Usenet Explorer

Hello,

I am using Newspro for a while now and like it very much. However I have the following problem:

I am using Xpat-search on 1 pay-server and a number of other servers try to get the messages (by Message-ID direct). This setup works fine except for my new4u2 server which keeps on generating the following error when trying to get a message by message-ID:

430 Can't retrieve article - Try joining newsgroup first.

Any ideas if this can be solved by some settings (like forcing to send a "Group" command before the actual "Get" command?)

try to subscribe to the newsgroup and downloaded headers directly, if you are able then to download bodies then the server has corrupted message-id index and you should contact their support.

in case of xpat newsgroups newspro currently doesn't keep newsgroup/article number info, since retrieval by message-id is a basic access method.

inability to download by message-id is also make the newspro message-id feature completely useless for such servers since it won't work in principle.

Thanks Alex. Subscribing to a newsgroup and downloading headers/bodies directly is not a problem. I also believe that the message-id index is not corrupt. It CAN download a message/body using a direct message-id however you have to join the group first.

Let me show you using a telnet-session to the server directly:


200 nf1 NNTPSwitch-0.08 20030519, 59074 groups available, posting allowed, slot
359, connections 4
authinfo user **********
381 More Authentication Required
authinfo pass *******
281 Authentication Accepted

head <o81Ba.620307$uT2.91493@news.easynews.com>
430 Cant retrieve article, try joining a newsgroup first

group alt.binaries.movies.divx
211 268557 1583570 15995217 alt.binaries.movies.divx

head <o81Ba.620307$uT2.91493@news.easynews.com>

221 0 <o81Ba.620307$uT2.91493@news.easynews.com> head
Path: news8!news-x2.support.nl!news2.euro.net!kibo.news.demon.net!demon!newsfeed
.news2me.com!newsfeed2.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!easynews-local!news.ea
synews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: ryan_suiso@nospam.com (Ryan Suiso)
Sender: ryan_suiso@nospam.com
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.movies.divx
Subject: Pulp Fiction (REQ What Dreams May Come - Robbin Williams) - [32/42] - P
ulp Fiction.part28.rar (01/71)
X-Newsposter: NNTP POWER-POST 2000 (Build 25) - net-toys.8k.com
Lines: 5002
Message-ID: <o81Ba.620307$uT2.91493@news.easynews.com>
X-Complaints-To: abuse@easynews.com
Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! - Test our service with our FREE trial
at https://www.easynews.com/trial/trial.phtml
X-Complaints-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers otherwise we
will be unable to process your complaint properly.
Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 11:33:41 GMT
Xref: news-x2.support.nl alt.binaries.movies.divx:15992109
.

As you can see it does recognize the message-ID once you joined the correct group. Sadly enough it seems that I cannot use this server for the purpose I have in mind

Any ideas/suggestions left?

it is not a requirement to set the current newsgroup when retrieving by message-id, probably you are running/accessing a server software that doesn't support the basic nntp protocol.

the idea of retrieval by message-id is given message-id a newsreader is able to retrieve the article without any additional info (it is how message-id direct works in newspro)

usually if there is corrupted message-id index, you cannot access by message id at all but it is needed to set the current newsgroup and then to retrieve by article number, so it is not done on purpose - it means that something went wrong with the server and when it is reported to the server staff it is usually promptly fixed. newspro is able to handle the server malfunction only if the header is in an usual group. i'm planning to keep newsgroup/article number info for xpat groups but it is not straightforward since it will require indexing and bookkeeping of non-subscribed newsgroups almost exclusively for that purpose (almost since then one would be able to see the newsgroups a xpat header belongs to).