Usenet not working

[#1]

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@pittdj70 wrote:

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@bobpullen wrote:

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@pittdj70 wrote:

On the Mac, which has a manually configured IP, the fault only occurs if the router's, an Archer VR900, address is used for DNS, DNS from a Pihole connected to Plusnet's servers  or directly from Plusnet's servers works just fine. 

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Only just noticed this reply. 

It could be somethign to do with the size of the DNS response (which now looks to be pretty large!)

I'm relying on a Pi-hole myself for local DNS and Thunderbird doesn't seem to be grumbling.

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The problem is the other way around. DNS from the Pihole is good, it is DNS via the router, 192.168.1.1 that fails.

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This is exactly how I interpreted your post. Apologies if it came across otherwise. My comment on DNS response size was also working on this basis. When the packet size exceeds a certain value, the lookup can fall back to using TCP instead of UDP for DNS, and I've seen certain router's DNS forwarders fall foul of this in the past. Something like this would cause similar symptoms to what you're seeing - i.e. lookups direct to a DNS server/Pi-hole are fine, however fail when using the router forwarder.

One way to potenitally establish what is going on would be to packet capture a failing session using something like tcpdump or Wireshark, however I'm not familiar with the best way to do this when running RISC OS.

Edit: should be pretty easy to achieve on the Mac though. I'd give it a go myself but I note that Messenger pro is paid software.

[#2]

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@BernardInSussex wrote:

I tried both usenet.plus.net AND news.plus.net

I use Messenger Pro 9.00 / NetFetch 5.53 on RISC OS

Which RISC OS Internet stack is in use. I can replicate the fault with the ROD 7.01 stack but the ROOL version is fine.

The above is specific to RISC OS only.

As with the fault shown on the Mac DNS from the router causes usenet to fail but DNS direct from the pihole is OK.

[#3]

> @pittdj70 wrote:

> Which RISC OS Internet stack is in use. I can replicate the fault with the ROD 7.01 stack but the ROOL version is fine.

> The above is specific to RISC OS only.

> As with the fault shown on the Mac DNS from the router causes usenet to fail but DNS direct from the pihole is OK.

I am using ROD 7.01 stack.

I just tried another RISC OS Pi2 computer with the older ROOL version and that works.

But usenet.plus.net has been working sometimes using ROD 7.01

[#4]

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@BernardInSussex wrote:

> @pittdj70 wrote:

> Which RISC OS Internet stack is in use. I can replicate the fault with the ROD 7.01 stack but the ROOL version is fine.

I am using ROD 7.01 stack.

I just tried another RISC OS Pi2 computer with the older ROOL version and that works.

But usenet.plus.net has been working sometimes using ROD 7.01

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Same here, it had been working on the Mac but failed recently. It seems probable that a few days ago a change was made that resulted in an excess of DNS results being returned which can, in technical terms, stuff up the works. The bug could be either the results really are too big or clients/internet stacks can't cope. 

[#5]

I'm pretty certain another DNS change was made recently. After resolution of the last outage, things definitely weren't being aliased to the isp.news.ord.giganews.com address.

I tried Thunderbird on my Macbook with the DNS explicitly configured to point to my router's forwarder and didn't have any problems. That said, I guess the router in use could be a contributing factor too. 

[#6]

> @bobpullen said:

> That said, I guess the router in use could be a contributing factor too. 

I'm using the Plusnet Hub One router - Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 | Last updated 15/12/21

[#7]

@BernardInSussex thanks - I've seen the Hub One struggle with TCP-based DNS communication in the past (although this is still only an assumption of the cause).

I'm not really in a position to share the model of router I'm using at the moment, but will observe the situation with interest the next time I have my Hub Two hooked up.

[#8]

Plusnet have just upgraded my Plusnet hub one router to a Plusnet hub two router.  Today is the first day using it and newsgroups now work again.  They haven't been working since your post when I was using the hub one router.  It will be interesting to see if newsgroups continue to work from tomorrow onwards.

[#9]

I have the problem looking up news.plus.net and my router is:

Plusnet Hub One | Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 | Last updated 29/11/21

Bypassing the Hub One router by setting the DNS on the host that is having trouble to the Primary DNS value from the Hub One settings fixes the lookup problem.

If upgrading to Hub Two would fix the problem in a better way, how would I go about that?

[#10]

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@owen2302 wrote:

I have the problem looking up news.plus.net and my router is:

If upgrading to Hub Two would fix the problem in a better way, how would I go about that?

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This problem happened to coincide with my Plusnet contract coming to an end.  During the negotiation of my new contract Plusnet offered me a new Plusnet Hub Two router.  I jumped at the chance of being offered this as I had previously heard that it is better than a Hub One in other ways too.  One thing I don't like about a Hub Two is that it only has 3 ethernet ports on the back and not four which most routers normally have.

My news.plus.net is still working fine on a Plusnet Hub Two router.

[#11]

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@owen2302 wrote:

I have the problem looking up news.plus.net and my router is:

Plusnet Hub One | Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 | Last updated 29/11/21

Bypassing the Hub One router by setting the DNS on the host that is having trouble to the Primary DNS value from the Hub One settings fixes the lookup problem.

If upgrading to Hub Two would fix the problem in a better way, how would I go about that?

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I have a suspicion this is due to the increased DNS payload following the Giganews changes.

I know from past experiences that the Hub One does not like DNS requests that fallback to TCP (which is what happens once a DNS conversation reaches a certain size).

Once thing it may be worth trying is using the hostname 'usenet.plus.net' instead of 'news.plus.net' as that will return a slightly smaller DNS response. Even smaller would be to use 'isp.news.ord.giganews.com' (although the latter could change at some point).

[#12]

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, neither 'usenet.plus.net' nor 'isp.news.ord.giganews.com' do any better.

[#13]

Found this discussion which looks like the problem I am seeing.

I am using the Mail/Newsreader from Mozilla/5.0 (OS/2; Warp 4.5; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0 SeaMonkey/2.42.9esr and cannot access news.plus.net, attempting to do so results in this message "Failed to connect to server news.plus.net"

This problem started sometime around the start of July.

There is no later Newsreader currently available for my system.

[#14]

@losepete - have you tried either of these things..?

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@bobpullen wrote:

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One thing it may be worth trying is using the hostname 'usenet.plus.net' instead of 'news.plus.net' as that will return a slightly smaller DNS response. Even smaller would be to use 'isp.news.ord.giganews.com' (although the latter could change at some point).

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[#15]

Sorry to say that changing the server address simply results in the "Failed ..." message showing the server address in use.