OT-ish Anyone had trouble recently with Avast screwing with

[Arfa Daily]

A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly security
crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates, but still had
a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still be ok, as did
Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected group's headers
would download, and load up ok in the program. You could pick any message
anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere within a thread, and the
message body would download, and display correctly. But when you then tried
to select any further messages, although the new message body appeared to
download - as in you could see a normal-looking burst of activity on the
modem lights - when the new message was then displayed, it was in fact the
first one again. And so for any message selected. All that was ever
displayed was the very first message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does not
have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks. Never-the-less, I
removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that I keep on an external
drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in fact Thunderbird and Live
Mail were also having similar problems with access to messages, but nothing
like as consistently as Xnews. Some messages would download and display
correctly, but others would lock you into this 'same message over and over'
behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the conclusion
that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server itself, was the
virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never caused me a problem
in all the time I have been using it since it first came out. I have not
authorised any updates to the core program recently, so I was reluctant to
believe that this could be the problem. Never-the-less, when I did a bulk
disable of all the shields that it had running, the problem went away.
Reinstating them one by one, it came down to the Mail Defender shield that
was causing the problem. So for the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just
invoking the "switch off shields for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders on
here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this behaviour, or
what has started it ?

Arfa

 

[Mark Zacharias]

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Jo5Qq.5$eX.4@newsfe02.ams2...

A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly security
crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates, but still had
a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still be ok, as did
Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected group's headers
would download, and load up ok in the program. You could pick any message
anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere within a thread, and the
message body would download, and display correctly. But when you then tried
to select any further messages, although the new message body appeared to
download - as in you could see a normal-looking burst of activity on the
modem lights - when the new message was then displayed, it was in fact the
first one again. And so for any message selected. All that was ever
displayed was the very first message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does not
have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks. Never-the-less, I
removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that I keep on an
external drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in fact
Thunderbird and Live Mail were also having similar problems with access to
messages, but nothing like as consistently as Xnews. Some messages would
download and display correctly, but others would lock you into this 'same
message over and over' behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the conclusion
that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server itself, was
the virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never caused me a
problem in all the time I have been using it since it first came out. I
have not authorised any updates to the core program recently, so I was
reluctant to believe that this could be the problem. Never-the-less, when
I did a bulk disable of all the shields that it had running, the problem
went away. Reinstating them one by one, it came down to the Mail Defender
shield that was causing the problem. So for the moment, when I use Xnews,
I am just invoking the "switch off shields for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this behaviour,
or what has started it ?

Arfa

No problems w/ Avast so far.. using Windoze Mail for newsgroups.

Mark Z.

 

[Rich Webb]

On Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:45:03 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly security
crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates, but still had
a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still be ok, as did
Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected group's headers
would download, and load up ok in the program. You could pick any message
anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere within a thread, and the
message body would download, and display correctly. But when you then tried
to select any further messages, although the new message body appeared to
download - as in you could see a normal-looking burst of activity on the
modem lights - when the new message was then displayed, it was in fact the
first one again. And so for any message selected. All that was ever
displayed was the very first message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does not
have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks. Never-the-less, I
removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that I keep on an external
drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in fact Thunderbird and Live
Mail were also having similar problems with access to messages, but nothing
like as consistently as Xnews. Some messages would download and display
correctly, but others would lock you into this 'same message over and over'
behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the conclusion
that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server itself, was the
virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never caused me a problem
in all the time I have been using it since it first came out. I have not
authorised any updates to the core program recently, so I was reluctant to
believe that this could be the problem. Never-the-less, when I did a bulk
disable of all the shields that it had running, the problem went away.
Reinstating them one by one, it came down to the Mail Defender shield that
was causing the problem. So for the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just
invoking the "switch off shields for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders on
here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this behaviour, or
what has started it ?

As I understand it (which may not be much), Avast prefers that one
connects to the standard (non-SSL ports) for POP3, SMTP, and NNTP. Avast
intercepts the traffic, scans it, and then (if available) handles the
traffic via a secure SSL/TLS link to the provider. It appears to handle
the configuration pretty much automagically but you can check what ports
it's using in the Mail Shield | Expert Settings | SSL Accounts tab.

