[Mailman-Users] HELP! Just broke Mailman with a bogus list.

[Mark Sapiro]

On 03/07/2018 10:31 AM, The Mailing List Server Admin wrote:
> I just added a new list where I wanted to experiment with the
> topics feature.  But after adding the list, the list_lists
> utility no longer works:
> 
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>   File "/home/mladmin/Util/MM2/list_lists", line 130, in <module>
>>     main()
>>   File "/home/mladmin/Util/MM2/list_lists", line 100, in main
>>     mlist = MailList.MailList(n, lock=0)
>>   File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 131, in
>>   __init__
>>     self.Load()
>>   File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 698, in
>>   Load
>>     self.CheckValues()
>>   File "/usr/local/mailman/Mailman/MailList.py", line 780, in
>>   CheckValues
>>     for name, pattern, desc, emptyflag in self.topics:
>> ValueError: too many values to unpack


It is not clear what went wrong or how or why, but there is bad data in
this list's topics attribute.

To "fix" the problem just move the lists/LISTNAME directory containing
the config.pck and perhaps a few other files out of the lists/ directory.

However, I would be interested in knowing what's wrong and how it
happened. Unfortunately, this issue probably prevents even running
withlist on this list. I.e., Mailman's 'bin/withlist LISTNAME' will
probably throw the same error.

You could help me however by sending me off list the
lists/LISTNAME/config.pck and lists/LISTNAME/config.pck.last files, and
also, if you can recall, telling what you entered in the list's topics
that precipitated this.

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