No newsgroups server?
 

I haven't been able to connect to the news server for over a day now.
Previously it has been O.K. although occasionally intermittent.

Has something been changed that I haven't been told about?

Nigel

Re: No newsgroups server?
 

hi and :welcome: to the site , do a search for newsgroups on here and you will soon get the picture :(

Re: No newsgroups server?
 

In short its not a pretty "site".

If your relying on newsgroups, look at http://www.newsgroupservers.net/ - some nice listings there.

Im with newshosting myself, works well, full speed @1mbit but there's plenty of others too , to have a look at.

Re: No newsgroups server?
 

To be honest Nigel I've got a feeling that NTL have pulled the plug out on the only servers that have been reliably working during the past few months.

These have been;
62.253.162.114
62.253.162.115
194.168.222.40
194.168.222.41

Now I can't get anything from them so with the others having problems in not being able to download posts before they crash out, NTL has effectively withdrawn the newsgroup service from me. :(

Unless anyone who's well informed can inform me of which servers are now working correctly.

Newsgroup Servers Unavailable
 

I have not been able to use the two following newgroups since the latter part of next week, as my newsgrabber software reports a "503 Program Fault - Function Not Performed": -

news.cache.cable.ntlworld.com
newscache.cable.ntlworld.com

Are thes servers down or have they been discontinued?

I attempted to reply to another thread with this question, but for some reason I was not allowed to, and I was kept on being asked to Login, even though I was already logged in.

Re: Newsgroup Servers Unavailable
 

again , do a search on this site for newsgroups and you will find all the answers , whether you want them or not :erm:

Re: No newsgroups server?
 

For text groups, might just as well use http://news.individual.net/

Re: No newsgroups server?
 

You get what you pay for! (or do you) - I personally have used claranews for the past 18 months and can happily say (touch wood) have never once had a problem with them. Max's out my bandwidth on downloads no problem and they have probably a 4-5 day retention on the largest groups

Re: Newsgroup Servers Unavailable
 

good question - I tried to add 'news.cache' as an account & it failed

'news.ntlworld.com' seems to work, & of course text.news.ntlworld.com, still :)

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Thanks for the prompt to try 'news.ntlworld.com' it works for me.
But why is this info not coming from NTL?
As customers shouldn't we expect to be informed!?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

You obvously don't know ntl very well-communication is practically non existant when it comes to ntl & their customers I'm afraid.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

For reference:

Almost all the publicly-known NTL news server addresses (e.g. news.cable.ntlworld.com, news.ntlworld.com, text.news.ntlworld.com) are all now identical aliases of news.ntli.net, which resolves to eight possible IP addresses on a round-robin basis:

news.ntli.net internet address = 194.168.222.120
news.ntli.net internet address = 194.168.222.121
news.ntli.net internet address = 194.168.222.122
news.ntli.net internet address = 194.168.222.123
news.ntli.net internet address = 194.168.222.124
news.ntli.net internet address = 62.253.162.201
news.ntli.net internet address = 62.253.162.202
news.ntli.net internet address = 62.253.162.203
news.ntli.net internet address = 62.253.162.204

The 194.168.222 addresses are at Guildford, the 62.253.162 ones at Winnersh.

So it makes no difference what DNS name you use for the news server, you always end up at the same round-robin. Unfortunately, the round-robin on the DNS server is defeated by the DNS handling in Outlook Express, which will always re-use the IP address it used previously for the same DNS name. The only way to defeat that seems to be to quit OE and go in again.

There is also a DNS resolver cache in Windows XP, but that seems to honour the round-robin allocation. If needs be, you can clear the XP DNS cache using the command ipconfig /flushdns but I don't think this will help much.

If you are unlucky and OE picks up from the round-robin the IP address of a news server which happens to be broken at present, then OE makes it very difficult to move on to the next IP address in the round-robin, unless you quit OE and re-launch it. This is an OE problem, rather than an NTL problem.

The exceptions to the above round-robin are all the DNS names for news servers which have "cache" in their name. All of these are identical aliases for newscache.cable.ntlworld.com which yields a round-robin on two of the proxy servers at Bromley:

newscache.cable.ntlworld.com internet address = 80.1.224.5
newscache.cable.ntlworld.com internet address = 80.1.224.4

but I have no idea whether these news servers are actually working.

