Since you used the -a switch for ls, the current directory '.' i.e. work/ is included in the list. I have the same kind of output. No worries.

Are you experiencing problems with ELOG?

 I've a little experience of digging myself out of (in my case, self-induced) problems using ELOG.   I'm also aware that I may be the least experienced/qualified user..

First:  Archive your work directories.  Then at least whatever you do from here, you've got the status quo to fall back on.  Also, record anything you can remember (ID number, thread, etc) of the deleted entry/entries.

I've found that ELOG can hang in an infinite loop if it tries to find an entry that is no longer there - and that depends upon how you approach the point where the missing entry would be.  ELOG's own delete works fine in normal circumstances.  I'm talking about abnormal circumstances, for example when idiots (me) are playing around with the yymmdda.log files, or *possibly* if the disk is full, and you then try deleting the entry that caused the full disk problem.  Whether that is what you are seeing, I cannot say at present. 

However, to progress this:  When you are stuck, unable to edit anything, in a[nother] terminal, try the process report

ps -A

two or three times, with a short interval between commands.  (Or other switches if you know how to select to view the elogd process on your system).   If elogd is using seconds of CPU time between each ps command, it's probably in an infinite loop.  If you need to be sure, wait a minute and check again.  If so, you'll have to stop the daemon, possibly requiring a computer reboot.  In my experience, ELOG does not get stuck in an infinite loop when just indexing the pages when the daemon starts, but experts may well know better.

This may at least diagnose whether you cannot edit because ELOG is stuck in an infinite loop, or has some other cause.

If it is the infinite loop, the trick is to find which entry causes the loop without getting stuck in that loop next time around. 

David Pilgram.

 Hi David,

you have been very helpful indeed. The problem was the one you spot, I've deleted the  buggy entry removing the ***.log file, and this caused disaster..... now it is working again, thanks a lot, I have all my PhD thesis in ELOG....

Sara

Don't get too excited yet!

When you reply to an entry in ELOG, then some additional data is added to that original entry. 

So, if you reply today (say 02/06/11) to an entry made yesterday, then you will find that the file 110602a.log has a large change (the new entry in full, plus elog extra codes), *and* an additional line added into 110601a.log.  Deleting 110602a.log will not remove the line in 110601a.log, and that could still cause problems, that is, wandering into an infinite loop.

To save a lot of effort, I'll suggest that you (a) keep the back-ups up to date, and keep two (the latest and the one before that); (b) proceed carefully at least to start with.  If you fall into the infinite loop again, then flag it up and I (or someone else) will be able to give further pointers.

David Pilgram.

So unless you are sure that

The number of entries is not limited. But if there are very many entries, searching can get a bit slow. We have installations with ~100'000 entries and they work still fine. 

Soren, you're not alone!  I've had similar problems, as did Sara Vanini (elog:67077).

In my case, it is because the "move" or "copy" function does not move all the messages in very long threads.   To be more precise, elog will crash in the attempt to move a long thread - say over 40 replies, I don't know for sure.  Sometimes it has already moved the entire thread before it crashes, sometimes not.  I'd not flagged it up as an issue because I could not be sure it was not a memory issue with the old (>12 years) linux box I was using earlier this year, but it still happens on this new (to me, only 3 years old) linux box.

Whether it is the number of entries, the total memory size of the thread or some combination, I don't know.

I've found that in the "move" case, it has not deleted all the messages from the donor thread, so that there is a semi-thread still hidden there.  Should one by chance select that semi-thread, (because it is found during a search) elog goes into infinate loop, which requires a reboot of this linux box to fix.   Certainly the pinning down the issue to the missing entry referenced by an <i>In reply to:</i> explains this part of the issue.  Of course, deletion of one entry within a thread, or other adjustments will do the same thing, just as you (Soren) point out above.

If it happens to me, I will go in to the yymmdda.log files and fix the problem, be it deleting the entries of the semi-thread, moving across missing entries from the donor to the acceptor logbooks, adjusting the <i>Reply:</i> and <i>In reply to:</i> lines, but that is quite a time consuming and error prone exercise.

This functionality was not implemented. I added it in SVN revision #2420, so it will be contained in the next release.