Connection problems

[G Robin Edwards]

Are there more troubles with Argonet this evening?

I connected with no trouble an hour or so ago.

Now, at 21.50 approx I have made three attempts and things come to a
total halt at the point when Voyager displays "Connecting socket"

The only solution is repeated ALT/BRK to kill Voyager.

I've done exactly nothing to the machine since my successful connection
except use up several lots of phone bills for nothing :-(

Don't know why I'm writing this! It may be impossible to send it ;-)

Well, I'll try anyway, casually donating more pennies to BT.

Robin

[John Edgley]

Post by G Robin Edwards
Are there more troubles with Argonet this evening?

I have 20 emails that will not download. Have deselected 'transport mail on
quick fetch' and gone into webmail. Lots of activity on modem and hard disc,
but get no email info and after 10 minutes get Error: Could not complete
request Query:Sort (from) iso-8859-1 all. Reason Given: Timeout whle
waiting for lock to index of mailbox INBOX

Despite quich fetch being off Voyager continues to download multiple copies
of the first three emails waiting, but not the other 17.

Any ideas?
John Edgley

[Ben Crick]

Post by John Edgley
Despite quich fetch being off Voyager continues to download multiple
copies of the first three emails waiting, but not the other 17.

I had this problem a couple of years ago. It was caused by an overlong
email with four large JPEGs attached. It took about 45 mins to
download on dialup; then "Connection lost, timed out or refused".
Each time I tried to download the remaining 100 or so emails in the
queue, the same thing happened. I could not get past the ultra
long one.

The solution was to load up Webmail, and inspect the contents of
my inbox. Marking and deleting the three already downloaded several
times solved the problem.

You may connect to Webmail at http://email.orpheusnet.co.uk
using your normal POP3 username and password (as supplied by PV
when you signed on for Orpheus). The server for fetching Orpheus
emails is pop.orpheusnet.co.uk

Hope this helps.

Ben

[John Edgley]

Post by Ben Crick

Post by John Edgley
Despite quich fetch being off Voyager continues to download multiple
copies of the first three emails waiting, but not the other 17.

I had this problem a couple of years ago. It was caused by an overlong

Ben
Thanks - I had done this but realised I had not correctly selected 'disable
mail usage'.

Note for Paul - I am sure Webmail used to give file lengths - not there any
more?

Regards, John

[pv]

Post by John Edgley
Note for Paul - I am sure Webmail used to give file lengths - not there
any more?

It still does, but it's configurable and by default is turned off.

If you login to webmail and then go into the preferences/choices you can
edit the display settings. It will then store it for future use.

[John Edgley]

Post by pv

Post by John Edgley
Note for Paul - I am sure Webmail used to give file lengths - not there
any more?

It still does, but it's configurable and by default is turned off.
If you login to webmail and then go into the preferences/choices you can
edit the display settings. It will then store it for future use.

Paul

Thanks for the info - but I cannot find preferences/choices. There is
options/display preferences - but no reference there to quoting file size.

Regards
John

[Colin Matthews]

Post by John Edgley
Thanks for the info - but I cannot find preferences/choices.
There is options/display preferences - but no reference there to
quoting file size.

There's a default for showing the size of attachments - which is in
effect all you need - but I don't think the size of the email as a
whole is given.

Colin

[pv]

Post by John Edgley
Thanks for the info - but I cannot find preferences/choices. There is
options/display preferences - but no reference there to quoting file size.

Sorry. My mistake (I don't use WebMail much myself!).

It's in the Options, then click on 'Index order', you can then index the
order of the columns displayed as well as add or remove columns.
You want to add a 'size' column if it's not already turned on.

Paul

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by G Robin Edwards
Are there more troubles with Argonet this evening?
I connected with no trouble an hour or so ago.
Now, at 21.50 approx I have made three attempts and things come to a
total halt at the point when Voyager displays "Connecting socket"
The only solution is repeated ALT/BRK to kill Voyager.
I've done exactly nothing to the machine since my successful connection
except use up several lots of phone bills for nothing :-(
Don't know why I'm writing this! It may be impossible to send it ;-)
Well, I'll try anyway, casually donating more pennies to BT.

The same thing is happening to me, in about one third of my connections
to Orpheus. Sometimes it's the email fetch, other times it's the news,
and rarely it's both. Rest of the time everything works perfectly.

Paul Vigay says there's nothing wrong with Orpheus, and blames my S/W.


Tennant Stuart

[Dr Peter Young]

Post by Tennant Stuart

Post by G Robin Edwards
Are there more troubles with Argonet this evening?
I connected with no trouble an hour or so ago.
Now, at 21.50 approx I have made three attempts and things come to a
total halt at the point when Voyager displays "Connecting socket"
The only solution is repeated ALT/BRK to kill Voyager.
I've done exactly nothing to the machine since my successful connection
except use up several lots of phone bills for nothing :-(
Don't know why I'm writing this! It may be impossible to send it ;-)
Well, I'll try anyway, casually donating more pennies to BT.

The same thing is happening to me, in about one third of my connections
to Orpheus. Sometimes it's the email fetch, other times it's the news,
and rarely it's both. Rest of the time everything works perfectly.
Paul Vigay says there's nothing wrong with Orpheus, and blames my S/W.

IMHO it's more probably the line, or at any rate somewhere between you
and Orpheus. When was on dial-up I repeatedly got the sort of
problems people have been describing. With broadband, in the last few
days, I've been getting patches of very slow transmission of data from
time to time, so I suspect something is wrong out there somewhere.
However, my understanding of these things is so deficient that I
wouldn't know what or where.

With best wishes,

Peter.

[Russell Hafter News]

Post by Dr Peter Young

Post by Tennant Stuart

Post by G Robin Edwards
Don't know why I'm writing this! It may be impossible
to send it ;-)
Well, I'll try anyway, casually donating more pennies
to BT.

The same thing is happening to me, in about one third
of my connections to Orpheus. Sometimes it's the email
fetch, other times it's the news, and rarely it's both.
Rest of the time everything works perfectly.
Paul Vigay says there's nothing wrong with Orpheus, and
blames my S/W.

Surely if the problem were with Orpheus it would be
happening to everyone. Since only a few of you are
suffering, the problem must be elsewhere.

