now the text mem is released in both cases. 3) Closing a DialogBox unepectedly caused loss of the allocated memory for the dialog items. Now a centralized prcedure [DlgFree()] closes an open dialog and releases all the allocated ressources. 4) The Status Window shows now the "Ressources" usage in the Information section. This applies only to full versions and root servers. Such users are expected to report problems (if any) seriously to the developer. The "Used memory blocks" are the actually allocated memory block relative to the value after startup. It should not grow too much. If it grows constantly then MyNews is still consuming memory (which should only happen in cases of unforseeable and not intercepted trouble). A slow growth is acceptable. The second value is the maximum peek value in the mem-tracer-routines. Just up to 10.000 memory blocks are traced (if mDsp is activated). This value is easily exceed as soon as very large groups are viewed with the XOVER window. Then the memory trace does no longer work. This is a trace for the long-time-server function. The XOVER window is right under control - and no trace is necessary for it. The Open files are shown. MyNews has ALWAYS two files open: The actual LOG file - and the latest BASE file (if base is used for msgs) This old compiler is able to have up to 34 files open simultanously. The text placed at the NULL pointer (by the compilers runtime system). If this text is different from NULL, then the software has a severe bug. If this text is differently then the appearing text should be reported to the developer and MyNews should be shut down and restarted. 5) Incoming connections show the IP of the caller until it identifies itself as a MyNews. The name of that MyNews replaces that IP-NUmber and the string was lost in nirwana. Fixed now. The IP-number-string is now released. ############### > 28.12.2002 Status-Action-Display: The flickering of the Action Status during header download is now reduced because the status is not resetted to NULL (hide). The last "done" status remains there. Speed-Config-Dialog: The size of the edit boxes has been extended. This permits higher values than 99.999 The text for the sharing seed has been extended by [128-1.000.000] There ZERO cannot be used ! Severe Bugfix: Rotating the logfile with activated file spy display caused a crash of MyNews due to a recursive call of the logfile-rotation function. Visible only for porgrammers (in full file debug mode). Fixed. copen, copen2, cclose: FileMonitor functions are now properly handling the counter for the maximum amount of scannable files for cclose (c_anz). ############### > 27.12.2002 --> Build 2008