If XNews uses a non-standard NNTPS port (i.e., not 563) or it has
recently changed its SSL/TLS settings then maybe your Avast has gotten
confused. You should be able to manually set the port to use, or to
remove the SSL setting entirely, from the referenced tab.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

 

[Ron]

On 14/01/2012 01:45, Arfa Daily wrote:

A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly
security crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates,
but still had a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still
be ok, as did Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected
group's headers would download, and load up ok in the program. You could
pick any message anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere
within a thread, and the message body would download, and display
correctly. But when you then tried to select any further messages,
although the new message body appeared to download - as in you could see
a normal-looking burst of activity on the modem lights - when the new
message was then displayed, it was in fact the first one again. And so
for any message selected. All that was ever displayed was the very first
message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does
not have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks.
Never-the-less, I removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that
I keep on an external drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in
fact Thunderbird and Live Mail were also having similar problems with
access to messages, but nothing like as consistently as Xnews. Some
messages would download and display correctly, but others would lock you
into this 'same message over and over' behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the
conclusion that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server
itself, was the virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never
caused me a problem in all the time I have been using it since it first
came out. I have not authorised any updates to the core program
recently, so I was reluctant to believe that this could be the problem.
Never-the-less, when I did a bulk disable of all the shields that it had
running, the problem went away. Reinstating them one by one, it came
down to the Mail Defender shield that was causing the problem. So for
the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just invoking the "switch off shields
for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

Not internet related as such, but I found yesterday that Avast prevents
some of the newer Popcap games from running. I have no problem with
email or n/gs so far running in conjunction with Avast.

Ron

 

[Lee]

On 14/01/2012 01:45, Arfa Daily wrote:

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

Firstly, if you are using the same isp as you email address, their news
server (or their implementation of it) is known to be flakey on occasion
so it may just be them and the Avast thing is a coincidence...

Avast used to complain about my ssl connections to Gmail and Eternal
September but since update 6.0.1367 it's been quite happy about them.

 

[Gareth Magennis]

A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly security
crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates, but still had
a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still be ok, as did
Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected group's headers
would download, and load up ok in the program. You could pick any message
anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere within a thread, and the
message body would download, and display correctly. But when you then tried
to select any further messages, although the new message body appeared to
download - as in you could see a normal-looking burst of activity on the
modem lights - when the new message was then displayed, it was in fact the
first one again. And so for any message selected. All that was ever
displayed was the very first message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does not
have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks. Never-the-less, I
removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that I keep on an external
drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in fact Thunderbird and Live
Mail were also having similar problems with access to messages, but nothing
like as consistently as Xnews. Some messages would download and display
correctly, but others would lock you into this 'same message over and over'
behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the conclusion
that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server itself, was the
virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never caused me a problem
in all the time I have been using it since it first came out. I have not
authorised any updates to the core program recently, so I was reluctant to
believe that this could be the problem. Never-the-less, when I did a bulk
disable of all the shields that it had running, the problem went away.
Reinstating them one by one, it came down to the Mail Defender shield that
was causing the problem. So for the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just
invoking the "switch off shields for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders on
here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this behaviour, or
what has started it ?

Arfa

 

[Rheilly Phoull]

On 1/14/2012 10:36 PM, Gareth Magennis wrote:

A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly security
crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates, but still had
a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still be ok, as did
Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected group's headers
would download, and load up ok in the program. You could pick any message
anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere within a thread, and the
message body would download, and display correctly. But when you then tried
to select any further messages, although the new message body appeared to
download - as in you could see a normal-looking burst of activity on the
modem lights - when the new message was then displayed, it was in fact the
first one again. And so for any message selected. All that was ever
displayed was the very first message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does not
have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks. Never-the-less, I
removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that I keep on an external
drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in fact Thunderbird and
Live
Mail were also having similar problems with access to messages, but nothing
like as consistently as Xnews. Some messages would download and display
correctly, but others would lock you into this 'same message over and over'
behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the conclusion
that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server itself, was the
virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never caused me a problem
in all the time I have been using it since it first came out. I have not
authorised any updates to the core program recently, so I was reluctant to
believe that this could be the problem. Never-the-less, when I did a bulk
disable of all the shields that it had running, the problem went away.
Reinstating them one by one, it came down to the Mail Defender shield that
was causing the problem. So for the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just
invoking the "switch off shields for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders on
here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this behaviour, or
what has started it ?

Arfa


So Gareth,

Were you saying something ??

