It is set to "Warning". Is that more or less severe than "Informational"?

A warning is more severe than informational and that means that Info-level messages would *not* be written to the sbbsecho.log. I recommend you change that back to the default (info) or if/when you're having issues, you change it
to Debug.

I don't suspect that I changed it as I would have had no reason to and was
not even aware of that setting until this conversation. I suspect it has been set that way, by default, since I first installed synchronet ~20 years ago.

I will set it to the more recent default.

They were written in
the terminal window when sbbsecho was run manually but, in normal operation, they do *not* show up on the sbbs console or in syslog.

Correct, because you changed the log level from info to warning which instructed SBBSecho to only log warnings and errors to the sbbsecho.log file.

So it will show up in the sbbs console, and the syslog, if set to "informational"?

SBBSecho is behaving exactly as designed and documented, it appears to me.

That might be but if sbbsecho is getting a "lock" on a non-existant file
(which it should be able to tell because it cannot find the proper time to display - it displays ??:??), I would strongly suggest the message in that
case is more than just "informational"... there *is* something wrong that *will* require intervention if you want mail to keep flowing.


* SLMR 2.1a * This just in: Research causes cancer in rats!
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þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

Re: sbbsecho issue
By: Dumas Walker to DIGITAL MAN on Thu Sep 11 2025 11:31 am

So it will show up in the sbbs console, and the syslog, if set to "informational"?

Correct.

SBBSecho is behaving exactly as designed and documented, it appears to me.

That might be but if sbbsecho is getting a "lock" on a non-existant file (which it should be able to tell because it cannot find the proper time to display - it displays ??:??), I would strongly suggest the message in that case is more than just "informational"... there *is* something wrong that *will* require intervention if you want mail to keep flowing.

The "Node (x) external locked ..." messages is actually NOTICE (not INFO) level already. But you had your Log Level set to WARNING.

The "Giving up after ..." log message is a WARNING level already, so that would be found in your sbbsecho.log file with how you had it configured.
--
digital man (rob)

Steven Wright quote #22:
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
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So it will show up in the sbbs console, and the syslog, if set to "informational"?

Correct.

Thanks. As I had mentioned running it manually from a terminal, I wanted to
be sure we were both talking about the sbbs console and not the terminal console.


* SLMR 2.1a * True Multitasking = 3 PCs and a chair with wheels!
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þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

Re: sbbsecho issue
By: Dumas Walker to DIGITAL MAN on Fri Sep 12 2025 10:07 am

So it will show up in the sbbs console, and the syslog, if set to "informational"?

Correct.

Thanks. As I had mentioned running it manually from a terminal, I wanted to be sure we were both talking about the sbbs console and not the terminal console.

Sorry, yes, in the case of SBBSecho, the log file is sbbsecho.log (or whatever you have configured), not syslog. And sbbsecho output doesn't go to the "sbbs console" either. Still, the configured log level determines what log messages will go to the log file.
--
digital man (rob)

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #55:
MQTT = Message Queue Telemetry Transport Protocol
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