Rather like Paul, my machine connects to my Orpheus e-mail
every 12 minutes when the machine is on. It also connects
to 9 other e-mail servers, and complains if any of them do
not respond. Most of them have odd minutes of downtime
during some days, but recently there have been no glitches
at all at Orpheus, while several of the others have had
problem periods. A couple of days ago PlusNet e-mail was
down for most of the day, yesterday Totalise's was off for
a few hours. Long enough for me to be putting in
alternative reply-to addresses at Orpheus so that I could
be sure to get prompt replies!

Post by Dr Peter Young
IMHO it's more probably the line, or at any rate
somewhere between you and Orpheus. When was on dial-up
I repeatedly got the sort of problems people have been
describing.

I did not see this, but in the latter days I hardly ever
dialled into Argonet; I usually connected via Tiscali or
PlusNet.

Post by Dr Peter Young
With broadband, in the last few days, I've been getting
patches of very slow transmission of data from time to
time, so I suspect something is wrong out there somewhere.

I sometimes see these, but I have assumed that they are as
likely to be the server at the far end as the line.

Post by Dr Peter Young
However, my understanding of these things is so deficient
that I wouldn't know what or where.

Indeed.

[pv]

day, yesterday Totalise's was off for a few hours. Long enough for me to
be putting in alternative reply-to addresses at Orpheus so that I could
be sure to get prompt replies!

:-)

I think the problem is either with Voyager and it's (archaic) modem drivers
(Voyager should always be set to use Generic Hayes 1 with orpheus, as most
BT exchanges now automatically sense settings) or actual line quality from
individual exchanges.

My machines here are constantly connected to Orpheus so I know within
minutes if anything occurs to our servers, which are very reliable. I don't
think we've had *any* unscheduled downtime since we started Orpheus.

However, if something glitches out between a user and the local exchange,
of course you won't be able to fetch email or anything. The best way of
testing the actual connection is to see if you can still visit websites ok
(for example, BBC or Google). If you /can/ still visit those, but can't
fetch email (or vice versa) then that helps narrow the problem down, in
which case contact support (either via email or phone - if the problem is
with email!)

I did not see this, but in the latter days I hardly ever dialled into
Argonet; I usually connected via Tiscali or PlusNet.

To be perfectly honest, pretty much all 0845 connections should be the
same, as virtually all ISPs use BT for the actual number/line provisioning.

I sometimes see these, but I have assumed that they are as likely to be
the server at the far end as the line.

If ADSL speeds fluctuate, it's likely to be load at the local exchange end.
I've been monitoring our central pipe (ie. main backbone connection to our
servers in London) and it's been well within server capacity. The only time
our mail server slows down a bit is when it gets hit by a massive spam or
DoS attack, which has only happened about twice, which resulted in a slight
delay in connections.
However, the speed of our servers in London is independent of individual
users ADSL speeds, in which case the bottleneck is likely to be the local
exchange.

Paul

[Alexr]

Post by pv
However, if something glitches out between a user and the local
exchange, of course you won't be able to fetch email or anything. The
best way of testing the actual connection is to see if you can still
visit websites ok (for example, BBC or Google). If you /can/ still visit
those, but can't fetch email (or vice versa) then that helps narrow the
problem down, in which case contact support (either via email or phone -
if the problem is with email!)

I guess there must have been a glitch in the post local exchange system
around midnight on Saturday, when I had my first complete unexplained
connection failure under Orpheus. Dialled up (from St Albans) at 00:02
Sunday 16th, connection established, then POP3 timed out on resolving, and
on trying for Orpheusnet, BBC and Google websites these were also
unavailable. Disconnected and tried again with the same results. When I
tried again in the morning at 09.00, no problems.

I have not had the recurrent problems reported by some Vayager users.
However I did have some early problems with ANT suite with both mail and
news set to fetch on connection, when ANT would on occasion collapse
completely with a fatal internal error during the combined download.
However after changing news fetch to user request have had no further
recurrent problems. Random examples of authentication failure, and timing
out in the middle of downloading both mail and news fetches, have occurred
but are rare.

Alex.

* Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by Dr Peter Young

Post by Tennant Stuart

Post by G Robin Edwards
Are there more troubles with Argonet this evening?
I connected with no trouble an hour or so ago.
Now, at 21.50 approx I have made three attempts and things come to a
total halt at the point when Voyager displays "Connecting socket"
The only solution is repeated ALT/BRK to kill Voyager.
I've done exactly nothing to the machine since my successful connection
except use up several lots of phone bills for nothing :-(
Don't know why I'm writing this! It may be impossible to send it ;-)
Well, I'll try anyway, casually donating more pennies to BT.

The same thing is happening to me, in about one third of my connections
to Orpheus. Sometimes it's the email fetch, other times it's the news,
and rarely it's both. Rest of the time everything works perfectly.
Paul Vigay says there's nothing wrong with Orpheus, and blames my S/W.

IMHO it's more probably the line, or at any rate somewhere between you
and Orpheus. When was on dial-up I repeatedly got the sort of
problems people have been describing. With broadband, in the last few
days, I've been getting patches of very slow transmission of data from
time to time, so I suspect something is wrong out there somewhere.
However, my understanding of these things is so deficient that I
wouldn't know what or where.

You're probably right, Peter, although it's strange that Orpheus these
days always gets stuck *after* logging-in and authorisation.

I've just had it get stuck on email again, so I disconnected the modem,
then logged back in. Both email & news worked as sweet as pie.


Tennant

[Dr Peter Young]

[snip]

Post by Tennant Stuart

Post by Dr Peter Young
IMHO it's more probably the line, or at any rate somewhere between you
and Orpheus. When was on dial-up I repeatedly got the sort of
problems people have been describing. With broadband, in the last few
days, I've been getting patches of very slow transmission of data from
time to time, so I suspect something is wrong out there somewhere.
However, my understanding of these things is so deficient that I
wouldn't know what or where.

You're probably right, Peter, although it's strange that Orpheus these
days always gets stuck *after* logging-in and authorisation.

FWIW that used to happen to me on dial-up, as well as repeated
failures of authorisation.

With best wishes,

Peter.

[pv]

FWIW that used to happen to me on dial-up, as well as repeated failures
of authorisation.

The weird thing is that if it /was/ the line or local exchange, then I
would expect it to affect broadband connections as well as dialup.

This leads me to think that it's some subtle configuration setting on
Voyager somewhere, possibly coupled with the modem driver or modem settings.

According to some of my own investigations, when I can repeat Voyager
connection problems, they don't occur at all if I immediately switch to
Dialup or Ant Suite, which again points to something odd within Voyager
itself.

