I set up my events for echomail polling according to the instructions from MysticGuy's 5-year-old videos.

In the video, he says that using the settings he suggests will poll every hour on the 5 minute mark...

However, my system is polling every 5 minutes -- WAAAAAAY too often.

I have "hour" set to 0 and "minute" set to 5.

There isn't a good description or hint available as to what these fields actually mean. If I set "hour" to "1," does that mean run every hour (and then 2 would mean every 2 hours) or does it mean run at 1AM?

If I want to run an event on the 27th minute of every hour, for example, would I set hour to "1" and "minute" to 27?

Please advise.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)

I set up my events for echomail polling according to the instructions
from MysticGuy's 5-year-old videos.

In the video, he says that using the settings he suggests will poll
every hour on the 5 minute mark...

However, my system is polling every 5 minutes -- WAAAAAAY too often.

Yeah, that's not good! Unless you're specifically trying to annoy your hub controller...

There isn't a good description or hint available as to what these fields actually mean. If I set "hour" to "1," does that mean run every hour
(and then 2 would mean every 2 hours) or does it mean run at 1AM?

Honestly, I'm not sure how to answer this, any more. There seems to be some changes in a47 compared to a46, and I *just* did the upgrade.

As I understand it, the 'hour' field is ignored when the event type is set to 'Hourly' or 'Semaphore'. It is definitely used as a 1-24 reference to a specific hour, when the event type is 'Shell' or 'Interval', because my weekly maintenance event happens at a specific time on a specific day.

However, I had a problem with my hourly poll events after the upgrade, and I'm still not sure why. I simply deleted them, and rebuilt them, and it 'just worked' after that...

For reference, all of my 'Hourly' and 'Semaphore' events have 0 for the hour value, and occur at the intended times.

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

... Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

Hello 2twisty!

On 31 Mar 2022, 2twisty said the following...

There isn't a good description or hint available as to what these fields actually mean. If I set "hour" to "1," does that mean run every hour
(and then 2 would mean every 2 hours) or does it mean run at 1AM?

For Interval events, it's the former -- Exec Hour: 1 and Exec Min: 30 would mean every 1½ hour (every 90 minutes).

*Which* minute on the hour it will be is determined by MIS -- I think it keeps track of the last time of execution to determine if it's OK to launch the event at any given moment.

It's also worth noting that MIS needs to be restarted for event changes to take effect.

If I want to run an event on the 27th minute of every hour, for example, would I set hour to "1" and "minute" to 27?

For non-Interval and non-Semaphore events to fire on a certain minute every hour, I believe you would have to create 24 events (one for each hour), and specify the desired hour (Exec Hour) and minute (Exec Min) for each of them.

Best regards
Zip

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/03/22 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)

It's also worth noting that MIS needs to be restarted for event changes
to take effect.

I think that may be why I've been so frustrated with my...um...current events...problem! I had assumed that any changes to events were instant.

I will definitely keep this in mind...

For non-Interval and non-Semaphore events to fire on a certain minute every hour, I believe you would have to create 24 events (one for each hour), and specify the desired hour (Exec Hour) and minute (Exec Min)
for each of them.

No, sir! (@_@)
Oh...wait...let me read that again....

Yeah, that's probably correct, on second thought...but I also think that nobody is dumb enough to create more than one 'Semaphore' event (per semaphore). For 'Interval' events, this applies for sure, which is why 'Hourly' events were created...

Pretty sure the guy who created Mystic also thought of this, which is why 'Hourly', 'Semaphore', and 'Interval' events exist...

But what do I know? I'm not g00r00!

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

... Error, no Keyboard - Press F1 to Continue.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

Hello McDoob!

On 31 Mar 2022, McDoob said the following...

I think that may be why I've been so frustrated with my...um...current events...problem! I had assumed that any changes to events were instant.

Me too. :-D

I've also tried to change the starting time of a shell event forward for testing purposes, but it appeared to keep track of that the event had already fired that day, and refused to run it again that day, which caused me quite a bit of confusion... :-D

semaphore). For 'Interval' events, this applies for sure, which is why 'Hourly' events were created...

Hmm, thanks, yes -- I just noticed that one now... :-D
(I didn't have any Hourly events here...)

But, do the Hourly events allow you to specify the exact minute on which they should be run every hour?

Best regards
Zip

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/03/22 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)

I've also tried to change the starting time of a shell event forward for testing purposes, but it appeared to keep track of that the event had already fired that day, and refused to run it again that day, which
caused me quite a bit of confusion... :-D

I need to look more at my 'Shell' events, then. I'll talk more about this when I have enough logs to look at.

But, do the Hourly events allow you to specify the exact minute on which they should be run every hour?

From my experience, yes...That's exactly what 'Exec Min' does. Currently, I have two 'Hourly' events, one to poll fsxNet, and another to poll Fidonet. The fsxNet event is set for :00 because fsxNet is simply better, and the Fidonet poll is set at :05 because it deserves to wait another five minutes. (o_-)

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

... There will be a rain dance Friday night, weather permitting!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

As I understand it, the 'hour' field is ignored when the event type is
set to 'Hourly' or 'Semaphore'. It is definitely used as a 1-24
reference to a specific hour, when the event type is 'Shell' or 'Interval', because my weekly maintenance event happens at a specific
time on a specific day.

