Connection problems

[Dr J E Hurley]

We are experiencing an intermittent fault with connection where the machine
goes into a long frozen period when the news server is connected, followed
by a beep disconnection and the machine hung. Is anyone else experiencing
anything similar, or should we investigate our connection / modem / RPC. Any
suggestions?

[pv]

Post by Dr J E Hurley
We are experiencing an intermittent fault with connection where the
machine goes into a long frozen period when the news server is connected,
followed by a beep disconnection and the machine hung. Is anyone else
experiencing anything similar, or should we investigate our connection /
modem / RPC. Any suggestions?

Is this only with news connections?

Everything appears to be ok this end. My machine fetches news every 15
minutes and it's been regularly fetching news with no delays this morning.

regards,
Paul

[Stanley Buchan]

Post by Dr J E Hurley

Post by Dr J E Hurley
We are experiencing an intermittent fault with connection where the
machine goes into a long frozen period when the news server is

connected,

Post by Dr J E Hurley
followed by a beep disconnection and the machine hung. Is anyone else
experiencing anything similar, or should we investigate our connection /
modem / RPC. Any suggestions?

Is this only with news connections?
Everything appears to be ok this end. My machine fetches news every 15
minutes and it's been regularly fetching news with no delays this morning.
regards,
Paul
Hi Paul

The same problem is occurring with me both yesterday and today. After
waiting some time with computer frozen I switch off and start again and so
far this works.
Stan Buchan

[Peter Paddison]

With regard to recent correspondence, I am getting a different "freezing"
problem.

This occurs when I have read the news items and on the last one, the machine
freezes when I either delete or hold on file. The problem is intermittent
but very frustrating. It only occurs on news although I did have a once only
problem of the machine freezing while typing an e-mail.

Peter Paddison

[pv]

Post by Peter Paddison
This occurs when I have read the news items and on the last one, the
machine freezes when I either delete or hold on file. The problem is
intermittent but very frustrating. It only occurs on news although I did
have a once only problem of the machine freezing while typing an e-mail.

Status is all ok at this end, but I have had a couple of people report odd
problems with fetching news items, so even though everything appeared to be
working correctly from this end, I've just stopped and restarted the news
server, to see if that makes any difference for some people.

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by pv

Post by Peter Paddison
This occurs when I have read the news items and on the last one, the
machine freezes when I either delete or hold on file. The problem is
intermittent but very frustrating. It only occurs on news although I did
have a once only problem of the machine freezing while typing an e-mail.

Status is all ok at this end, but I have had a couple of people report
odd problems with fetching news items, so even though everything
appeared to be working correctly from this end, I've just stopped and
restarted the news server, to see if that makes any difference for some
people.

I had the email fetch completely lock up on 01 Apr @ 22:52 with Antispam
staying fixed on "resolving", then an error box came up saying something
technical about SMPTE(?) on something.orpheusnet.something which was why
it was unable to fetvh the email.

The machine was completely locked up, so I switched off my modem and used
Alt-Break to stop the email & news fetchers. A few minutes later, I tried
logging on again, and this time everything was peachy.


Tennant

[Bill (Adopt)]

In article <4e112d5e37usenet-***@vigay.com>,
pv <usenet-***@vigay.com> wrote:
[..]

Post by pv
Status is all ok at this end, but I have had a couple of people report odd
problems with fetching news items, so even though everything appeared to be
working correctly from this end, I've just stopped and restarted the news
server, to see if that makes any difference for some people.

Nope.. still no good for alt.coffee, as reported.

The group does exist, (it's one of the 'net's long
established and well supported), as is shown by
the 'articles waiting to download' sort of info that
Newshound's info screen gives...

Newshound then hops over this group - and, being Newshound,
crashes out of the rest of the Orpheus server download.

It continues to download ngs from the SUNsite server
as normal..

..all a bit of a bummer, actually.

Any chance of your SysAdmin looking at this, Paul? There
must be a reason if Giganews is finding a problem downstreaming
to us at Orpheus...?

I've tried, (using Fresco 2.13), to logon onto the Polish
server at news.gazeta.pl as another alternative, but so far
without any joy... the page keeps rejecting for some reason
(probably simple).. but doesn't actually turn 'red' in Fresco
to let me know which of the field(s)it finds problematic..

..mutter, £&%**&$* mutter.. ;))

Bill ZFC

[pv]

Post by Bill (Adopt)
Nope.. still no good for alt.coffee, as reported.
The group does exist, (it's one of the 'net's long established and well
supported), as is shown by the 'articles waiting to download' sort of
info that Newshound's info screen gives...
Newshound then hops over this group - and, being Newshound, crashes out
of the rest of the Orpheus server download.

Have you tried using a different news fetcher? I've noticed that some high
traffic newgroups occasionally get their article pointers reset by one of
the large overseas news servers, which confuses NewsHound.