If you have trouble with news servers in OE, then you could try specifying one of the IP addresses in the first round-robin above (instead of the DNS name for NTL news), until you find one that works reliably.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Subscribe to www.giganews.com you wont regret it.
Granted you shouldnt have to subscribe to a third party NG server but unfortunately you do:(

As for the NTL NG Trials, that seemed to be a bit hit and miss
Does anyone know if it was a success at all?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

http://news.astraweb.com/ much cheaper and very good i must say

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I tried astraweb on a free account, it was very good.

afaik the server is in Germany? - ready to be corrected :dozey:

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

[QUOTE=rdhw]For reference:

Almost all the publicly-known NTL news server addresses (e.g. news.cable.ntlworld.com, news.ntlworld.com, text.news.ntlworld.com) are all now identical aliases of news.ntli.net, which resolves to eight possible IP addresses on a round-robin basis:


newscache.cable.ntlworld.com internet address = 80.1.224.5
newscache.cable.ntlworld.com internet address = 80.1.224.4

but I have no idea whether these news servers are actually working.

Thanks for the information! I changed to news.ntli.net and the service is now working fine.....mind you, I said that when i changed to newscache.cable which, by the way are not working at all! :D

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

These should have been disabled now the migration to the new servers is complete. The offical ntl line is to use news.cable.ntlworld.com or news.ntlworld.com for dial up.

However if news.ntli.net works then don't let the official line stop anyone ;)

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Hi everyone,

can someone explain possibly in technical terms how the news servers went from very good to crap overnight? The servers work but everything is incomplete. How did they do that overnight anyone?

Thanks

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Just use Google groups. Free and excellent. Much better than using a newsreader. If you want files then use a p2p application.
http://groups.google.com/grphp?hl=en

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

news.cable.ntlworld.com seems ok, well on tv.aus its contents was pretty thorough... :O

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

No idea, I noticed exactly the same thing, it was literally overnight about a week ago, the whole server is useless for binaries currently (even many text only posts are missing) back to Easynews I went....

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Maybe its the IP your issued? The one im on right now seems VERY good :S

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Im on 194.168.222.124 - try manual IP entry.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Hi, thanks for the reply, I just tried that ip, just the same - everything past about 6 days ago is incomplete :( (I mean in the last 6 days) everything older than 6 days is good, the server was great then.


This is in lots of groups including shadowrealm,cores etc

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I've just been on alt.binaries.tv.aus - shocked it was complete. I guess they've lost some major peering.

I also have a Newshosting account which is prety amazing - web interface (saves on downloading newsgroup headers) and full speed 1mbit. You might wanna try taking something like that up, as it seems NTLWorld's (or for that matter, pretty much any ISP) newsgroups servers suck.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I have Easynews, which is very good, but I was rather hoping that NTL's *new* servers were going to stay good for a bit longer than a few days :(


ah well..guess the newsserver trial was a bit of a waste of time..

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

when did they get new servers ???????????

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

The trial was for the new servers I think, then all the ips were merged and we were told to use news.ntlworld.com instead of all the seperate ones (indeed a lot of the old servers newscache etc no longer work)

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

The servers, though are actually working better than usual, but the binary completion is nonexistent - when there's nothing on them at all, I guess they'll work PERFECTLY!

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

During the News Server trials there where significant problems with completion. NTL where supposedly investing in additional hardware to resolve that problem before the servers went live (and it did seem to solve the problem). I wonder if the additional hardware has failed?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

The most annoying thing is the silence, they built up the trial but nobody has commented at all on the completion failure recently..

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I'm glad to see that I wasn't going insane and it is not just me that has been seeing incomplete newsgroup posts suddenly over the last few days.

Has anyone else got an answer from NTL yet as to why the newsgroup posts are imcomplete and, more importantly, when they are going to fix it?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I think the completion was great before this week, at least for a service from an ISP. It would be good to have some news and information from those that conducted the trial or some information about the current situation. Still can't work out how they did it overnight.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I was part of the trial and the one main complaint was incomplete binaries. ntl said they would address the issue and for a few months they have.

Now it seems to be going downhill again. Spepd is fine, retention is OK but completeness has gone pants.

They seemed really keen to offer a good newsgroup service - where are they now?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I find it amazing - we have some people here who work for NTL but no one seems able to even speak about the overnight (literally) destruction of completion on the newservers, I have emailed support and we have mentioned it here but no one has responded ?

Not even a 'we know something has happened and are looking into it' type of response.

Not very good customer service is it :(

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Well the binaries seem to be coming through fine now but for how long is anyones guess :rolleyes:

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

They still are :Yikes:

Its now actually looking quite good...

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I'll say well done when it doesnt crash to the ground after a month :D

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I never said it was working fine, I just stated binaries were coming through.

All the servers timeout many times during one file but are generally better after midnight... :td:

Resetting hanging (60 seconds of inactivity) connection on the "news.cable.ntlworld.com" server.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I'm getting an error on news.cable.ntlworld.com

Unable to authenticate. Recheck your download quota, your username & password

Anyone else getting this error? :o

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Please do not always expect a response here from NTL employees. This site is not owned or run by NTL. People who offer help do so in their own time. If no one is answering its probably because its a question that they are unable to help with

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

When will the news servers be repaired so they can revert to downloading what I require in 2 mins? What took 2 mins a few weeks ago is now taking me 5 hours and more. I moved from dial up to cut down the download times but it's now worse than that was. It's just taken me 5 hours to download about 75% of what I require which is totally unacceptable performance.
In the last few months only the server running the trial performed adequately, but once the trial was over even this server address started to have problems. I've tried various addresses but they're all the same very poor performance.
Now I see that ntl is going to offer a hush hush media package. This is rediculous when they can't even get the exisiting system working correctly (the news servers). This is certainly a case of running before they can walk. I for one don't want the media package, just the service that they specified they'd provide.
:mad:

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

They've taken a real turn for the worse - very stop-go, and and more stop than go.

For text, since I gather they no longer have the text server pool, it may be better to bail out to:
http://news.individual.net
NB. You CANNOT use the old cis.dfn.de address, but if you had signed up to that one, your account should be available on news.individual.net

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Have you guys actually read the recent announcements that NTL are upgrading the email and news servers?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

tried getting something last night and it kept stopping :/

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

The **** has already hit the fan. Its also stalling for me. Back to Astraweb + NewsHosting...

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

We've read them, we've had the group culls, we've had the news server trial - everything that was SUPPOSED to improve things has been USELESS.

As for timescales, it's always later, and later, and later, and when it does arrive, it's too little, too late and not good enough.


If it does't actually HURT their customer share, the NTL marketroids don't give a damn about it.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

i've just got the last 7 days headers for alt.binaries.mp3 and had 96.3% completion. Downloaded 19 mutli part binaries at 100 - 120 KB/s. I did notice a slight delay (5 secs) on a couple of article downloads.

All in all not bad :pp


ps
I chose the last 7 days as there was a peering problem prior to then for a week or so. can't remember the exact dates but last 7 days fault should have been fixed ;)

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

I noticed over the weekend that the completion rate had dramatically improved. On a group, I had stopped looking at in mid April, as the completion rate was around 5%, I looked at this weekend and I would estimate it had a greater than 90% completion rate, as I hardly spotted any incompletes. If the service stays like this, it will be a great improvement

:) :) :) :) :)

Newsgroups
 

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread but.......
I very rarely use the news groups but I tried to access them today and find them not available, have the settings altered or is it something at my end ?

Re: Newsgroups
 

I never use them myself, but on the couple of occasions i have tried, it worked very intermittantly. I think this is a problem with NTL, like their e-mail its very buggy.

I could be wronmg though.

Re: Newsgroups
 

not so wrong there my mate :(

Re: Newsgroups
 

hi fireman328, I have been getting reasonable performance using

news.ntlworld.com

:)

Re: Newsgroups
 

If your using OE to view newsgroups, check the settings. You may need to re set up the newgroups again.

Re: Newsgroups
 

The "general" names like news.ntlworld.com , news.ntli.net seem to point to the same new pool of servers - if you picked one of the old servers by name/number, you will need to change it.

Looks like some of the old "cable" and "cache" names are no longer available, unless I'm remembering them wrong?

Currently, they are performing adequately, a few pauses but usually proceeding at an acceptable speed.

Re: Newsgroups
 

that's how I understand it too, Matth, afaik the old names like

news.cache.cable.ntlworld.com

newscache.cable.ntlworld.com

no longer work, either by name or IP. :)

Re: Newsgroups
 

Same here. The groups they do cover have great peering and low lag time. Very Very complete :O But given its an NTL service, some groups simply arent covered....which is where my $15 a month unlimited newshosting account kicks in nicely :-)

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Do ntl: plan to "bring back" the DVD groups to their newsgroup service as part of the "improvements" they are implementing?

Are there actually any ISPs in the UK which provide DVD newsgroups with their newsgroup service?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Hate to say it but at the moment Newsgroups are quite good, well for me at least...95%+ complete!!

Woohoo is this a one off? or is this the start of something new ;)
Yes Decent Newsgroup Access?

:)

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

No

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Newsgroup improvenments have now been implemented... i don't use them myself, but has anyone noticed an improvement over the last couple of days?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

does anyone know where to find the list of groups that are provided by the ntl newsgroup?

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

Your newsgroup reader will list all of the available newsgroups.

Re: **MERGED** No newsgroups server?
 

i notice that absm.garage-rock has just been added to the ntl news server, can absm.extreme-metal also be added ... or could someone tell me who to contact for this.
thanks