Yesterday, Yarn suddenly stopped being able to either unpack a
current .rep packet *or* start a new one. When I hit Shift-R to
open the current reply folder, I got a red error message, "Unpack
failed," citing the specified path and filename.
(I'm not a tecchie, so please bear with this lengthy description
of the various things I tried. I don't know what might be
important and what isn't.)
When I deleted (actually, renamed) the current .rep packet and
started fresh, I found that when I wrote and saved a reply, no
new .rep packet was created, although the *text* of the reply was
saved in a file called BODY in the Yarn directory. No error
message. I don't recall ever having seen a file called BODY
before, but I assume when Yarn is working normally, it cleans up
after itself and erases that file when it creates the .rep
packet.
Same thing if I have a current .rep packet. It won't add the new
reply to it.
I can unzip the packet Yarn wouldn't open just fine from DOS. I
rename and save my old .rep files after uploading them; I tried
renaming one from April back to the current .rep filename, but
Yarn couldn't open that either.
I can access my upload directory if I shell to DOS from within
Yarn.
I haven't changed anything in my hardware or software
setup--nothing, zero, zilch, nada, bubkes.
I ran various diagnostic programs on my hard disk; no problems
anywhere on the disk, all files readable. All my other programs
work fine. My hard disk is 100 meg and only about half full;
I've got 4 meg of memory. I'm running a 386 DX and DOS 6.?.
I have one of those nifty Zip drives with 100 meg "floppies."
I've been backing up my entire hard disk every day. Zip drives
come with a backup program that simply copies the entire hard
disk and file structure, uncompressed, to a Zip disk. Takes
about 15 minutes. I alternate two backup disks on odd and even
days.
My next step was to copy all the various Yarn directories from my
most recent backup disk to my hard disk. I figured a program
file must have gotten corrupted, and since Yarn was working
properly at the time I'd done my last backup, if I overwrote the
current files with the backup files, the problem would disappear.
For good measure, I also replaced my autoexec.bat with a fresh
copy from the backup disk.
No dice. Same thing.
I dug into my old floppy disks and found a copy of yarnx.exe I'd
made back in May. I replaced the .exe file on my hard disk with
that one. It worked!
But only that one time. The next time I ran Yarn, I got the same
error message when I hit Shift-R. I copied the .exe file from
the floppy again. Didn't work even once.
Next step: I tried running Yarn from the Zip backup disk (having
made the appropriate changes to my autoexec.bat and the Yarn
config file). Yarn ran fine from the Zip disk except that it
still could neither open the current .rep packet nor make a new
one--just as on my hard disk. Remember that when I *made* that
backup, Yarn was working fine.
Then I tried overwriting all the Yarn directories on my hard disk
with the files from the Zip backup disk I'd made *two* days
previously and running Yarn from the hard disk. Same problem.
Everything worked fine *except* Yarn couldn't open the current
.rep packet or make a new one, just as before.
I didn't pick and choose which files to copy over; I copied
everything, in every directory Yarn has anything to do with,
including my download and upload directories. I have copies of
PKZIP and PKUNZIP and my editor in my Yarn directory as well.
Finally, I tried running Yarn from the two-days-previous backup
disk. *That* works; it's how I've managed to get this message
I'm writing now into a .rep packet to upload.
What the HECK could be going on here? As far as I can tell, I'm
using *exactly* the same files on the Zip disk to run Yarn
successfully that *didn't* work when I copied those files to my
hard disk.
As long as things stay stable on the Zip disk, I suppose I can
just switch over to running Yarn from it. But it's a slower than
my hard disk, and as long as I have no idea what the problem is,
I can't count on the same thing not happening to what's on the
Zip disk as is happening on the hard disk.
Besides which, it's driving me crazy trying to figure out what's
wrong.
I reiterate that I haven't changed *anything* in my hardware or
software configuration, and that Yarn has been running absolutely
perfectly for me for over a year up to this point. The problem
is only with the .rep packets; imports still work fine, reading
articles/messages works fine, saving articles/messages to folders
or to disk works fine, replying *appears* to work fine except
that the replies don't get put in a .rep packet.
I don't keep anything in my news base but save everything to
folders after I've read it and then expire all the news articles.
I have plenty of memory, plenty of disk space, all my other
programs are working as usual.
The one thing I haven't done is a virus check; but unless it's a
*very* particular virus (almost seems like it would have to be
targeted to Yarn specifically), and a time bomb at that, which I
acquired months ago--I haven't downloaded a program or put a
floppy disk in my computer since early March--I think that
possibility is extremely remote. Or unless they have finally
managed to put viruses in email!
This is really driving me nuts. Does anybody have a *clue*?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Judy Stein * The Author's Friend * jstein@cnct.com +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++