Newsgroups Strange Problem
 

I'm now very confident with newsgroups and the like but something's happened which has confused me. I was downloading something from a group called a.b.games.xbox360 (it wasn't a 360 game, it was just in that group for some reason) and it was perfect yesterday.

Now when I came to start it again today it didn't download - it just skipped through the files. I know this happens when the files aren't on the server - so can't be downloaded. However, it's the same group and the same files but now suddenly it doesn't; work.

I know it's not anything to do with retention times because it's under 7 days. It was working perfectly yesterday but now today it's just seemed to have disappeared. Is this a problem my end or something to do with the servers?

Thanks.

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

Are you using VirginMedia newsgroups

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

Yes - news.virginmedia.com

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

Then thats why....... if its on a.b.games.xbox360 - Virgin will class this as Piracy
Trailer - Demo - Game

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

But it was working perfectly well yesterday. Other groups like a.b.movies.divx and a.b.tv work fine as well.

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

You'll need to bite the bullet in the long run and pay for a news server subscription to an outside company - I use astraweb myself and get rock solid 20mbit connections to their european servers, often leeching 100+Gb in a day.

Other newsgroup services are available - check them out and see what fits your needs best. Astraweb, Giganews, etc. Google and you shall find. :)

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

Giganews has been more than kind to me.

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

You do realise VM provide access to those apparent piracy groups, right? :rolleyes:

Anyway your problem here is retention, VM seem to use different servers for usenet, it seems your now connected to the one with only 3 day retention.

As said by others, you're better off coughing up for a real news provider like giganews which has 240 days retention.

Many other cheaper (albeit, not as reliable) providers out there though, just google :)

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

Just because the retention is 7 days doesn't mean to say for whatever reason the posts have been removed. A friend on giganews has 200 days, also I have 125days on powerusenet and we both find stuff removed sometimes the next day, no idea why..

Re: Newsgorups Strange Problem
 

This is something I don't quite understand. A couple of times now I've managed to have roughly 100 day retention using VMs newsgroups for a few weeks at a time (the last of which was only last week but has now reverted to the usual 7 days).

Has this just been a glitch? Or do they use different servers at different times and why?

Re: Newsgroups Strange Problem
 

Re: Newsgroups Strange Problem
 

Yeah was a stupid typo - hands were freezing when I typed it.

I do have a pay account - a 100GB from usenet-news but I like to get as much as I can for free :)

Re: Newsgroups Strange Problem
 

Lol noone wants to pay for piracy