[Mailman-Users] UnpicklingError: bad pickle data

[Mark Sapiro]

On 11/12/2016 12:30 PM, Clément Février wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm trying to access the url to admin email waiting for moderation for
> my list staff:
> http://mail.forumanalogue.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/admindb/staff
> I received the following message:
> 
> Bug in Mailman version 2.1.16
...
> I'm running Ubuntu 16.04, in the log file /var/lob/mailman/error, there is
> UnpicklingError: bad pickle data
> (see full log below)
> I tried check_db staff, but it doesn't return anything. I guess this is
> the normal behavior.


check_db only checks the list configuration files lists/staff/config.*


> I don't know what this error means nor how to fix it.


It means the lists/staff/request.pck file is corrupt. This file holds
information about the outstanding moderator requests for the list.

If you just remove the file, it will be recreated in an initialized
state, but you will lose any outstanding requests. These could be held
messages, subscriptions or unsubscriptions.

If you have a backup that's not corrupt, you could restore it, but if it
contains requests that have already been handled, that could be a problem.

If you aren't concerned about held (un)subscription requests, you could
see if there are any data/heldmsg-staff-*.pck files. If not, there are
no held messages for the staff list. If so, you can still delete the
corrupt lists/staff/request.pck file and use the script at
<https://www.msapiro.net/scripts/hold_again> (mirrored at
<https://fog.ccsf.edu/~msapiro/scripts/hold_again>) to reprocess those
messages.

> 
> Full log:
> 
...
> admin(18405):     self.__opendb()
> admin(18405):   File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/ListAdmin.py", line 86,
> in __opendb
> admin(18405):     self.__db = cPickle.load(fp)
> admin(18405): UnpicklingError: bad pickle data


-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan