PlusNet's News Server - Still Borked?

Apologies if this has been done to death, but I looked through the
last 500 postings and couldn't see anything relevant.

Following the change of PN's usenet supplier, I haven't been able to
access PN's closed usergroups - or any groups at all - via the PN
system. All I get is a '502 Access Denied via @ Auth Server' error.

Checking the PN portal, it states that the newsserver is
usenet.plus.net, which is what I have my newsreader set to, and
nothing has changed at this end.

Since I can't access the PN usenet system I can't post this there; and
I really don't want to register for their Forums - after twelve years
of text-only usenet I can't stand web-based systems.

Anyone know what the fix is?

I have other suppliers for usenet, so this isn't a huge problem, it's
just that I can't see the plusnet.* groups.

TIA
--

John Milner

On 10/04/2008 08:59, John Milner wrote:

> Following the change of PN's usenet supplier, I haven't been able to
> access PN's closed usergroups - or any groups at all - via the PN
> system. All I get is a '502 Access Denied via @ Auth Server' error.

It took them a day or two to get giganews to sort it, seems the
authentication problem affected different IP ranges, it's possible your
range is still up the spout, you'd have to log a call and point out your
IP address is still having problems I suppose.

On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:59:29 +0100, John Milner
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>Apologies if this has been done to death, but I looked through the
>last 500 postings and couldn't see anything relevant.
>
>Following the change of PN's usenet supplier, I haven't been able to
>access PN's closed usergroups - or any groups at all - via the PN
>system. All I get is a '502 Access Denied via @ Auth Server' error.
>
>Checking the PN portal, it states that the newsserver is
>usenet.plus.net, which is what I have my newsreader set to, and
>nothing has changed at this end.
>
>Since I can't access the PN usenet system I can't post this there; and
>I really don't want to register for their Forums - after twelve years
>of text-only usenet I can't stand web-based systems.
>
>Anyone know what the fix is?

Phone them up or raise a ticket on their online system.

>I have other suppliers for usenet, so this isn't a huge problem, it's
>just that I can't see the plusnet.* groups.

Loads of customers have had problems with the PN newsfeed recently
since they moved it to Giganews.

M.

John Milner wrote:
> Apologies if this has been done to death, but I looked through the
> last 500 postings and couldn't see anything relevant.
> Following the change of PN's usenet supplier, I haven't been able to
> access PN's closed usergroups - or any groups at all - via the PN
> system. All I get is a '502 Access Denied via @ Auth Server' error.
> Checking the PN portal, it states that the newsserver is
> usenet.plus.net, which is what I have my newsreader set to, and
> nothing has changed at this end.
> Since I can't access the PN usenet system I can't post this there; and
> I really don't want to register for their Forums - after twelve years
> of text-only usenet I can't stand web-based systems.

The authentication problem also affected their web-based news system, AIUI.

> Anyone know what the fix is?

It got fixed for me within about a day and a half of reporting it, and
that was a while ago. So I suggest you report it.

Owain

Andy Burns wrote:

>On 10/04/2008 08:59, John Milner wrote:
>
>> Following the change of PN's usenet supplier, I haven't been able to
>> access PN's closed usergroups - or any groups at all - via the PN
>> system. All I get is a '502 Access Denied via @ Auth Server' error.
>
>It took them a day or two to get giganews to sort it, seems the
>authentication problem affected different IP ranges, it's possible your
>range is still up the spout, you'd have to log a call and point out your
>IP address is still having problems I suppose.

Thanks for your reply.

I'm slightly surprised that PN don't know what IP range they allow...

Some plusnet.service.customer-feedback messages are available on the
news.aioe.org news server.
--

John Milner

Mark wrote:

>On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:59:29 +0100, John Milner
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>
>>Since I can't access the PN usenet system I can't post this there; and
>>I really don't want to register for their Forums - after twelve years
>>of text-only usenet I can't stand web-based systems.
>>
>>Anyone know what the fix is?
>
>Phone them up or raise a ticket on their online system.
>
>>I have other suppliers for usenet, so this isn't a huge problem, it's
>>just that I can't see the plusnet.* groups.
>
>Loads of customers have had problems with the PN newsfeed recently
>since they moved it to Giganews.

