Does Plusnet still support Usenet groups?

[#1]

I used to access a few Usenet groups via news.plus.net and Thunderbird but haven't done so in some time.  Trying just now to set up a new account on a new installation of Thunderbird didn't get me very far: does Plusnet still support Usenet?  I rang the general helpline number to enquire and the (otherwise helpful) operative I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about.

Many thanks.

[#2]

Plusnet has some agreement with Giganews to supply text-base newgroup access.

It used to be easy to find Plusnet help pages with the required configuration details (server names etc.) but searching now I can't find the web page.  The settings I'm using are:

server:  news.plus.net

port:   119

connection security:    none

Note:  there's currently some problem with the server, which is asking for userid/password for connection.  When working properly the server does not require userid/password as it authenticates based on your IP address which is allocated by Plusnet.  This problem happens from time to time, and is generally gets fixed in a couple of days.

Regards,

Mike.

[#3]

Mike,

Thanks for that.  The current login problems may well be the sole cause of my difficulty.

May I ask what newsreader you're using?  I find Thunderbird very unfriendly but haven't really looked into alternatives.

Bert

[#4]

I use SeaMonkey, which I believe uses the same code base as Thunderbird.  (So if you don't like Thunderbird I think you wouldn't like SeaMonkey!)

Mike.

[#5]

Yes, the authentication prompt does seem to be the only _immediate_ indication that's something is wrong - but I'm sure the current problem has been there for several days if not longer.

If I try to _post_, I get - usually after a significant time, the most recent one I've kept being 37+ minutes - a "480" (I'm inserting the "===" lines here):

===>

Your article could not be posted
Talking to news.plus.net on Tue, 14 May 2024 23:35:17 +0100
>>>
<<< 480

<===

On examination of the "message delivery status" below that, I see

===>

Reporting-MTA: dns; 255soft.uk

Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Remote-MTA: dns; news.plus.net
Diagnostic-Code: nntp; 480
Last-Attempt-Date: Tue, 14 May 2024 23:35:17 +0100

<===

If I try to _receive_, I get the "Authentication required for news.plus.net" message, but of course I only see this if I have the log window my software provides open, which normally I do not; I am therefore normally unaware that anything is wrong.

Has anyone raised a ticket? I'm reluctant to do so, as I'd have to go through the usual education process of someone who has never heard of usenet.

[#6]

I don't think there's a ticket, but there's a Forum post for the problem:

  <https://community.plus.net/t5/Everything-else/Usenet-server-prompting-for-userid-password/td-p/19696...>

In any case, the problem has gone away for me, so hopefully it is fully fixed now.

Mike.

[#7]

Until next time. (Someone in that thread suggested it happens every six months, and asked [Bob?] if they knew of anything that happens with the supplier [which would be Giganews] every 6 months.)

One can't help wondering if it's deliberate to see how many complain🙁

[#8]

I'm pleased to report that I appear to have solved the problem: I completely uninstalled Thunderbird and started again from scratch.  As before, the setup wizard accepted the account details, though (again as before) it bafflingly reported the username as "mail".  I left it at that, but changed the port number from the given 119 to 110 (as used by Outlook for my main email account), and from there on, everything worked: for the first time, I wasn't prompted for login details.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and suggestions.

[#9]

Hmm, port 110 is not right for Usenet, and doesn't work for me.  It sounds like you might have set up an email account rather than a news server account?  When you select "add account" I would expect you to see a couple of options including "email account" and "newsgroup account".  You would select the newsgroup option, and enter details as in my earlier post (including port=119 which should be the default anyway...)

OTOH if you're happy with the way you've got it working, who am I to suggest changing anything! 

Mike.

[#10]

Mike, thanks for that.  I tried changing the port number to 119 (which did come up as the default, you're quite right) and that worked too, so I'll leave it there now.  I did definitely choose the newsgroup option when I set the account up.

One oddity: this morning, having left the program running overnight (but minimised), the connection was lost: I had to close and restart the program to re-establish it.  Is there a setting somewhere to disconnect after a particular period of non-activity?

Bert

[#11]

One oddity: this morning, having left the program running overnight (but minimised), the connection was lost: I had to close and restart the program to re-establish it.  Is there a setting somewhere to disconnect after a particular period of non-activity?

I would not be surprised if there's a timeout at the server end under such circumstances; inactive but open connections must still use something, even if it's only holding open one of a limited (but hopefully large!) number of ports. Having to restart Thunderbird, rather than just tell it to fetch and that triggers it, to initiate a reconnection sounds a bit poor, though.