$Id: COMMON-PROBLMS,v 1.13 1998/01/23 19:43:20 jik Exp $

List of Common Problems:

*.  XRN is crashing because of long lines in your newsrc file.

    On some UNIX platforms, the "lex" pre-compiler, which XRN uses to
    produce the code which parses newsrc files, has limit on line
    lengths which is too small for some lines in newsrc files.

    If XRN crashes or performs unpredictably when you run it, and you
    have long lines in your newsrc file (200 characters long is the
    most common limit), then you may be running into this problem.  If
    so, the easiest way to fix it is to install the GNU "flex" package
    and use it, rather than lex, when compiling XRN.  After installing
    flex, you can use it when compiling XRN by adding "LEX=flex" to
    the end of the "make" command you use to compile XRN.

*.  XRN compiled and installed just fine, and you can use it with the
    mouse, but none of the key bindings work.

    You are using an old version of the X11 libraries (e.g., you're
    using SunOS 4.x).  As noted in the README file, XRN requires at
    least X11R5 to work properly.  You need to get a newer version of
    X11 (e.g., the X11R6.3 release from the Open Group), compile and
    install it, and link XRN against it.

*.  You are linking XRN against INN's libraries, and you get errors
    which mention "nntp_port" at compile- or run-time.

    You need to either upgrade your INN installation to the current
    version or compile XRN without INN support.  Note that XRN can
    talk to an INN News server just fine, even when it is compiled
    without INN support.

*.  Part of the Subject index occasionally fails to redraw properly in
    article mode.

    This behavior is caused by a known bug in the Athena widget set
    (Xaw).  A fix for the bug has already been submitted to the X
    Consortium, but there's no way of knowing when they'll actually
    release it and when sites will reinstall new Xaw libraries with
    the fix.

    In the meantime, you can get the missing lines to redraw by
    scrolling the index, or by causing the XRN window to refresh
    itself, e.g., by using the "xrefresh" command, by iconifying it
    and deiconifying it, or by using your window manager's "refresh"
    command on the XRN window.

*.  When you resize the XRN window, the buttons disappear.

    This behavior is caused by a known bug in the Athena widget set
    (Xaw).  A fix for the bug has already been submitted to the X
    Consortium, but there's no way of knowing when they'll actually
    release it and when sites will reinstall new Xaw libraries with
    the fix.

    In the meantime, you can make the buttons come back by changing
    the *width* of the XRN window, rather than changing just the
    height.  Furthermore, once you change the width of the window
    once, you won't have to do it again in that invocation of XRN,
    i.e., the bug only manifests if you change the height of the XRN
    window and you haven't changed its width from its original size.

*.  XRN does not link on a SUN under Open Windows:

    SunOS 4.1.2 includes patch number 100170-06 (ld). It then discloses other
    bugs in OW3.0 libraries Xmu and Xt. You can order patch number
    100512-02 and 100573-03.

    If you use X11R5, check your configuration file (mit/config/sun.cf) and be
    sure you defined SunPost411FCSLd to YES.

*.  You get the following message:

	XRN: serious error, your NNTP server does not have XHDR support.
	Either you are running a pre-1.5 NNTP server or XHDR has
	not been defined in 'nntp/common/conf.h'
	XRN requires XHDR support to run.

    Do what it says.  Actually, there is some sort of timeout bug in 
    XRN that will sometimes excite this message... if you know your
    NNTP server has XHDR support, ignore the message.

*.  You get a message that looks something like this:

	The current XRN Application Defaults file is not installed.
	As a result, some XRN functionality may be missing.

    You have not installed the correct application defaults file for
    XRN.  If you generated the Makefile used to build XRN with
    "xmkmf", then the application defaults file should be installed
    properly if you run "make install" in the directory in which you
    built XRN.  If you are using the Makefile that came with XRN, talk
    to your system administrator to find out where application
    defaults files are supposed to be installed at your site (i.e.,
    where your Xt library is configured to look for them).

    Please *do not* contact me, the maintainer of XRN, and ask where
    the application defaults file should be installed at your site.  I
    don't know, and I have no way to find out.

    If you do not have write access to the directory in which the
    application defaults file is supposed to be installed, and you
    still want to use XRN, you may be able to install the app-defaults
    file elsewhere and point XRN at it using the XUSERFILESEARCHPATH,
    XAPPLRESDIR, XENVIRONMENT, or XFILESEARCHPATH environment
    variables.  See the X documentation at your site for more
    information.  Again, please don't contact me; I really don't have
    time to help people learn how to use X properly.

    Another alternative is to hard-code a path to a directory to which
    you have write access into the XRN binary when you compile it, and
    to install the application defaults file into that directory.  See
    the documentation of XFILESEARCHPATH in the file "config.h" in the
    XRN source directory.

*.  The scroll bars do not appear.

    You have not installed the correct application defaults file for
    XRN.  See above for remedies.

*.  That Stupid Information Box - how do I get rid of it.

    Set the "xrn.info" X resource in your .Xresources or .Xdefaults
    file to "false", or run XRN with the "-info" command-line option.

*.  There are too many buttons.

    Check out the *ButtonList X resources in the XRN man page.

*.  You get the message:

	"Caught signal (XX), cleaned up .newsrc and removed temp files"

    If you're using XRN on a Linux system, see README.Linux for
    information about what may be causing the crash and how to fix it.

    If you're not using Linux, or if the problem described in
    README.Linux doesn't apply, then you've found a bug.  Try to get
    XRN to dump core (by running it with the "+dumpCore" command-line
    option or with the "xrn.dumpCore" X resource set to "true", and
    then duplicating the circumstances that led to the message above;
    click on "abort" when it asks you want to do), and then use "gdb",
    "dbx" or some other debugger to get a backtrace of the coredump,
    and then mail it to the maintainer of XRN.  DO NOT send the
    coredump.

    Note that a backtrace will not be useful unless you compiled XRN
    with "-g".  If you didn't, recompile it with "-g" before trying to
    duplicate the problem as described above.

    If XRN doesn't dump core even when you click on "abort" after
    running it with "+dumpCore", you probably have coredump sizes
    limited in your shell.  Try typing "unlimit core" or "ulimit -c
    unlimited" and running XRN again.  If that doesn't work, get help
    from someone at your site.

    If you send a backtrace, please keep the coredump and the XRN
    binary that generated it around until you hear back from me, in
    case I need you to investigate information in the coredump.

*.  Your spawned editor does not seem to be using any of your initialization
    environment variables (for example, EXINIT and vi).

    Make sure you are setting EXINIT in your .cshrc file, not your
    .login file.

*.  Your spawned editor does not appear on your screen.

    If you are running XRN remotely, the editor is probably trying to
    display on the remote machine.  Use the %D setting in the
    editorCommand resource.

*.  You want to change the XRN font size.

    Set the "xrn*font:" X resource to the name of the font that you
    want to use.  For more information about font resources and fonts,
    see the X documentation at your site.

*.  News System related Questions:

    XRN is a news reader and poster - there are many errors or weird
    situations that you may encounter that are do to the news system
    itself, not XRN.  If possible, please make sure that the problem
    you are reporting is due to XRN and not a news system problem.

    If you want to create a group, find out why a group has been
    deleted, find out how to subscribe to a group that your system
    doesn't receive, etc. talk to your site news administrator (in
    many cases, you site administrator is on the 'usenet' mail alias
    on your news server machine).

*.  You postings do not have 'Lines' fields in their header.

    XRN does not generate the 'Lines' field in the header.  This is
    the responsibility of INEWS.

*.  XRN immediately core dumps on OpenWindows systems.

    Make sure your DISPLAY environment variable is set correctly.  We
    have had reports that XRN will core dump on OpenWindows systems if
    the DISPLAY environment variable is not set.

*.  XRN does not use my .mailrc file.

    By default, XRN uses sendmail for postings mail messages.
    Sendmail does not use mail front end alias files (such as
    .mailrc).  To use those files, change the default mailer that XRN
    uses - either by changing SENDMAIL in config.h or by using the
    -mailer option (or .mailer resource) at runtime.  See the files
    contrib/ALT-MAILER* for examples of alternate mailers.