 

[amdx]

On 1/13/2012 7:45 PM, Arfa Daily wrote:

A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly
security crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates,
but still had a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still
be ok, as did Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected
group's headers would download, and load up ok in the program. You could
pick any message anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere
within a thread, and the message body would download, and display
correctly. But when you then tried to select any further messages,
although the new message body appeared to download - as in you could see
a normal-looking burst of activity on the modem lights - when the new
message was then displayed, it was in fact the first one again. And so
for any message selected. All that was ever displayed was the very first
message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does
not have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks.
Never-the-less, I removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that
I keep on an external drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in
fact Thunderbird and Live Mail were also having similar problems with
access to messages, but nothing like as consistently as Xnews. Some
messages would download and display correctly, but others would lock you
into this 'same message over and over' behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the
conclusion that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server
itself, was the virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never
caused me a problem in all the time I have been using it since it first
came out. I have not authorised any updates to the core program
recently, so I was reluctant to believe that this could be the problem.
Never-the-less, when I did a bulk disable of all the shields that it had
running, the problem went away. Reinstating them one by one, it came
down to the Mail Defender shield that was causing the problem. So for
the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just invoking the "switch off shields
for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

YES Arfa,
That is exactly the problem I'm having with one of my computers, (this
one)
I have two computers and each is having a different problem with
Thunderbird and newsgroups. I have a post started to Mozilla forum
regarding my other problem, after I finish it, I'll start a second post
about our shared problem.
Mikek

 

[Adrian C]

On 14/01/2012 01:45, Arfa Daily wrote:

<snip>

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Try to telnet to the server, substituting whatever ports and addresses
are set in Xnews. See if you can manually pull messages by ID and their
relatives, doing actions side by side with the same post/thread in Xnews.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/telnet/how-can-i-use-telnet-to-access-a-news-server-

--
Adrian C

 

[Arfa Daily]

"amdx" <amdx@knologynotthis.net> wrote in message
news:2d33$4f11a152$18ec6dd7$16641@KNOLOGY.NET...

On 1/13/2012 7:45 PM, Arfa Daily wrote:
A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly
security crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates,
but still had a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still
be ok, as did Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected
group's headers would download, and load up ok in the program. You could
pick any message anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere
within a thread, and the message body would download, and display
correctly. But when you then tried to select any further messages,
although the new message body appeared to download - as in you could see
a normal-looking burst of activity on the modem lights - when the new
message was then displayed, it was in fact the first one again. And so
for any message selected. All that was ever displayed was the very first
message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does
not have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks.
Never-the-less, I removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that
I keep on an external drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in
fact Thunderbird and Live Mail were also having similar problems with
access to messages, but nothing like as consistently as Xnews. Some
messages would download and display correctly, but others would lock you
into this 'same message over and over' behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the
conclusion that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server
itself, was the virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never
caused me a problem in all the time I have been using it since it first
came out. I have not authorised any updates to the core program
recently, so I was reluctant to believe that this could be the problem.
Never-the-less, when I did a bulk disable of all the shields that it had
running, the problem went away. Reinstating them one by one, it came
down to the Mail Defender shield that was causing the problem. So for
the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just invoking the "switch off shields
for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

YES Arfa,
That is exactly the problem I'm having with one of my computers, (this
one)
I have two computers and each is having a different problem with
Thunderbird and newsgroups. I have a post started to Mozilla forum
regarding my other problem, after I finish it, I'll start a second post
about our shared problem.
Mikek

So do you have Avast installed ? Have you tried temporarily disabling it to
see if it cures the problem ? Be interested to see what other info you
collect from your forum activities.

Arfa

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Adrian C" <email@here.invalid> wrote in message
news:9ndm0qF80dU1@mid.individual.net...

On 14/01/2012 01:45, Arfa Daily wrote:

snip


So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?


Try to telnet to the server, substituting whatever ports and addresses are
set in Xnews. See if you can manually pull messages by ID and their
relatives, doing actions side by side with the same post/thread in Xnews.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/telnet/how-can-i-use-telnet-to-access-a-news-server-

--
Adrian C

You are getting close to exceeding my computah expertise level there,
Adrian, but I will try to give it a go ...

Arfa

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Lee" <cyberwitch@ukonline.net> wrote in message
news:jern8o$i7l$1@dont-email.me...