Of course, switching to broadband would also remove Voyager from the
equation, so that could be what's appearing to fix the problem.

[Alan Griffin]

Post by Tennant Stuart
You're probably right, Peter, although it's strange that Orpheus these
days always gets stuck *after* logging-in and authorisation.

Yes. Mine does that too.
When I do an alt/break, first of all it disconnects the news-fetcher, but
the computer remains frozen. When I do it a second time, and disconnect
the mail-fetcher, the computer unfreezes. Usually, if I then restart the
computer, everything works.

Alan Griffin

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by Alan Griffin

Post by Tennant Stuart
You're probably right, Peter, although it's strange that Orpheus these
days always gets stuck *after* logging-in and authorisation.

Yes. Mine does that too.

Ah, another troubled user whom Russell Hafter Holidays disbelieves in.

Mind you, I've had no problems for a couple of days, so fingers crossed
that this message will now get posted, and also my email will arrive.

Post by Alan Griffin
When I do an alt/break, first of all it disconnects the news-fetcher, but
the computer remains frozen. When I do it a second time, and disconnect
the mail-fetcher, the computer unfreezes. Usually, if I then restart the
computer, everything works.

If you're careful Alan, it's possible to keep Fresco running, and so
surf the net without wasting the 4p that was paid to log in. :-)


Tennant

[Russell Hafter News]

Post by Tennant Stuart
Ah, another troubled user whom Russell Hafter Holidays
disbelieves in.

I do not disbelieve that you have problems. I just do not
believe that those problems are down to Orpheus. Why should
their servers work fine for most of us, but not infrequently
for a few?

Surely this would only be possible if the servers were
configured to cause problems with certain login streams
only.

Post by Tennant Stuart

Post by Alan Griffin
When I do an alt/break, first of all it disconnects the
news-fetcher, but the computer remains frozen. When I
do it a second time, and disconnect the mail-fetcher,
the computer unfreezes. Usually, if I then restart the
computer, everything works.

If you're careful Alan, it's possible to keep Fresco
running, and so surf the net without wasting the 4p that
was paid to log in. :-)

Which means that you /are/ connected to Orpheus OK, but that
for some reason you have problems with the mail and news
software that you are using.

[Alan Griffin]

Post by Russell Hafter News

Post by Tennant Stuart
If you're careful Alan, it's possible to keep Fresco
running, and so surf the net without wasting the 4p that
was paid to log in. :-)

Which means that you /are/ connected to Orpheus OK, but that
for some reason you have problems with the mail and news
software that you are using.

Yes, but the point is that this has only started happening recently.
It can't be that something has gone wrong with my software, because it is
also happening to other people, so it must be caused by something exterior
to our computers.

Alan Griffin

[pv]

Yes, but the point is that this has only started happening recently. It
can't be that something has gone wrong with my software, because it is
also happening to other people, so it must be caused by something
exterior to our computers.

I'm very concerned that some people are having problems but I can only
deduce that it must be something geographical or limited to a local
exchange somewhere.

I've tested everything here and everything at Orpheus is definitely working
100% (and actually very reliable). I've also escalated the problems to our
engineers who have reported them to BT. No fault has been found anywhere
and BT claim that all lines are functioning normally.

I can only guess that it's either something at particular local exchanges,
the gain on individual lines or a modem/software driver problem.

It is definitely not an Orpheus problem, but I /am/ endeavouring to track
down the route of the local problem some people are having. :-(

[G Robin Edwards]

Post by pv

Post by Alan Griffin
Yes, but the point is that this has only started happening recently.
It can't be that something has gone wrong with my software, because
it is also happening to other people, so it must be caused by
something exterior to our computers.

I'm very concerned that some people are having problems but I can only
deduce that it must be something geographical or limited to a local
exchange somewhere.
I've tested everything here and everything at Orpheus is definitely
working 100% (and actually very reliable). I've also escalated the
problems to our engineers who have reported them to BT. No fault has
been found anywhere and BT claim that all lines are functioning
normally.
I can only guess that it's either something at particular local
exchanges, the gain on individual lines or a modem/software driver
problem.
It is definitely not an Orpheus problem, but I /am/ endeavouring to
track down the route of the local problem some people are having. :-(

I'm pleased that you're having a go at it, Paul. I really believe that
something must be awry somewhere.

Today I've installed a new modem (Speedcom +) 56k, and it indeed speeds
things up remarkably after my original USR Sportster!

However, I've been trying some other dial up numbers, for instance 0845
088 5056, which looks as if it should work well at 56k (from the Voyager
Connection configuration window. Stalled totally at Authentication, as
did 0845 088 5336, which I used to use years ago, before all that
trouble with extremely slow News downloads (remember Reg Hems, who did a
lot of exploration on this). I was advised possibly by you to use
0845 1231621, which was said to be better for some reason. It was, and
it still works. At least, I get through the authentication process at
least some of the time - most, in fact.

However, Voyager still hands up quite often after authentication,
requiring ALT BRK three times to kill Voyager.

This is a relatively new phenomenon - perhaps a couple of months, and is
certainly not a function of me messing about with the program. It
spontaneously happened, and still happens.

Telephone line here is excellent, I must say, and neighbours find that
too, for what it's worth.

Have you any other suggestions for dial-up numbers? I would really like
a geographic number rather than 0845, which is an expensive one for me.

Good luck!

Cheers, Robin

[Russell Hafter News]

Post by G Robin Edwards
However, I've been trying some other dial up numbers, for
instance 0845 088 5056, which looks as if it should work
well at 56k (from the Voyager Connection configuration
window. Stalled totally at Authentication, as did 0845
088 5336,

Those are both Pipex numbers, and most certainly should not
work with Orpheus. Argonet used the Pipex backbone, and thus
Pipex numbers. Orpheus uses a completely different backbone
(I do not know which, though!).

Post by G Robin Edwards
which I used to use years ago, before all that trouble
with extremely slow News downloads (remember Reg Hems,
who did a lot of exploration on this). I was advised
possibly by you to use 0845 1231621, which was said to be
better for some reason. It was, and it still works.

That is because it is the number you need to dial to connect
to Orpheus

Post by G Robin Edwards
At least, I get through the authentication process at
least some of the time - most, in fact.

Which is what should happen!

:-)

And yes, I would be interested to know of a geographic
dialup number for when away from base, though in practice I
have no difficulties connecting using ClaraNet's geographic
numbers using my ClaraNet a/c, and then connecting to
Orpheus servers.

