That isn't the problem. No-X-Mail downloads the pattern file to a stream. The file is saved from the stream into a temporary file, then copied to the normal pattern file and then the temporary file is deleted. There is no overwriting until the final copy and that can not be avoided, even if you have a backup. There should be no possibility of a deadlock as the file copy is being performed, therefor processing is suspended while the copy is being performed. This should only take a few milliseconds.
The problem in this case was that something was causing the task to not complete, and that could be any number of things. I have had tasks not complete here dozens of times that are totally unrelated to No-X-Mail and not even on Internet servers. There may be some problem in Windows itself. So what we do is to try to make sure that no matter what problem occurs, we try to handle it. In this case the solution is going to be the addition of a secondary application timer, in addition to the procedure timer that forces the app to terminate and clean up after itself if something goes south. On 01/13/03 9:09am you wrote... >Brian, the failed download of a new pattern file should not be able to cause >the NoXMail app to stop working. Maybe if the file did not overwrite during >the download but rather downloaded with a different name and waited until >the pattern file was completely downloaded before renaming and overwriting >the old pattern file. Maybe even do what the sniffer app does and rename >the old pattern file with a .old extension. That way you always have at >least the most recent previous pattern file available in case something is >wrong with the latest one. > >Just a suggestion... > >Bill > >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Brian Milburn >Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 8:22 AM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: RE: [NoXMail] URGENT, Can not load pattern file. > >Hi John, No-X-Mail waits for 5 seconds if a pattern file update is in >progress. The *.pa_ are temporary files that, if they exist, indicate a >pattern file transfer is in progress. If the 5 seconds go by and the update >was NOT completed, then the program aborts. This was what I had to do to fix >the 100% CPU problem. > >The pattern file update program uses the HTTP protocol to retrieve the files >from our server. On occasion, I have seen situations where for one reason or >another, the file transfer goes at an extremely slow rate. Fast enough so it >doesn't trigger a timeout, but a small file can take many minutes to >download. >This may have nothing at all to do with any of the No-X-Mail programs. It >may >have been a bottleneck somewhere at a single point in time, it may have been >our server, it could have been any number of things. > >One thing I would suggest is to set the scheduled task to terminate if it >runs >longer than 2 minutes. > >Brian > > >--- >[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Solid Oak Software] > > >Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/nox-list%40mail.noxmail.com/ >Removal address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Solid Oak Software] Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/nox-list%40mail.noxmail.com/ Removal address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