On 14/01/2012 01:45, Arfa Daily wrote:


So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

Firstly, if you are using the same isp as you email address, their news
server (or their implementation of it) is known to be flakey on occasion
so it may just be them and the Avast thing is a coincidence...

Avast used to complain about my ssl connections to Gmail and Eternal
September but since update 6.0.1367 it's been quite happy about them.

I do use both their mail and news servers by default, and yes, I have in the
past had some 'issues', often a weekends, and usually associated with server
maintenance, upgrading, or migration. I have a friend who works for them,
and I can usually find out if anything has gone on when there's been a
problem.

However, in this case, it does not appear to be server / ISP related. I did
suspect that it might be, so I Googled for another free-access news server,
and put that into Xnews. It behaved exactly the same.

Thanks to all so far for the useful and interesting insights.

Arfa

 

[amdx]

On 1/14/2012 10:34 AM, Arfa Daily wrote:

"amdx" <amdx@knologynotthis.net> wrote in message
news:2d33$4f11a152$18ec6dd7$16641@KNOLOGY.NET...
On 1/13/2012 7:45 PM, Arfa Daily wrote:
A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly
security crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates,
but still had a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still
be ok, as did Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected
group's headers would download, and load up ok in the program. You could
pick any message anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere
within a thread, and the message body would download, and display
correctly. But when you then tried to select any further messages,
although the new message body appeared to download - as in you could see
a normal-looking burst of activity on the modem lights - when the new
message was then displayed, it was in fact the first one again. And so
for any message selected. All that was ever displayed was the very first
message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does
not have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks.
Never-the-less, I removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that
I keep on an external drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in
fact Thunderbird and Live Mail were also having similar problems with
access to messages, but nothing like as consistently as Xnews. Some
messages would download and display correctly, but others would lock you
into this 'same message over and over' behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the
conclusion that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server
itself, was the virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never
caused me a problem in all the time I have been using it since it first
came out. I have not authorised any updates to the core program
recently, so I was reluctant to believe that this could be the problem.
Never-the-less, when I did a bulk disable of all the shields that it had
running, the problem went away. Reinstating them one by one, it came
down to the Mail Defender shield that was causing the problem. So for
the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just invoking the "switch off shields
for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

YES Arfa,
That is exactly the problem I'm having with one of my computers, (this
one)
I have two computers and each is having a different problem with
Thunderbird and newsgroups. I have a post started to Mozilla forum
regarding my other problem, after I finish it, I'll start a second
post about our shared problem.
Mikek


So do you have Avast installed ? Have you tried temporarily disabling it
to see if it cures the problem ? Be interested to see what other info
you collect from your forum activities.

Arfa

Yes I do have Avast installed. I have had Avast installed for a long
time. I haven't updated for a long time. so I'm doubtful that Avast is
the problem. ( I did update just this morning, but it didn't help my
problem) I have not tried temporarily disabling it.
No response to the forum question. Kind off a busy forum, but no help
in an hour
You might add your post.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=39
Mikek

 

[Lee]

On 14/01/2012 16:42, Arfa Daily wrote:

However, in this case, it does not appear to be server / ISP related. I
did suspect that it might be, so I Googled for another free-access news
server, and put that into Xnews. It behaved exactly the same.

Since it works with the mail shield disabled it's probably Avast then,
guess that whatever they did which fixed it for me, broke it for you

Not a solution, but you can tell Avast to stop redirecting/scanning nttp
port 119.
Of course that means it won't scan newsgroup posts, but at least you
shouldn't then have to turn off the email scanning.

(Avast ->settings/troubleshooting/redirect settings/mail and change the
port number in the nttp box or leave it blank.)

 

[Gareth Magennis]

"Rheilly Phoull" <rheilly@bigslong.com> wrote in message
news:nvydnbrz0dM-BYzSnZ2dnUVZ_tudnZ2d@westnet.com.au...