Trouble is, I expect Paul get a few tenths of a penny every
time you dial in on 0845 123 1621, so it will not be to his
advantage to tell you.

[Alan Griffin]

Post by pv
It is definitely not an Orpheus problem, but I /am/ endeavouring to track
down the route of the local problem some people are having. :-(

There is something else which has been occurring only recently, and that
is the speed of news downloads. It always used to be about 5000 bits/s,
but about 50% of the time now, it starts at about 300 bits/s and hardly
ever reaches 1000. Nothing on my computer has changed.

Alan Griffin

[John Nolan]

Post by pv
I'm very concerned that some people are having problems but I can only
deduce that it must be something geographical or limited to a local
exchange somewhere.

Earlier, I think pv said that Voyager was not very good. Well, of course it
is bound to be dated.

I have had Voyager, and various upgrades, since 1996. This is the first time
I can remember having the general sort of problem as described.

I live West of the Severn just North of Lydney.

From a logical point of view, and having read the whole thread, it may be
that internet traffic is increasing and parts of the system, or the
software, are just getting overloaded. It will be interesting to see if it
recurs.

John N.

[Paul Vigay]

Post by John Nolan
From a logical point of view, and having read the whole thread, it may be
that internet traffic is increasing and parts of the system, or the
software, are just getting overloaded. It will be interesting to see if
it recurs.

This is unfortunately a real pain and I'm currently bashing my head against
a wall trying to find out what could be causing the problems being
reported. All I can say is that whatever it is it's completely outside the
control of Orpheus, so there's unfortunately nothing I can do about it. :-(
:-(

All our servers are working fine - I've been connected all day, and I've
been sitting at the computer working since 6am this morning, so I'd notice
within seconds if anything was wrong with the connection or servers
anywhere.

I'm at a bit of a loss for where to look for clues now! :-(

[k***@argonet.co.uk]

Post by Paul Vigay

Post by John Nolan
From a logical point of view, and having read the whole thread,
it may be that internet traffic is increasing and parts of the
system, or the software, are just getting overloaded. It will
be interesting to see if it recurs.

This is unfortunately a real pain and I'm currently bashing my
head against a wall trying to find out what could be causing the
problems being reported. All I can say is that whatever it is
it's completely outside the control of Orpheus, so there's
unfortunately nothing I can do about it. :-(
:-(
All our servers are working fine - I've been connected all day,
and I've been sitting at the computer working since 6am this
morning, so I'd notice within seconds if anything was wrong with
the connection or servers anywhere.
I'm at a bit of a loss for where to look for clues now! :-(

For what it's worth and since this problem began a few weeks ago, I
use dial-up and Voyager but have had no difficulties whatsoever.
It therefore could be geographical - I live in Fife.
Ken

[Dr J E Hurley]

Post by Russell Hafter News
I do not disbelieve that you have problems. I just do not
believe that those problems are down to Orpheus. Why should
their servers work fine for most of us, but not infrequently
for a few?

As the one who started this off, it does seem odd that after a period of
good service from Orpheus a number of widely scattered individuals - I am
not sure if they all use Voyager on dial-up - should experience a similar
problem where the computer locks up after authentication (at news download
in my case - but not the news server since the problem recurs when this is
disabled). It happens only intermittently, but I think the widespread nature
and similar times for the problems that are documented here suggest that it
is not just an individual machine / voyager etc problem. It may not be the
Orpheus server - I was pretty convinced that many of the problems which
bedevilled Argonet were down to BT or Pipex difficulties (since I sometimes
lost PC connectivity to a different ISP at the same time). WE may be facing
a routing problem for some of us here. But it exists and it disrupts
business.

[Peter Paddison]

Post by Dr J E Hurley

Post by Russell Hafter News
I do not disbelieve that you have problems. I just do not
believe that those problems are down to Orpheus. Why should
their servers work fine for most of us, but not infrequently
for a few?

As the one who started this off, it does seem odd that after a period of
good service from Orpheus a number of widely scattered individuals - I am
not sure if they all use Voyager on dial-up - should experience a similar
problem where the computer locks up after authentication (at news download
in my case - but not the news server since the problem recurs when this is
disabled). It happens only intermittently, but I think the widespread nature
and similar times for the problems that are documented here suggest that it
is not just an individual machine / voyager etc problem. It may not be the
Orpheus server - I was pretty convinced that many of the problems which
bedevilled Argonet were down to BT or Pipex difficulties (since I sometimes
lost PC connectivity to a different ISP at the same time). WE may be facing
a routing problem for some of us here. But it exists and it disrupts
business.

I would like to endorse the above comments and just confirm I use Voyager on
dial up and my machine freezes at 6 seconds and also intermittently. In case
geography is of interest, I am in Essex with a post code of SS1

Peter Paddison

[Ben Crick]

Post by Peter Paddison
I would like to endorse the above comments and just confirm I use Voyager
on dial up and my machine freezes at 6 seconds and also intermittently.
In case geography is of interest, I am in Essex with a post code of SS1

My Kinetic RPC700 with !Voyager keeps freezing at about 9 seconds into
the phone call on QuickFetch, and has to be unfrozen by repeated use of
<Alt-Break>.

The use of Fetch (clicking with Select on the Connect icon) usually
enables the News and Mail to download. I just have to watch the
postage stamp icons for News and Mail, and select-click on Disconnect
when they light up in colour again on completion of download.

My postcode is CT7 (East Kent) and I dial-up on 0845 123 1621 if
that is of any significance. Magic Express 56K Modem, but using
Generic Hayes (1) protocol on PV's recommendation.

This Freeze on QuickFetch problem never happened to me until about a
week ago. Now it nearly always happens on QuickFetch.

FWIW
Ben

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by Russell Hafter News

Post by Tennant Stuart
Ah, another troubled user whom Russell Hafter Holidays
disbelieves in.

I do not disbelieve that you have problems. I just do not
believe that those problems are down to Orpheus. Why should
their servers work fine for most of us, but not infrequently
for a few?
Surely this would only be possible if the servers were
configured to cause problems with certain login streams
only.

I dunno, maybe we get different servers sometimes.

Post by Russell Hafter News

Post by Tennant Stuart

Post by Alan Griffin
When I do an alt/break, first of all it disconnects the
news-fetcher, but the computer remains frozen. When I
do it a second time, and disconnect the mail-fetcher,
the computer unfreezes. Usually, if I then restart the
computer, everything works.

