As part of the prelogin for Mystic, we execute the MPL program "Bulletin" as such
bulletin bulletin bullet check

The problem I have with the latest, Mystic 1.12 Alpha 47 on Raspberry Pi is the check for new bulletins doesn't seem to work. In fact, it doesn't seem to run.
I createa new bulleting (bullet6.ans) and update bulletin.asc in my theme directory
/mystic/themes/neon/text/bulletin.asc

I have "(GX) Execute MPL program" in the prelogin menu, with "bulletin bulletin bullet check" in data, but if I createa new bulletin in the themes text directory, it doesn't get picked up on login as a new bulletin. It doesn't appear the check is run at all. I can see the check for New Electronic Mail, but there is no indication that a check for new bulletins occurs. I recall that I would see this check even if there were no bulletins.

Nothing appears in the error log about this. I upgraded from A46 to A47, and I think this is when this check stopped working.

Is there a way to run this MPL program manually? If I can do that, I can see if there is an error or something blocking it from running. At least then, I can start troubleshooting.

... Dennis

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Re: Bulletin MPL program
By: Dennis Katsonis to All on Fri Jan 21 2022 12:09 pm

As part of the prelogin for Mystic, we execute the MPL program "Bulletin" as such
bulletin bulletin bullet check

The problem I have with the latest, Mystic 1.12 Alpha 47 on Raspberry Pi is check for new bulletins doesn't seem to work. In fact, it doesn't seem to r
I createa new bulleting (bullet6.ans) and update bulletin.asc in my theme directory
/mystic/themes/neon/text/bulletin.asc

I have "(GX) Execute MPL program" in the prelogin menu, with "bulletin bulle bullet check" in data, but if I createa new bulletin in the themes text directory, it doesn't get picked up on login as a new bulletin. It doesn't appear the check is run at all. I can see the check for New Electronic Mail but there is no indication that a check for new bulletins occurs. I recall that I would see this check even if there were no bulletins.

Nothing appears in the error log about this. I upgraded from A46 to A47, an think this is when this check stopped working.

Is there a way to run this MPL program manually? If I can do that, I can se if there is an error or something blocking it from running. At least then, can start troubleshooting.

... Dennis

I have found I can run it manually, but it doesn't detect that the files are newer than the user last login date.

FindFirst (Root + PreFix + '*.*', 63);

While DosError = 0 Do Begin
If DirTime > UserLastOn And Upper(Copy(DirName, 1, Pos('.', DirName) - 1)) <

'BULLETIN' Then Begin

InStr := Copy(DirName, 7, Pos('.', DirName) - 7) + ' '


Is there a way to print the "DirTime"? I'm not too familiar with Python, but I suspect this is where things are going wrong. The DirTime and UserLastOn are not what they are expected to be.
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Re: Bulletin MPL program
By: Dennis Katsonis to All on Fri Jan 21 2022 01:13 pm

FindFirst (Root + PreFix + '*.*', 63);

While DosError = 0 Do Begin
If DirTime > UserLastOn And Upper(Copy(DirName, 1, Pos('.', DirName) - 1 <

'BULLETIN' Then Begin

InStr := Copy(DirName, 7, Pos('.', DirName) - 7) + ' '

I have found that changing "UserLastOn" to "DateU2D(UserLastON)" seems to bring about the desired behaiviour.
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Nothing appears in the error log about this. I upgraded from A46 to
A47, and I think this is when this check stopped working.

Did you follow the update instructions in upgrade.txt for A47? There is a step specifically for the default bulletin MPL program:

- If you use the default bulletin system (bulletin.mps) then you should
replace it with the newer one otherwise you will probably get an error
trying to compile it:

install extract bulletin.mps c:\mystic\themes\default\scripts

Afterwards you will need to recompile it using "mplc -t"

Is there a way to run this MPL program manually? If I can do that, I
can see if there is an error or something blocking it from running. At least then, I can start troubleshooting.

You can run MPL programs from the command line if you wanted to, but first lets confirm the above step. It looks like the upgrade instruction steps actually tell you to run "mplc -t" before the step to copy over the new bulletin.mps so that could explain it too.

... Reward for a job well done: More work

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/01/19 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 * Mystic WHQ (1:129/215)

You can run MPL programs from the command line if you wanted to

I wasn't aware that this was possible. I can't run my programs in MIDE,
either. Perhaps because I'm working in Linux? The only way I've figured out
how to test my programs is by adding it to a menu and running it from within the BBS.

Trying to simply enter './test.mpx' from command line does not work. Could
you please elaborate on this? I'd very much prefer to test my programs
without putting potential bugs onto PiBBS. :)

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (1:229/110)

g00r00 wrote to Dennis Katsonis <=-

@MSGID: <61EAECFE.92.fidomystic@bbs.mozysswamp.org>
@REPLY: <61EA07E7.88.fidomystic@bbs.mozysswamp.org>

Nothing appears in the error log about this. I upgraded from A46 to
A47, and I think this is when this check stopped working.

Did you follow the update instructions in upgrade.txt for A47? There
is a step specifically for the default bulletin MPL program:

- If you use the default bulletin system (bulletin.mps) then you
should
replace it with the newer one otherwise you will probably get an
error
trying to compile it:

install extract bulletin.mps c:\mystic\themes\default\scripts

Afterwards you will need to recompile it using "mplc -t"

Is there a way to run this MPL program manually? If I can do that, I
can see if there is an error or something blocking it from running. At least then, I can start troubleshooting.

You can run MPL programs from the command line if you wanted to, but
first lets confirm the above step. It looks like the upgrade
instruction steps actually tell you to run "mplc -t" before the step to copy over the new bulletin.mps so that could explain it too.

... Reward for a job well done: More work

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/01/19 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 * Mystic WHQ (1:129/215)

Thanks, I did follow the instructions. With a bit more digging I was able to change a line of code in bulletin.mps to get it to seem to work. See my later follow up post. A bug in bulletin.mps perhaps?

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You can run MPL programs from the command line if you wanted to

I wasn't aware that this was possible. I can't run my programs in MIDE, either. Perhaps because I'm working in Linux? The only way I've figured out how to test my programs is by adding it to a menu and running it
from within the BBS.

Sorry for the delay getting back to you. I accidetally removed MYSTIC from my subscribed areas so it wasn't showing up in my newscan!

If you want to run from MIDE you have to set the Mystic install location, and the user/password you want to run the program as in MIDE's configuration. You also have to make sure you have access rights to execute Mystic.

Trying to simply enter './test.mpx' from command line does not work.

./mystic "-uMy User" "-pMyPassword" "-x/mystic/myscript.mpx"

Again you have to make sure your accesses are done right if you are using Linux.

... The shortest distance between two points is under construction

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/01/28 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 * Mystic WHQ (1:129/215)