On 1/14/2012 10:36 PM, Gareth Magennis wrote:
A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly security
crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates, but still
had
a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still be ok, as did
Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected group's headers
would download, and load up ok in the program. You could pick any message
anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere within a thread, and
the
message body would download, and display correctly. But when you then
tried
to select any further messages, although the new message body appeared to
download - as in you could see a normal-looking burst of activity on the
modem lights - when the new message was then displayed, it was in fact
the
first one again. And so for any message selected. All that was ever
displayed was the very first message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does
not
have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks. Never-the-less,
I
removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that I keep on an
external
drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in fact Thunderbird and
Live
Mail were also having similar problems with access to messages, but
nothing
like as consistently as Xnews. Some messages would download and display
correctly, but others would lock you into this 'same message over and
over'
behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the
conclusion
that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server itself, was
the
virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never caused me a
problem
in all the time I have been using it since it first came out. I have not
authorised any updates to the core program recently, so I was reluctant
to
believe that this could be the problem. Never-the-less, when I did a bulk
disable of all the shields that it had running, the problem went away.
Reinstating them one by one, it came down to the Mail Defender shield
that
was causing the problem. So for the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just
invoking the "switch off shields for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on
here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this behaviour,
or
what has started it ?

Arfa


So Gareth,
Were you saying something ??

Err,,,
I have exactly the same problem. I'm on Windows 7, and using Windows Live
Mail to read usenet, and have Avast.

To be honest, I thought this "many posters just repeating the original post"
was a running gag until I checked this thread on Google Groups, to find it
wasn't at all how my newsreader displays it.

(Hence my feeble attempt here to join in with the running gag that never
was).


I thought it was quite a good gag, actually!



Gareth.

 

[amdx]

On 1/14/2012 2:49 PM, Gareth Magennis wrote:

"Rheilly Phoull" <rheilly@bigslong.com> wrote in message
news:nvydnbrz0dM-BYzSnZ2dnUVZ_tudnZ2d@westnet.com.au...
On 1/14/2012 10:36 PM, Gareth Magennis wrote:
A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly
security
crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates, but
still had
a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still be ok, as did
Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected group's
headers
would download, and load up ok in the program. You could pick any
message
anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere within a thread,
and the
message body would download, and display correctly. But when you then
tried
to select any further messages, although the new message body
appeared to
download - as in you could see a normal-looking burst of activity on the
modem lights - when the new message was then displayed, it was in
fact the
first one again. And so for any message selected. All that was ever
displayed was the very first message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It
does not
have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks.
Never-the-less, I
removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that I keep on an
external
drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in fact Thunderbird and
Live
Mail were also having similar problems with access to messages, but
nothing
like as consistently as Xnews. Some messages would download and display
correctly, but others would lock you into this 'same message over and
over'
behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the
conclusion
that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server itself,
was the
virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never caused me a
problem
in all the time I have been using it since it first came out. I have not
authorised any updates to the core program recently, so I was
reluctant to
believe that this could be the problem. Never-the-less, when I did a
bulk
disable of all the shields that it had running, the problem went away.
Reinstating them one by one, it came down to the Mail Defender shield
that
was causing the problem. So for the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just
invoking the "switch off shields for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah
deep-understanders on
here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or
what has started it ?

Arfa


So Gareth,
Were you saying something ??


Err,,,
I have exactly the same problem. I'm on Windows 7, and using Windows
Live Mail to read usenet, and have Avast.

To be honest, I thought this "many posters just repeating the original
post" was a running gag until I checked this thread on Google Groups, to
find it wasn't at all how my newsreader displays it.

(Hence my feeble attempt here to join in with the running gag that never
was).


I thought it was quite a good gag, actually!



Gareth.
Interesting, 3 people having the problem, all 3 are using avast.

Coincidence or causality, inquiring minds want to know.
As far as a gag, it's starting make me mad!
Still no response on the forum.
Mikek

 

[Ian Field]

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:0giQq.86$Hv.81@newsfe14.ams2...

"Lee" <cyberwitch@ukonline.net> wrote in message
news:jern8o$i7l$1@dont-email.me...
On 14/01/2012 01:45, Arfa Daily wrote:


So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

Firstly, if you are using the same isp as you email address, their news
server (or their implementation of it) is known to be flakey on occasion
so it may just be them and the Avast thing is a coincidence...

Avast used to complain about my ssl connections to Gmail and Eternal
September but since update 6.0.1367 it's been quite happy about them.




I do use both their mail and news servers by default, and yes, I have in
the past had some 'issues', often a weekends, and usually associated with
server maintenance, upgrading, or migration. I have a friend who works for
them, and I can usually find out if anything has gone on when there's been
a problem.

However, in this case, it does not appear to be server / ISP related. I
did suspect that it might be, so I Googled for another free-access news
server, and put that into Xnews. It behaved exactly the same.

Thanks to all so far for the useful and interesting insights.

