Re: scoring related slowdown in group loading

On 2009-04-01, Peter J Ross <[email protected]> wrote:

>>> Removing the following two lines from my .score file eliminates
>>> the slowdown.
>>>
>>>  Score: =0
>>>   Newsgroups: gmane.os.ecos.general
>
> As you've discovered, that's an example of "expensive" scoring.

It is on some servers. :)

>> Dropping the 's' on Newsgroups fixes the problem.  "Newsgroup"
>> is a reserved pseudo-header that's handled internally by slrn.
>> "Newsgroups" uses the actual article headers.  Apparently
>> supernews recently stopped supporting "XHDR Newsgroups" (and
>> "XHDR path").  Might be time to finally shop for a new Usenet
>> provider.
>
> Supernews is now nothing but a brand name for Giganews.

That deal went down some time ago, but they probably just
switched their servers over recently.

> If you don't need binaries, there are plenty of free or very
> inexpensive news providers.
>
>> I'm still not sure why a "Newsgroups:" rule causes slrn to do
>> "XHDR path",
>
> slrn tests for XHDR support on the server, and either uses
> XHDR or HEAD for scoring according to the result of the "XHDR
> path" test.
>
> Servers that advertise XHDR support don't necessarily have a
> useful implementation of it.
>
>> but that's sort of a moot point: even if that 
>> succeeded, slrn would then do "XHDR Newsgroups" which would
>> fail -- causing indivual HEAD commands to be used anyway.
>
> slrn won't try "XHDR Newsgroups" if the "XHDR Path" test fails.

The assumption being that all servers that support XHDR
<anything> will also support "XHDR path"?

> However, it's quite possible that you've discovered an slrn
> bug. Does the problem persist if you switch to another server?

The other server which I've tried (gmane) supports "XHDR path"
and "XHDR newsgroups", so the problem doesn't happen with that
server.

-- 
Grant



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