If you're careful Alan, it's possible to keep Fresco
running, and so surf the net without wasting the 4p that
was paid to log in. :-)

Which means that you /are/ connected to Orpheus OK, but that
for some reason you have problems with the mail and news
software that you are using.

So how come my bad mail & news software has worked well all week?


Tennant

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Tennant Stuart
I dunno, maybe we get different servers sometimes.

That tends to point to a BT exchange problem then. Orpheus only has the
same servers all the time and for everyone. If the mail server is working
for one person it's working for all people.

It looks like the problem is in the actual connection, which isn't
negotiating correctly, resulting in no DNS being available (which would
mean that when it happens you couldn't go to *any* named servers, thus web
browsing wouldn't work either)

Post by Tennant Stuart
So how come my bad mail & news software has worked well all week?

It does tend to point more than more to a connection problem somewhere,
rather than an Orpheus problem.

The issue here is that BT have run some tests and assured me that the 0845
dislaup number is working fine and no faults have been discovered.

The only thing I can think of is that some regional exchanges have
different equipment (modems/routers etc) and it's down to individual modems
connecting. This is where problems with Voyager start surfacing because
Voyager unfortunately offered people a whole host of 'modem' choices, many
of which no longer work on modern exchanges (v34 or v90).

If you have any modem setting which refers to old X2 or K56 Argonet
numbers, it will NOT work because BT no longer supports X2 or K56 - which
is why I recommend people factory reset their modems and use the generic
Hayes modem driver, because pretty much any modem these days will connect
to modern exchanges using the bog-standard 'out of the box' settings.

If I can dig out an old modem technical manual, I may write a support
article on what the various Hayes AT commands do, so that people can amend
the generic Hayes driver for additional functions (such as volume control
etc) just in case something specific needs to be configured on an
individual basis.

Hope this helps a bit. I'll do and have a cup of tea now! :-)

Paul

[G Robin Edwards]

In article <4e1b78d378usenet-***@vigay.com>,
Paul Vigay <usenet-***@vigay.com> wrote:

Long snip

Post by Paul Vigay
If you have any modem setting which refers to old X2 or K56 Argonet
numbers, it will NOT work because BT no longer supports X2 or K56 -
which is why I recommend people factory reset their modems and use the
generic Hayes modem driver, because pretty much any modem these days
will connect to modern exchanges using the bog-standard 'out of the
box' settings.
If I can dig out an old modem technical manual, I may write a support
article on what the various Hayes AT commands do, so that people can
amend the generic Hayes driver for additional functions (such as
volume control etc) just in case something specific needs to be
configured on an individual basis.
Hope this helps a bit. I'll do and have a cup of tea now! :-)

My Speed Com+ 56K Voice Fax Modem seems to work very well - noticeably
faster than the older Sportster 28.8 that I used for about 10 years.
However, it also suffers from problems at "Connect" time. Specifically,
about half of the times I try to dial up things come to an abrupt halt
when the Connect message comes up in Voyager's progress window. I
normally leave things strictly alone for a minute or perhaps one and a
half minutes - just in case it's a delay and things will come good.

Unfortunately this works extremely rarely. Once the sequence comes to a
halt it halts for good. The only remedy is ALT BRK three times to
escape from Voyager. I have wasted time and good telephone money again
and again through this sequence of events.

My telephone line seems to be excellent, reporting speeds of 45667 or
thereabouts. Never a problem there.

Quite often a re-dial seems to work, but cannot be guaranteed to do so.

I would really like this Connect explained and preferably solved!

Can anyone help? For the record I live in Bromsgrove, B60

I touch nothing in Voyager or Pluto. The problem must be outside my
control. I normally start with a "clean" machine - that is no other
software on the icon bar apart from !Zap and !Alarm.

Now to see whether this attempt connects successfully. The last one did
not :-((

Robin

P.S Enjoy Wakefield, everyone! I am not able to come along for the
second successive year.

[Russell Hafter News]

Post by G Robin Edwards
My telephone line seems to be excellent, reporting speeds
of 45667 or thereabouts. Never a problem there.
Quite often a re-dial seems to work, but cannot be
guaranteed to do so.
I would really like this Connect explained and preferably
solved!

I cannot explain it, but my gut feeling is that the problems
are due to the voice telephone network somewhere.

AIUI, BT still make no guarantees whatever about the
suitability of a voice line for anything other than voice
use.

And I suspect that as ADSL uptake becomes ever wider BT (and
other telcos) are increasingly going to take the view that
if people want data connections, then they should pay for a
proper one, ie ADSL (or ISDN) and not use something (a POTS
line) for a purpose for which it was never designed.

[Colin Matthews]

Specifically, about half of the times I try to dial up things come
to an abrupt halt when the Connect message comes up in Voyager's
progress window. I normally leave things strictly alone for a
minute or perhaps one and a half minutes - just in case it's a
delay and things will come good.

I hate to join in, as things have been going much better since the
resolvers problem was solved; but I am regularly getting the same, and
it's always at 6 seconds into connection. Alt breaks are the only way
out.

Colin

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Colin Matthews
I hate to join in, as things have been going much better since the
resolvers problem was solved; but I am regularly getting the same, and
it's always at 6 seconds into connection. Alt breaks are the only way out.

Is this problem just affecting Voyager users? or are users of other
software still experiencing the same problem?

I've got POPstar/Dialup etc here (and the Ant Suite too, on the RPC) and I
can't reproduce this problem at all. I reckon I've probably made about a
tenner's worth of test calls, just dialling up from different machines,
modems and differing times of day - but I just can't reproduce the problem
from here (or my parents house, some 20 miles away on a different exchange
for that matter).

Paul
(puzzled, and concerned that some people are getting a less than optimum
service)

[Colin Matthews]

Post by Paul Vigay
Is this problem just affecting Voyager users? or are users of other
software still experiencing the same problem?

I'm sure it's Voyager specific as I get the same problem on two more
or less identical setups in different locations. (I use both Ant Suite
and DialUp as backup, and it doesn't happen to them - although of
course I use them far less regularly.)

It's happened three times this morning since my original post . . .

Colin

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Post by Colin Matthews

Post by Paul Vigay
Is this problem just affecting Voyager users? or are users of other
software still experiencing the same problem?

