OT - news.individual.net (Berlin) problems

[Rod]

Earlier today I wrote (and posted) the post below. Unfortunately that attempt failed - probably because of the very subject of the post! So, as it seemed to be bad all day, I am still interested to know the answer. Apologies if by some magic my original post also makes it here eventually.

I seem to be getting loads and loads of problems with n.i.n. today - keeps timing out and failing to connect, etc. I have even (drum roll...) rebooted my machine today in an effort to avoid/correct problems!

Is this widespread? Or am I suffering on my own? (Or - can I wait while they sort it out or do I have to go off and find out what is wrong here? :-) )

[Bob Eager]

My newsreader seems to display more detailed information. I had a couple of failures with n.i.n this afternoon, and the message sent by the server was:

502 Temporary database problem. Please try again later.

(this is cut and pasted from my newsreader's logfile). Seems OK now.

[NOSPAMnet]

I use them as well and it has been a bit erratic today .Sometimes it seems to take a while to connect to the server . I also have Agent set to send "keep alive" messages every so often and all day I have been coming back to my PC to find a message saying it has been unable to connect . It's usual this situation .

[Steve Walker]

[R D S]

I couldn't connect earlier so had a look on their website and there was a notice about maintenance. The notice has gone now so I guess they are done.

[Bob Eager]

Nope. But at least a few of its denizens probably realise that diybanter is nothing but a leech.

[Steve Walker]

Shame. Maybe we should organise a mass "sig month" campaign to take advantage of their discourtesy? Agree a range of amusing slogans to develop a warm rapport with them....

" There's a whole world outside diybanter - visit

and join usenet! "

" diybanter smells of poo, and it's users are mingers "

" if you like angle-grinders you're a real man, so why are you slumming it in diybanter? "

" We are coming for you all one by one, diybanter scum. Click your little Report As Inappropriate button, and learn too late that it cannot save you... "

" diybanter proudly welcomes it's 1,000th member - Mr G Glitter "

" uk.diy thanks the proprietor of diybanter for stealing our knowledge and hawking it to stupid people for a fast buck. "

" diybanter, sheltered sanctuary for the weak, stupid & despised of the internet"

" Take the red pill, diybanter users - the real internet is waiting for you "

" I am not an "external usenet poster" I am a free man (or woman, cat or fish as applicable) "

" Warning - if you post a message to uk.diy through this site, it's marked as coming from DIYbanter.com and automatically blocked or ignored by many expert members. Visit

and start an account today"

" diybanter - even less popular than Saniflo's "

[Rod]

Thanks all. Still getting the odd hiccup - but much better.

[Bob Eager]

LOL!

[geoff]

In message , Rod writes

There have been reports elsewhere regarding problems with the german server

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Some ISPs are blocking all newsgroup access at some times of the day to restrict usage. Seems strange given how little data text based ones use - but this isn't the case with binaries. I've got 3 different news suppliers here and they're all blocked when this happens. They seem not to be doing it to all their customers at the same time either - just to confuse.

[Rod]

How exceedingly odd. My initial thought is that it is some form of proection against avalanches of spam rather than reducing bandwidth usage. But I try never to make assumptions regarding the ways of ISPs.

But I have noticed over the past days, maybe weeks, that there have been much worse propagation delays from other ISPs than I had been used to. Perhaps down to the same cause. (This is on a "how it feels" basis - no proper analysis done!)

[Huge]

Tiscali.

That's why they do it - because the copyright thieves have spoiled it for everyone.

That's because they reconfigure their routers to drop traffic on port 119. It doesn't matter where it's going. Irritatingly, Tiscali drop traffic on 8119, too, which NIN also listens on.

I wonder if they do it by bandwidth? Once port 119 traffic goes over 'x', they traffic shape it? It defintiely isn't by time-of-day.

[Dave Liquorice]

Probably and it will be different depending on where in their network you are. Things like iPlayer have given the major ISPs a bit of a headache regarding the expected capacity per customer. Over selling again, build a business model and infrastruture based on long term average use per customer of say 10kbps if that average suddenly leaps up to 1,000kbps you have a problem...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - I'm with Pipex which is owned by them. Although if this continues I'll move when the contract is up. Of course some ISPs have removed news access entirely. And I'm not going down the Google route.

I wonder why they don't just remove binary groups from those available?

Thanks for adding to what I'd read.

It is here. But not all the time. Had a week of no access between approx

1800 - 2400 followed by back to normal then another few days of the same. At the moment it's normal. My email and news progs do auto fetches every 20 minutes while the machine is on. I'm not a heavy user and pretty well never download large files, etc.

Seems so few use news these days that it's not a problem for most - and therefore those ISPs won't miss the few customers who change because of it. Allegedly.

[Rod]

Considering the online population has gone from a (relative) handful to a large proportion of the country's population, you only need an incredibly tiny percentage to use Usenet for the actual numbers to grow. Is it really true that the absolute numbers are so small? (Genuinely questioning - I don't know.)

Can't help wondering what would have happened if MS had put a halfway decent newsreader in with Windows. And maybe some autoconfig doodah that made connection settings automatic (or very nearly so).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I dunno either. Just reporting what I've seen from those more knowledgeable than myself.

My guess is MS are very against any free service for the community such as Usenet.

[Huge]

Because the issue is bandwidth, and not news servers 'per se'. Even if they removed binary groups from their own news servers, you could transit their network to get to a server that *does* have binary groups, and still consume the bandwidth.

B*st*rds.

I suspect we're all going to end up on "paid for" news suppliers, eventually. If it doesn't have a user interface like a pop-up comic book, it appears people aren't interested any more.

[Rod]

Which makes it all the more ironic that their own newsgroups are much easier and better read through NNTP than any interface they have dreamt up for web-type access. But I agree. Probably mostly a case of control rather than price...

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) writes

I'd agree. They can't even be bothered to properly maintain Hotmail and Messenger.