"Unknown Host" Update, more evidence
Okay it happened again. Attempting to reply to an email through VM &
got the unknown host error. This time I had some things ready.
First I know I can ping it:
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** Ping ** ping ** smtp.intergate.bc.ca
PING smtp.intergate.ca (207.34.179.20): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 207.34.179.20: icmp_seq=0 ttl=253 time=179.1 ms
64 bytes from 207.34.179.20: icmp_seq=1 ttl=253 time=160.0 ms
64 bytes from 207.34.179.20: icmp_seq=2 ttl=253 time=150.7 ms
64 bytes from 207.34.179.20: icmp_seq=3 ttl=253 time=150.2 ms
--- smtp.intergate.ca ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 150.2/160.0/179.1 ms
Process Ping smtp.intergate.bc.ca finished
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and I know I can contact the server via telnet. I found that VM uses
open-network-stream to make a network connection, so I learned a
little elisp and executed the following:
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(setq process
(open-network-stream
"my-test-stream" "*scratch*" "smtp.intergate.bc.ca"
"smtp"))
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and sure enough this paused Emacs for a while and then spit out the
"unknown host" message in the minibuffer. On restarting Emacs and
running this again, it made the connection just fine and the SMTP
greetings line showed up in my scratch buffer.
I've looked at the .el files and know that open-network-stream uses
open-network-stream-internal, which Emacs says is a "built-in
function". I gather that means it's not written in Lisp but is a part
of Emacs itself. It seems more evident than ever that this is a Emacs
problem (bug even!).
I'd look further, but school is like a gas; it expands to consume all
free time. I guess what I'm looking for is someone to concur that
based on these observations it's a problem somewhere inside Emacs and
not something I'm just doing wrong. Solution follows from there ...