I'm sure it's Voyager specific as I get the same problem on two more
or less identical setups in different locations. (I use both Ant Suite
and DialUp as backup, and it doesn't happen to them - although of
course I use them far less regularly.)
It's happened three times this morning since my original post . . .

When I was using Voyager - years ago - all sorts of connection problems.
Changing to POPStar and Newshound seemed to pretty well cure them. But
still sometimes dead slow to stop news downloads. Changing to ASDL sorted
that.

[Dr Peter Young]

Post by Dave Plowman (News)

Post by Colin Matthews

Post by Paul Vigay
Is this problem just affecting Voyager users? or are users of other
software still experiencing the same problem?

I'm sure it's Voyager specific as I get the same problem on two more
or less identical setups in different locations. (I use both Ant Suite
and DialUp as backup, and it doesn't happen to them - although of
course I use them far less regularly.)
It's happened three times this morning since my original post . . .

When I was using Voyager - years ago - all sorts of connection problems.
Changing to POPStar and Newshound seemed to pretty well cure them. But
still sometimes dead slow to stop news downloads. Changing to ASDL sorted
that.

Ditto ditto and likewise ditto, except for POPStar read NetFetch. The
best computer-related thing I've done.

Go ye all and do likewise! :-)

With best wishes,

Peter.

[Ken Wright]

Post by Paul Vigay
Is this problem just affecting Voyager users? or are users of
other software still experiencing the same problem?

I've got it too and I'm on Voyager.
Ken

[G Robin Edwards]

Post by Ken Wright

Post by Paul Vigay
Is this problem just affecting Voyager users? or are users of
other software still experiencing the same problem?

I've got it too and I'm on Voyager.
Ken

Yesterday i had no problem. Today - 20 minutes ago - 6 seconds into the
startup process things went dead, curable only by ALT BRK twice.

This used to happen very seldom indeed. These days it's about half of
the times I dial up :-((

What has changed? Not my set up apart from a faster modem, but it
happened before that change.

It is a pain.

Robin

[Peter Paddison]

After a period of normal operation, I returned to the 6 second freeze again
yesterday morning.

I have touched nothing (not being sufficiently confident to do so) this
including the resolvers. I still use my original Robotics "Sportster Voice"
which I purchased at one of the London Shows at what seems ages ago.

Peter Paddison

[G Robin Edwards]

Post by Peter Paddison
After a period of normal operation, I returned to the 6 second freeze
again yesterday morning.
I have touched nothing (not being sufficiently confident to do so)
this including the resolvers. I still use my original Robotics
"Sportster Voice" which I purchased at one of the London Shows at what
seems ages ago.

It's all very strange! Yesterday evening it took three tries (telephone
calls) before I could proceed past the "Connect" window, although
authentication had succeeded in its usual 6 seconds. I had to use ALT
BRK to exit Voyager. Modem behaving perfectly.

This evening I connected first time and downloaded about 35 News items.
The day before yesterday News would not download at all, though Mail
came through (after I'd managed to get past Connect).

Like Peter, I've not touched the machine and so have to believe that the
problem is elsewhere than here. It's frustrating and a shame.

Robin

[Paul Vigay]

Post by G Robin Edwards
It's all very strange! Yesterday evening it took three tries (telephone
calls) before I could proceed past the "Connect" window, although
authentication had succeeded in its usual 6 seconds. I had to use ALT
BRK to exit Voyager. Modem behaving perfectly.

When you used alt-break, what was the application that came up when it
asked you to stop the application? This might give a clue as to where the
lock-up is occurring.

[Colin Matthews]

Post by Paul Vigay

[ . . . } I had to use ALT BRK to exit Voyager.

When you used alt-break, what was the application that came up when
it asked you to stop the application? This might give a clue as to
where the lock-up is occurring.

For me it simply runs through all the Voyager fetch-and-sends and
then, if on Quickfetch, it closes; if not on Quickfetch Voyager will
still not connect after the alt-breaks. Occasionally it asks to quit
Oregano (1) as well. Sometimes it works normally next time; more
reliably after quitting and reloading Voyager; but quite often a
reboot is needed. (Also, if you persist after the 6 second shut down,
it will sometimes come back to life around the 23 second mark.)

One solution that I've found to work most times is to disable news and
mail with a right click before connecting, enabling them again after
connection.

But it's a pain in the neck - as you've said before, Voyager is 'not
very good', but I like the way I have it set up and, if only it would
work better, would be happy not to have to change.

[Paul Vigay]

In article <***@orpheusmail.co.uk>,
Colin Matthews <***@dpmail.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

Post by Colin Matthews
For me it simply runs through all the Voyager fetch-and-sends and
then, if on Quickfetch, it closes; if not on Quickfetch Voyager will
still not connect after the alt-breaks. Occasionally it asks to quit
Oregano (1) as well.

Hmm. What's Voyager QuickFetch? Where can I download a copy, as I vaguely
recollect that from the past (I no longer use Voyager, having updated to an
Iyonix).

Are you referring to http://www.heyrick.co.uk/voyager/quickvoy/ ?

I'm wondering if something in that if not taking account of the 'Orpheus'
updates to Voyager?

I'm looking to produce perhaps something similar myself, which will also be
useful to broadband Voyager users who don't require all the
dialler/internet stack stuff. I'm hoping my future updates will all be
32-bit compatible too, so you can use it on Iyonix. :-)

[Russell Hafter News]

Post by Paul Vigay
Hmm. What's Voyager QuickFetch?

Adjust-click to run (and quit automatically on finishing the
download) rather than select click and have to disconnect
manually.

In my Voyager using days (and Socketeer has exactly the same
functionality) I used this regularly to check for mail, but
not news or browsing.

[G Robin Edwards]

Post by Paul Vigay

Post by G Robin Edwards
It's all very strange! Yesterday evening it took three tries
(telephone calls) before I could proceed past the "Connect" window,
although authentication had succeeded in its usual 6 seconds. I had
to use ALT BRK to exit Voyager. Modem behaving perfectly.

When you used alt-break, what was the application that came up when it
asked you to stop the application? This might give a clue as to where
the lock-up is occurring.

Voyager Mail fetch and then News fetch - if I remember correctly!

However, this evening at about 20.05 everything went straight through -
fast reception speed, Voyager displaying approx 6500CPS - and no sign of
any problem.

Strange, isn't it. I have not touched the software of hardware!