When this happened to me on a couple of occasions in the past (I can't
reproduce the current problem though), I subsequently found that fetching
with Thunderbird on the Mac had no problems at all, so I presumed it was
something to do with the way Newshound fetches articles.

[Bill (Adopt)]

Post by pv

Post by Bill (Adopt)
Nope.. still no good for alt.coffee, as reported.
The group does exist, (it's one of the 'net's long established and well
supported), as is shown by the 'articles waiting to download' sort of
info that Newshound's info screen gives...
Newshound then hops over this group - and, being Newshound, crashes out
of the rest of the Orpheus server download.

Have you tried using a different news fetcher? I've noticed that some high
traffic newgroups occasionally get their article pointers reset by one of
the large overseas news servers, which confuses NewsHound.

nope.. no other at the moment, except for Newsagent.
(Would be a bugger unstitching that ancien regime,
just for a one-off trial. My Voyager is now like a
rally car ..take the top off and what's underneath
relates little to the original).

Surely when, (as I have done), the pointers have been
reset anyway - ie. ng removed from group active list,
both via Pluto and via Newshound and then re-introduced,
the 'pointers' should be as for a brand new subscription?
(ie things should then reload as if from the very start).

No effect discernable though, in the above scenario.
It's as though alt.coffee has been reset at the server,
not at this end. It's the server that isn't picking
up the feed..

Post by pv
When this happened to me on a couple of occasions in the past (I can't
reproduce the current problem though), I subsequently found that fetching
with Thunderbird on the Mac had no problems at all, so I presumed it was
something to do with the way Newshound fetches articles.

Not sure that Newshound isn't more or less identical
to them all, as regards fetches. They all have to
follow certain protocols, otherwise none would be
able to cooperate with any server they meet on the
'net...???

mmm... thinks! I don't have a Mac to fiddle upon, mind.
I've never used Messenger, or any of bitties used by
Andrew (R), for instance, so not sure what to do here...

Strikes me it's easier, if not always as comprehensive,
to find another backbone or newserver that doesn't arbitrarily
stop streaming individual ngs into the user-side feed...

thinking...

Bill ZFC

..and no, I don't want to go the route of google groups!

[pv]

No effect discernable though, in the above scenario. It's as though
alt.coffee has been reset at the server, not at this end. It's the
server that isn't picking up the feed..

I've just reset the newsgroup alt.coffee so see if that makes any
difference.

The only downside is that any messages sent to the newsgroup will have been
zapped from the Orpheus server, so you won't have any old messages to
download.

[Bill (Adopt)]

Post by pv

No effect discernable though, in the above scenario. It's as though
alt.coffee has been reset at the server, not at this end. It's the
server that isn't picking up the feed..

I've just reset the newsgroup alt.coffee so see if that makes any
difference.

OK ..thanks Paul. Just re-subscribed now (19.10) and
there's nothing to download.. Will try again in a
short while, just in case Orpheus has to go looking
for a complete new set of articles. Will report back
then... :))

Post by pv
The only downside is that any messages sent to the newsgroup will have been
zapped from the Orpheus server, so you won't have any old messages to
download.

There's already some 600/800 articles missing since
Friday early am(ish) - so what's another hundred or
so among fiends..?! ;))

Bill ZFC

[Bill (Adopt)]

Post by pv
I've just reset the newsgroup alt.coffee so see if that makes any
difference.

[..]

Will report back then... :))

OK ..reporting back ..it's now somewhere around 23.30h,
on a dark, windswept, cold and moonlit night, with bats
surrounding the ivy-clung walls of the rooftop garret.

Post by pv
The only downside is that any messages sent to the newsgroup will have
been zapped from the Orpheus server, so you won't have any old messages
to download.

Newshound has just downloaded the last (?) 600 messages,
from around Thursday 30 Mar 06 ..which seems to be most
of those that had so suddenly become unattainable.

Thanks, Paul :))

Bill ZFC

[pv]

Newshound has just downloaded the last (?) 600 messages, from around
Thursday 30 Mar 06 ..which seems to be most of those that had so
suddenly become unattainable.

Hopefully it should all be working again now, because my deleting
everything from our news server (see last message) should have forced the
server to re-cache everything from the upstream server.

[pv]

OK ..thanks Paul. Just re-subscribed now (19.10) and there's nothing to
download.. Will try again in a short while, just in case Orpheus has to
go looking for a complete new set of articles. Will report back
then... :))

No. Unfortunately there won't be any messages to download because I purged
the server when I reset it yesterday, therefore anything before yesterday
will be lost.

You should get new messages though.

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by pv

Post by Peter Paddison
This occurs when I have read the news items and on the last one, the
machine freezes when I either delete or hold on file. The problem is
intermittent but very frustrating. It only occurs on news although I did
have a once only problem of the machine freezing while typing an e-mail.