Thanks for your reply.

I think I'll wait 'til the problem gets fixed; I have no urgent need
to access the PN usergroups, but was mildly surprised that I've been
getting an authentification error from them for nine or ten days now.


--

John Milner

On 10/04/2008 14:55, John Milner wrote:

> I'm slightly surprised that PN don't know what IP range they allow...

Some of the various ISPs under the plusnet umbrella had previously used
giganews, some had used supernews, the buying of the latter by the
former caused confusion due to some of the IP ranges overlapping rather
than being distinct to each ISP - something like that ...

"John Milner" wrote in message

> I think I'll wait 'til the problem gets fixed; I have no urgent need
> to access the PN usergroups, but was mildly surprised that I've been
> getting an authentification error from them for nine or ten days now.

Mine was borked for two days, been fine since then.

--
JC

"JC" <tullyhubbert@ (Spam Trap) yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:45mdnXMm1K2OoGPanZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@plusnet...
>
> "John Milner" wrote in message
>
>> I think I'll wait 'til the problem gets fixed; I have no urgent need
>> to access the PN usergroups, but was mildly surprised that I've been
>> getting an authentification error from them for nine or ten days now.
>
> Mine was borked for two days, been fine since then.

Yes, mine hasn't been down for as long as nine or ten days either. I first
noticed the problem during the afternoon of 31 March, having successfully
read newsgroups during the morning. I raised a ticket at 5 PM because PN's
service status did not mention a Usenet problem.

The symptom was that I was prompted to enter my username and password as
soon as I tried to read any newsgroup.

The problem was fixed some time during 1 April. I'm not sure exactly when
this happened, but I eventually got onto PN's Customer Service group via
their portal site and read messages saying that it was back. I was certainly
posting by 6 PM, according to entries in my Sent Items folder.

For me, the thing that fixed it was to remove the "This server requires me
to log on" attribute from the account in Outlook Express. This had worked
for a long time in the past but no longer works.

Even with authentication turned on I could never access PN's news server
from a non-PN broadband line (the only reason for having it turned on in the
first place, in the same way that you use SMTP authentication to be able to
send when connected via a non-PN line when visiting friends), so I don't see
what benefit authentication could give you. PN's setup instructions no
longer tel you to turn authentication on, though they did at some time in
the past (probably several years ago) when I first set up OE.

Mortimer wrote:

>"JC" <tullyhubbert@ (Spam Trap) yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:45mdnXMm1K2OoGPanZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@plusnet.. .
>>
>> "John Milner" wrote in message
>>
>>> I think I'll wait 'til the problem gets fixed; I have no urgent need
>>> to access the PN usergroups, but was mildly surprised that I've been
>>> getting an authentification error from them for nine or ten days now.
>>
>> Mine was borked for two days, been fine since then.
>
>Yes, mine hasn't been down for as long as nine or ten days either. I first
>noticed the problem during the afternoon of 31 March, having successfully
>read newsgroups during the morning. I raised a ticket at 5 PM because PN's
>service status did not mention a Usenet problem.
>
>The symptom was that I was prompted to enter my username and password as
>soon as I tried to read any newsgroup.
>
>The problem was fixed some time during 1 April. I'm not sure exactly when
>this happened, but I eventually got onto PN's Customer Service group via
>their portal site and read messages saying that it was back. I was certainly
>posting by 6 PM, according to entries in my Sent Items folder.
>
>For me, the thing that fixed it was to remove the "This server requires me
>to log on" attribute from the account in Outlook Express. This had worked
>for a long time in the past but no longer works.

Brilliant!

On Forte Agent here, I turned off 'login required', pressed the
'download' button, and I nearly had to download 14000 headers!

Just stopped it in time, and 'sampled' the last 200.

Now up to speed again.

Thanks for the excellent advice.

--

John Milner