In all the cases the machine only had !Alarm and !Zap on the icon bar,
apart from !Voyager and !Pluto 2.04E

Robin

[Paul Vigay]

Post by G Robin Edwards
However, this evening at about 20.05 everything went straight through -
fast reception speed, Voyager displaying approx 6500CPS - and no sign of
any problem.
Strange, isn't it. I have not touched the software of hardware!

Well, in that case the only thing I can think of (if everything is the same
at your end) is that it's the format of one of the messages in your
mailbox. Perhaps POPFetch is throwing a wobbly when it encounters a
particular mail header or something.

The contents of your mailbox is about the only variable that might vary
from day to day. I know there was a rare combination of bytes in a mail
header which could crash the Ant Suite, so I wonder if a similar thing is
affecting Voyager?

I'll perhaps investigate the POPfetcher code and see if i can release a
beta of my 32-bit version.....

[Alan Griffin]

Post by Paul Vigay
When you used alt-break, what was the application that came up when it
asked you to stop the application? This might give a clue as to where the
lock-up is occurring.

When this happens to me, the first alt-break disables the news
fetch. The seond disables the mail-send and the third, which unfreezes the
computer disables the mail-fetch.

If I click on the green "mail-fetch" button the computer immediately
freezes again. This happens every time the "mail-fetch" button is clicked.

Alan Griffin

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Post by Alan Griffin

Post by Paul Vigay
When you used alt-break, what was the application that came up when it
asked you to stop the application? This might give a clue as to where
the lock-up is occurring.

When this happens to me, the first alt-break disables the news
fetch. The seond disables the mail-send and the third, which unfreezes
the computer disables the mail-fetch.
If I click on the green "mail-fetch" button the computer
immediately freezes again. This happens every time the "mail-fetch"
button is clicked.

It may not be what you want to hear, but have you tried using POPStar and
Newshound with Voyager? They're free and easy enough to set up.

They sorted out many of my problems with Voyager years ago - and Voyager
hasn't been upgraded since then, IIRC.

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Dave Plowman (News)
It may not be what you want to hear, but have you tried using POPStar and
Newshound with Voyager? They're free and easy enough to set up.

On a slightly related issue, is there anyone who has Voyager AND POPstar
AND gets the lockups using Voyager?

If so, it might be worth doing an Alt=Break next time Voyager locks up,
quitting the mail fetcher and then, instead of trying the mail fetcher
again, trying POPstar to see if that then successfully fetches mail or
gives an error.

I suspect that if Voyager is at fault, then quitting and reloading the mail
fetcher will merely give the same problem, but it would be good to see if
an alternative fetcher subsequently works ok.

Unfortunately, I can't really try it here (despite having both
applications) because I can't reproduce the problem at all. And that's
using Portsmouth BT exchange, bog-standard Voyager upgraded to Orpheus, and
a USR Flash 56K modem on an SA RPC 600.

Paul

[Rosemary Miskin]

Post by Paul Vigay
I suspect that if Voyager is at fault, then quitting and reloading the mail
fetcher will merely give the same problem, but it would be good to see if
an alternative fetcher subsequently works ok.

Just as an extra bit of evidence, I use Antispam instead of the PopFetch to
get my mail, and that doesn't suffer the lock-up problem, which I used to
get occasionally before I started using AS.

Rosemary

[Colin Matthews]

Post by Dave Plowman (News)
It may not be what you want to hear, but have you tried using
POPStar and Newshound with Voyager? They're free and easy enough to
set up.

I'm sure you're right : but I've never found POPStar straightforward
to use & have always taken the lazy option & gone back to Voyager...

Just to clarify : the problem is clearly at the point the transports
kick in on connection, as usually Voyager will connect
normally if mail and news are disabled before dialling; re-enabling
them after connection gets round the freeze. It never reconnects if
you use alt-breaks to unfreeze (although the 'Connected' message
misleadingly displays).

The problem can't be, as Paul suggested, with something being fetched,
as it affects send and fetch with equal measure. (And the solution
above isn't infallible, as Voyager has just frozen after attempting to
send this post with news enabled after connection, necessitating a
reboot!)

[Paul Vigay]

In article <***@orpheusmail.co.uk>,
Colin Matthews <***@dpmail.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

The problem can't be, as Paul suggested, with something being fetched, as
it affects send and fetch with equal measure. (And the solution above
isn't infallible, as Voyager has just frozen after attempting to send
this post with news enabled after connection, necessitating a reboot!)

The only thing that seems consistent is a failure of the 'Resolver' module
in Voyager. This is the module that looks up domain names and converts them
into IP addressed.

ie. when you go to www.bbc.co.uk the resolver module will look up the
domain using the name servers and 'resolve' the name to an IP address - ie.
212.58.224.126

It may be worth checking that you can still press f12 and type

*ping www.bbc.co.uk

and press return. You should get an echo response from 212.58.224.126
(assuming you haven't got a firewall enabled somewhere, which blocks ping
requests)

If you do this when Voyager locks up (after pressing alt-break) it might be
worth seeing if the resolver module has crashed.

[Colin Matthews]

Post by Paul Vigay
It may be worth checking that you can still press f12 and type
*ping www.bbc.co.uk
and press return. You should get an echo response from
212.58.224.126 (assuming you haven't got a firewall enabled
somewhere, which blocks ping requests)
If you do this when Voyager locks up (after pressing alt-break) it
might be worth seeing if the resolver module has crashed.

Voyager has frustratingly been on best behaviour since my last post,
so I haven't been able to test! Normal pinging is 100% healthy.

Colin

[Colin Matthews]

Post by Colin Matthews

Post by Paul Vigay
If you do this when Voyager locks up (after pressing alt-break) it
might be worth seeing if the resolver module has crashed.

Voyager has frustratingly been on best behaviour since my last post,
so I haven't been able to test! Normal pinging is 100% healthy.

But now it's obliged, and there is no response to the ping after the
alt-breaks.

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Colin Matthews
But now it's obliged, and there is no response to the ping after the
alt-breaks.

What happens if you RMKill the resolver module, then reload it?

Try pressing f12 and typing

RMKill Resolver <return>
RMReInit Resolver <return>
<return>

and then trying the ping again (try all the above whilst you're still
online).

Paul

[Colin Matthews]

Post by Paul Vigay
What happens if you RMKill the resolver module, then reload it?
Try pressing f12 and typing
RMKill Resolver <return> RMReInit Resolver <return> <return>
and then trying the ping again (try all the above whilst you're
still online).

It had no effect I'm afraid . . .