That was the clue I needed. My mail poll was set to interval, so having "minute" set to 5 meant "5 minute interval." Changed it to "hourly" and we shall see.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)

But, do the Hourly events allow you to specify the exact minute on which they should be run every hour?

I think I have a solution for this for Linux users -- and I'm sure you coul set it up with task scheduler.

Set up a semaphore event for anything you want to trigger that precisely, then use cron to "touch" the semaphore file.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)

That was the clue I needed. My mail poll was set to interval, so having "minute" set to 5 meant "5 minute interval." Changed it to "hourly" and we shall see.

Yes, that probably will fix things. But I need to stress the difference between 'Hourly' and 'Semaphore' here: make sure you have both! (o_O)

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

... Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

But, do the Hourly events allow you to specify the exact minute on wh they should be run every hour?

I think I have a solution for this for Linux users -- and I'm sure you coul set it up with task scheduler.

Set up a semaphore event for anything you want to trigger that
precisely, then use cron to "touch" the semaphore file.

Huh. I never even thought about this. You're not wrong, but that's not exactly right, either.

Let ./mis (and ./mutil) take care of Mystic. Don't ask the end user's OS to do it instead. That's a bad habit that programmers should avoid. I would pretend to know.

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

... You can learn many things from children... like how much patience you have

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

Yes, that probably will fix things. But I need to stress the difference between 'Hourly' and 'Semaphore' here: make sure you have both! (o_O)

I have an hourly "poll regardless" and a semaphone "poll when I have something to go out" and a semaphore to unpack inbound in case of a crashmail.

That should cover it, right?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)

Let ./mis (and ./mutil) take care of Mystic. Don't ask the end user's OS to do it instead. That's a bad habit that programmers should avoid. I would pretend to know.

If Mystic gave me that option, I wouldn't use a workaround. But if (for some reason) I need to run things with control levels that Mystic doesn't allow, then you could use cron (or any other tool that you want to use to force mystic to execute an event via semaphore)

Sure, it's better to to everything under the single umbrella since it's a lot easier to debug later. However, I won't adhere to that if I want a specific behavior that I can't otherwise get.

For example, I have already found email reading and maintenance, etc. to be lacking in a few features that my old BBS software from 1993 supported. So, if I find it annoying enough, I will write something that will give me those functions. If it's good enough, I'd release it to others if they wanted it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)

Yes, that probably will fix things. But I need to stress the differen between 'Hourly' and 'Semaphore' here: make sure you have both! (o_O)

I have an hourly "poll regardless" and a semaphone "poll when I have something to go out" and a semaphore to unpack inbound in case of a crashmail.

Um, yes, if I understand you correctly.

To be clear, you have an 'Hourly' event for polling your hub, and a 'Semaphore' event for *both* incoming and outgoing mail? (o_O)

If so, you should be pretty well set up...you *are* seeing this, after all...and I'm sure I'll see your response, soon.

(if you join another network, like Fidonet, you'll have to add more events, as you can imagine)

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

... Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

Let ./mis (and ./mutil) take care of Mystic. Don't ask the end user's to do it instead. That's a bad habit that programmers should avoid. I would pretend to know.

If Mystic gave me that option, I wouldn't use a workaround. But if (for some reason) I need to run things with control levels that Mystic
doesn't allow, then you could use cron (or any other tool that you want
to use to force mystic to execute an event via semaphore)

Well...you're not wrong...you could always add '/dir-of-mystic/mutil whatever.ini' to your crontab...

I still maintain (mantain? maintane? whatever) the belief that this is not the way it *should* be done. It certainly isn't be the OS's responsibility to keep the software up-to-date. In a perfect digital world, every program would exist in its own 'bubble'.

This is exactly what many OSes have tried (and usually failed) to do!

One of my teachers once said "Every lazy step is a hacker's exploit." I'm inclined to believe him, because I've seen proof.

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

... Some people have no idea what they're doing, and are really good at it!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

Hello McDoob!

On 31 Mar 2022, McDoob said the following...

From my experience, yes...That's exactly what 'Exec Min' does.

Sounds great!

Currently, I have two 'Hourly' events, one to poll fsxNet, and another
to poll Fidonet. The fsxNet event is set for :00 because fsxNet is
simply better, and the Fidonet poll is set at :05 because it deserves to wait another five minutes. (o_-)

:-D

Best regards
Zip

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/03/22 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)

Hello 2twisty!

Thank you for your reply!

On 31 Mar 2022, 2twisty said the following...

But, do the Hourly events allow you to specify the exact minute on wh they should be run every hour?

(It appears that it might do exactly that -- see McDoob's reply to me. :-D)

I think I have a solution for this for Linux users -- and I'm sure you coul set it up with task scheduler.

Set up a semaphore event for anything you want to trigger that
precisely, then use cron to "touch" the semaphore file.

Actually my hourly poll event here (in Mystic) runs "touch", which creates a semaphore, which another event (in Mystic) picks up, which calls an external script to create BSO poll files etc. (as I run binkd here for the binkp protocol).

Whenever possible, I try to use semaphores in some way, as it gives an easy way to launch things from another source (cron jobs etc.).

Best regards
Zip

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/03/22 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)