[Mailman-Users] Getting "-1 moderator request(s) waiting" messages from cron checkdbs

[David J. Biesack]

We've configured, built, and installed Mailman 2.1.5 (for a gforge 4.0 installation) on RedHat Linux 9.

  ./configure --with-mail-gid='mail --with-cgi-gid='apache' --with-urlhost=lists.gforge.unx.sas.com --with-mailhost=gforge.unx.sas.com
  make install
  ....
  cd /usr/local/mailman
  ./bin/check_perms
  No problems found

Most Mailman functions are working as expected.

Once I got the cron jobs running (under userid mailman) and created a few mailing lists (via gforge), I'm getting these strange emails each morning:

   Subject: -1 sas9ra-commits moderator request(s) waiting

The mail includes a Mailman admin link, but when I go there, there is nothing to approve/moderate.
I'm getting these messages for 6 different Mailman lists.

I did some digging around. The emails are coming from a Mailman cron job, installed as part of Mailman 2.1.5 under the userid 'mailman' :

    # crontab -l | head -4
    # At 8AM every day, mail reminders to admins as to pending requests.
    # They are less likely to ignore these reminders if they're mailed
    # early in the morning, but of course, this is local time... ;)
    0 8 * * * /usr/bin/python -S /usr/local/mailman/cron/checkdbs

That job (checkdbs) calls the MailList object

     count = mlist.NumRequestsPending()

which is defined in ListAdmin.py :


    def NumRequestsPending(self):
    self.__opendb()
    # Subtrace one for the version pseudo-entry
    return len(self.__db) - 1

Apparently, len(self.__db) is returning 0, not 1 as expected; I do not know what the "version pseudo-entry" refers to. Is something not configured correctly if I'm missing this version pseudo-entry? 

A complete email message is below:

    Subject: -1 Sas9ra-commits moderator request(s) waiting
    From: sas9ra-commits-bounces at reuse1.unx.sas.com
    /> To: sas9ra-commits-owner at reuse1.unx.sas.com
    /> Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:00:00 -0500

    The Sas9ra-commits at lists.gforge.unx.sas.com mailing list has -1
    request(s) waiting for your consideration at:

    http://lists.gforge.unx.sas.com/mailman/admindb/sas9ra-commits

    Please attend to this at your earliest convenience. This notice of
    pending requests, if any, will be sent out daily.

Thanks

-- 
David J. Biesack     SAS Institute Inc.
(919) 531-7771       SAS Campus Drive
http://www.sas.com   Cary, NC 27513