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Liz Marr <[log in to unmask]>
Tue, 21 Jun 2005 07:12:41 -0700
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Since digest 2005-73 the MIME digests for this list quit responding the way
they have ever since I've been a member (for several years now)  They are
now exhibiting the same behavior of MIME digests that I get from a university
server that I've been grumping about for years with no results.  I'M SO MAD
ABOUT IT - I don't want to start having this problem with another Listserv.
MIME digests are my favorite way to read the lists.  I use Pegasus mail and
they are  formatted so easy to read, can be sorted, and easy to search.  Much
better than HTML and far advanced of plain digests.  NOW IT'S HAPPENING
AGAIN - ANOTHER LISTSERV THAT IS FORMATTING THE DIGESTS SO
THAT I CAN'T SEE THEM!

Here are the symptoms.  If you are familiar with Pegasus, you'll know that it
opens the digest as a folder with a list of messages.  There is the index
message and all the individual messages.  All are listed in the window. You
can sort them by sender, subject, date, size, or the order they are in the
digest. Double click on the one you want to read and it opens like a regular
message.  The individual messages can be easily responded to or even
copied out of the digest for future reference.  What happens when it get's
broken is that when the digest is opened it shows two messages - the index
and one other.  If you click on the "other" message it will attempt to open it and
often the message that is opened is not the same one as was seen in the
digest.  If the message is viewed as raw text (a great feature of Pegasus) the
you can see all the messages completely - but they are as if they were a plain
digest with the addition of the MIME headers.

I know exactly what happens to cause this, there is a non-visible character in
between each message.  If I take an advanced text editor and edit out those
characters and save the digest (another great thing about Pegasus - all mail is
stored on the harddive in a pure text file - no garbage) then it will work
perfectly.  This problem was first observed on a list that gets several hundred
messages per day.  It is a list for an inherited medical problem that my mother
has and that I will someday have.  It is impossible to edit several digests per
day to be able to read the list, so I haven't been reading them for several
years. I was even a list owner on that list at one time but was unable to keep
up with the volume using individual messages and since the MIME digests
were broken I quit helping with the list.  I still maintain a subscription hoping
that they will some day start working again.

Another thing that I have observed.  With the university lists (all of them - in an
attempt to narrow the problem I subscribed to some other lists on the same
server with the same results) the digests that have been RELAYED through
LSoft are the ones that are "broken".  The ones that come directly from the
university without LSoft.com showing up in the headers WORK PERFECTLY.
The LSoft server that relays the university messages is cherry.ease.lsoft.com,
the working digests that I get through other Listserv servers are routed
through plantain.ease.lsoft.com, mango.ease.lsoft.com, or come directly from
the university that hosts the list.  I notice that with this list it does not show in
the headers that it is going through LSoft, so whatever it is you did back on
May 26 - YOU BROKE MY DIGESTS.  I would have mentioned it sooner, but
I've been busy and I was rather hoping that SOMEONE would have mentioned
it and that it would be fixed by now.  I hope that this doesn't become epidemic,
as I get about twenty lists in digest form and properly behaving MIME is the
ONLY way I'm able to deal with the volume.  I guess it will be no problem to
	quit the lists that the digest has broken on, but I'd rather know JUST
WHAT HAPPENED TO BREAK IT so that it can be either corrected or I can
start hounding the Pegasus folks to teach their program to ignore those
invisible characters that are messing the digest up.

Liz Marr

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