Colin

[G Robin Edwards]

Post by Colin Matthews

Post by Paul Vigay
What happens if you RMKill the resolver module, then reload it?
Try pressing f12 and typing
RMKill Resolver <return> RMReInit Resolver <return> <return>
and then trying the ping again (try all the above whilst you're
still online).

It had no effect I'm afraid . . .

The problem is certainly still with me, though I have not attempted any
of the potential remedies.

This evening I had three abortive tries in quick succession, all locking
the system after 9 seconds. Incidentally, dialling up takes 31 seconds,
which seems a bit long to me.

It somewhat annoys me that I could have been on line for about 12 or 13
minutes with these lost telephone charges. If I added all the lock up
occasions I could have had quite a number of hours on the net :-((

Robin

[Paul Vigay]

In article <***@argonet.co.uk>,
G Robin Edwards <***@argonet.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

Post by G Robin Edwards
The problem is certainly still with me, though I have not attempted any
of the potential remedies.
This evening I had three abortive tries in quick succession, all locking
the system after 9 seconds. Incidentally, dialling up takes 31 seconds,
which seems a bit long to me.

Have you tried any of the alternatives to Voyager, such as the Ant Suite or
DialUp? If so, do they work ok or exhibit the same problem after 6-9
seconds?

[Richard Watkinson]

Post by Paul Vigay
[Snip]

Post by G Robin Edwards
The problem is certainly still with me, though I have not attempted any
of the potential remedies.
This evening I had three abortive tries in quick succession, all locking
the system after 9 seconds. Incidentally, dialling up takes 31 seconds,
which seems a bit long to me.

Have you tried any of the alternatives to Voyager, such as the Ant Suite or
DialUp? If so, do they work ok or exhibit the same problem after 6-9
seconds?

I don't know if this is related but it does sound similar.

For the past 10 days or so I have had severe problems re-connecting to
Orpheus:- (using Dialup, Hermes Newshound & Messenger)

Switch machine on, go online download news & mail OK - Web access OK

Go online again and it connects to Orpheus but nothing else and
eventually times out without resolving news or email and no web
access.

The solution is to switch off the machine and start again. A shutdown
occasionally works but not always..

But sometimes you can get online twice without such drastic measures.
I've not reported this yet as I have been trying to get something
repeatable.

[Richard Watkinson]

Post by Richard Watkinson

Post by Paul Vigay
[Snip]

Post by G Robin Edwards
The problem is certainly still with me, though I have not attempted any
of the potential remedies.
This evening I had three abortive tries in quick succession, all locking
the system after 9 seconds. Incidentally, dialling up takes 31 seconds,
which seems a bit long to me.

Have you tried any of the alternatives to Voyager, such as the Ant Suite or
DialUp? If so, do they work ok or exhibit the same problem after 6-9
seconds?

I don't know if this is related but it does sound similar.
For the past 10 days or so I have had severe problems re-connecting to
Orpheus:- (using Dialup, Hermes Newshound & Messenger)
Switch machine on, go online download news & mail OK - Web access OK
Go online again and it connects to Orpheus but nothing else and
eventually times out without resolving news or email and no web
access.
The solution is to switch off the machine and start again. A shutdown
occasionally works but not always..
But sometimes you can get online twice without such drastic measures.
I've not reported this yet as I have been trying to get something
repeatable.

Typically I have now managed to connect/resolve 4 times with only one
redial and without any shutting down. Not perfectly each time it must
be said but makes my attempts at narrowing down the problem futile.

I guess it is not at my end of the chain...

[Nick Roberts]

Post by Colin Matthews

Specifically, about half of the times I try to dial up things come
to an abrupt halt when the Connect message comes up in Voyager's
progress window. I normally leave things strictly alone for a
minute or perhaps one and a half minutes - just in case it's a
delay and things will come good.

I hate to join in, as things have been going much better since the
resolvers problem was solved; but I am regularly getting the same,
and it's always at 6 seconds into connection. Alt breaks are the only
way out.

Round about 6 seconds into connection is typically when my connection
has authorised and "real" things start to happen - news, email, etc.

Just as a possibility:- have you disabled the Voyager auto-upgrade
system? From recollection, this blocks activity until it connects to
the appropriate ftp server so if the relevant machine is no longer
there it could cause the symptom you are describing.

To disable it (in a non-permanent fashion), quite Voyager open
!Voyager with shift-double click, and then open the "Apps" directory.
There are several directories there, including one called AutoUpgrde.
Open this and rename the file called !Vixen to !Vixen0. Then restart
Voyager and check whether the problem persists.

NB: If you have already renamed the !Vixen file to something else, this
isn't the problem.

[Paul Vigay]

In article <***@bc63.orpheusinternet.co.uk>,
Nick Roberts <***@orpheusinternet.co.uk> wrote:

[Snip]

To disable it (in a non-permanent fashion), quite Voyager open !Voyager
with shift-double click, and then open the "Apps" directory. There are
several directories there, including one called AutoUpgrde. Open this and
rename the file called !Vixen to !Vixen0. Then restart Voyager and check
whether the problem persists.

I've got some detailed instructions on how to disable the auto-upgrade, on
the Orpheus support site at
http://www.orpheusinternet.co.uk/support/riscos/voyager/autoupgrade.html

However, even if the auto-upgrader is left running, it generally gives an
error message when it can't find the old Argonet ftp server.

[Vic Smith]

While I hate being a "me-too" an attempt to connect at 18:35:56 tonight
failed after connecting at 6 seconds. Alt Break disconnected News Fetch
first, then Mail Fetch (I was not sending anything) and browsing then
failed.

A second attempt at 18:41:41 worked, although I had not changed anything.

Just out of interest, what's a Ping ?

V.N. Smith


--

[Tennant Stuart]

Post by Vic Smith
While I hate being a "me-too" an attempt to connect at 18:35:56 tonight
failed after connecting at 6 seconds. Alt Break disconnected News Fetch
first, then Mail Fetch (I was not sending anything) and browsing then
failed.
A second attempt at 18:41:41 worked, although I had not changed anything.
Just out of interest, what's a Ping ?

After the sad disappointment of the Alt Break, you can type the command

*ping 213.130.146.204

into a task window, and watch the modem winking as it sends data which is
ignored by the 'evil 204' server. Press escape for the statistics. Do the
exactly the same command with the 'good 204' server (after the mail fetch
is done) and it will happily ping back to you until you press escape.


Tennant