Status is all ok at this end, but I have had a couple of people report
odd problems with fetching news items, so even though everything
appeared to be working correctly from this end, I've just stopped and
restarted the news server, to see if that makes any difference for some
people.

Both email & news totally failed on 3rd Apr 2006 @ 01:25 although this
time the machine didn't lock up, so I could still use the browser.

As I post this, email & news are working normally.


Tennant

[pv]

Post by Tennant Stuart
time the machine didn't lock up, so I could still use the browser.
As I post this, email & news are working normally.

I suspect the email problem was possibly something at the local end. It
won't have been affected by me fiddling around with the news server because
the news is handled by a completely different server to email.

[Dr J E Hurley]

Post by pv

Post by Tennant Stuart
time the machine didn't lock up, so I could still use the browser.
As I post this, email & news are working normally.

I suspect the email problem was possibly something at the local end. It
won't have been affected by me fiddling around with the news server because
the news is handled by a completely different server to email.

Problem of machine hanging when news fetching recurred yesterday afternoon
around 3 pm for about an hour. This of course has an impact on e-mail
fetching as it seems to occur at the very beginning of the download process.
If it recurs I will switch news fetch off to see if this resolves the
problem and narrows the possible causes.

John

[pv]

Post by Dr J E Hurley
Problem of machine hanging when news fetching recurred yesterday
afternoon around 3 pm for about an hour. This of course has an impact on
e-mail fetching as it seems to occur at the very beginning of the
download process. If it recurs I will switch news fetch off to see if
this resolves the problem and narrows the possible causes.

I think that may be a limitation of Voyager. I use POPstar and Newshound
here, which of course fetch email and news independently of each other, so
a problem on one won't impact the other.

Because they both run automatically on my desktop machine here I know very
soon if anything amiss happens because I'll be alerted within 5 minutes of
a fault anywhere.

Paul

[Russell Hafter News]

Post by pv

Post by Dr J E Hurley
Problem of machine hanging when news fetching recurred
yesterday afternoon around 3 pm for about an hour. This
of course has an impact on e-mail fetching as it seems
to occur at the very beginning of the download process.
If it recurs I will switch news fetch off to see if
this resolves the problem and narrows the possible
causes.

I think that may be a limitation of Voyager. I use
POPstar and Newshound here, which of course fetch email
and news independently of each other, so a problem on one
won't impact the other.
Because they both run automatically on my desktop machine
here I know very soon if anything amiss happens because
I'll be alerted within 5 minutes of a fault anywhere.

Could well be.

I fetch e-mail every 12 minutes; news every hour, and have
noticed no problems recently at all.

What problems there have been have been delays in logging on
the the smtp server (sending e-mail), but nothing in the
last couple of weeks.

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by Dr J E Hurley

Post by pv

Post by Tennant Stuart
time the machine didn't lock up, so I could still use the browser.
As I post this, email & news are working normally.

I suspect the email problem was possibly something at the local end. It
won't have been affected by me fiddling around with the news server
because the news is handled by a completely different server to email.

Problem of machine hanging when news fetching recurred yesterday
afternoon around 3 pm for about an hour. This of course has an impact
on e-mail fetching as it seems to occur at the very beginning of the
download process.

That's right - as I said in my other post, the email fetch completely
locked up with Antispam staying fixed on "resolving", then an error box
came up with something technical about SMPTE(?) on (?).orpheusnet.(?)
which was why it was unable to fetch the email.


Tennant

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by pv

Post by Tennant Stuart
time the machine didn't lock up, so I could still use the browser.
As I post this, email & news are working normally.

I suspect the email problem was possibly something at the local end. It
won't have been affected by me fiddling around with the news server
because the news is handled by a completely different server to email.

So why did email & news fail together?


Tennant

[pv]

Post by Tennant Stuart
So why did email & news fail together?

Blunt (but honest) answer - because Voyager is not very good!

Voyager does things one at a time, therefore if news or email stalls, it
will slow down other things.

Those who use POPstar and Newshound aren't affected by such issues because
they will fetch mail and news independently of each other, so a problem on
one won't affect the other.

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by pv

Post by Tennant Stuart

Post by pv
I suspect the email problem was possibly something at the local end.
It won't have been affected by me fiddling around with the news server
because the news is handled by a completely different server to email.

So why did email & news fail together?

Blunt (but honest) answer - because Voyager is not very good!
Voyager does things one at a time, therefore if news or email stalls,
it will slow down other things.

Well, that can't be so, since most of the time when there's a fault
(which blessedly does not happen often) only one out of email & news
fails, and then the other one simply carries on working as normal.

It seems to me that the fault wasn't something at the local end.


Tennant

[Vic Smith]

I'm having a similar problem, except that it seems to be associated with
trying to send emails. If I delete the outgoing mail and try again
everything works OK

V.N. Smith

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