Arfa

Xnews on my PC has been playing up for a few days (I don't use Avast).

It started with both sliders at the RHS so it only downloaded a couple of
headers, when I moved the start slider to the LHS it took most of the day
only to fail woth out of memory error.

At each try I halved the start slider until it completed getting headers and
displayed ready - the latest article was dated December.

Then I double checked the finish slider was hard to the RHS and set the
start slider just a smidge to its left, with group/findI was then able to
search the most recent file in my downloads folder and resume tagging from
there on.

Late last year there were problems with one or more virus spammers uploading
*HUGE* numbers of rar files all the same size - Xnews couldn't handle that
many headers!

 

[amdx]

On 1/14/2012 10:34 AM, Arfa Daily wrote:

"amdx" <amdx@knologynotthis.net> wrote in message
news:2d33$4f11a152$18ec6dd7$16641@KNOLOGY.NET...
On 1/13/2012 7:45 PM, Arfa Daily wrote:
A couple of nights back, my Xnews stopped working - sort of. I'd just
installed some Windoze updates. Nothing special, just the weekly
security crap, so I immediately suspected that. I removed the updates,
but still had a problem. Usenet access via Thunderbird seemed to still
be ok, as did Windows Live Mail. What was happening was that a selected
group's headers would download, and load up ok in the program. You could
pick any message anywhere in the list of headers, and from anywhere
within a thread, and the message body would download, and display
correctly. But when you then tried to select any further messages,
although the new message body appeared to download - as in you could see
a normal-looking burst of activity on the modem lights - when the new
message was then displayed, it was in fact the first one again. And so
for any message selected. All that was ever displayed was the very first
message selected.

I found this odd, as Xnews is basically a stand-alone dot exe. It does
not have to be 'installed' as such, so no real system hooks.
Never-the-less, I removed it, and reinstated it from a backup copy that
I keep on an external drive. Exactly the same. I then discovered that in
fact Thunderbird and Live Mail were also having similar problems with
access to messages, but nothing like as consistently as Xnews. Some
messages would download and display correctly, but others would lock you
into this 'same message over and over' behaviour again.

So having sat back and thought about the problem, I came to the
conclusion that about the only thing between Xnews and the news server
itself, was the virus checker. It is Avast that I use, and it has never
caused me a problem in all the time I have been using it since it first
came out. I have not authorised any updates to the core program
recently, so I was reluctant to believe that this could be the problem.
Never-the-less, when I did a bulk disable of all the shields that it had
running, the problem went away. Reinstating them one by one, it came
down to the Mail Defender shield that was causing the problem. So for
the moment, when I use Xnews, I am just invoking the "switch off shields
for 1 hour" option in Avast.

So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

YES Arfa,
That is exactly the problem I'm having with one of my computers, (this
one)
I have two computers and each is having a different problem with
Thunderbird and newsgroups. I have a post started to Mozilla forum
regarding my other problem, after I finish it, I'll start a second
post about our shared problem.
Mikek


So do you have Avast installed ? Have you tried temporarily disabling it
to see if it cures the problem ? Be interested to see what other info
you collect from your forum activities.

Arfa

OK, I just opened Avast went to 'Real Time Shields' and stopped the
"Mail Shield" our shared problem went away.
We need a better solution, but as of now it is Avast.
Mikek

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Lee" <cyberwitch@ukonline.net> wrote in message
news:jesnqh$g8g$1@dont-email.me...

On 14/01/2012 16:42, Arfa Daily wrote:

However, in this case, it does not appear to be server / ISP related. I
did suspect that it might be, so I Googled for another free-access news
server, and put that into Xnews. It behaved exactly the same.


Since it works with the mail shield disabled it's probably Avast then,
guess that whatever they did which fixed it for me, broke it for you

Not a solution, but you can tell Avast to stop redirecting/scanning nttp
port 119.
Of course that means it won't scan newsgroup posts, but at least you
shouldn't then have to turn off the email scanning.

(Avast ->settings/troubleshooting/redirect settings/mail and change the
port number in the nttp box or leave it blank.)

Thanks Lee. Done that. Got a result. Everything now switched back on in
Avast, and no probs with Xnews

Arfa

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Ian Field" <gangprobing.alien@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
newsumQq.52$1i1.27@newsfe04.ams2...

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:0giQq.86$Hv.81@newsfe14.ams2...


"Lee" <cyberwitch@ukonline.net> wrote in message
news:jern8o$i7l$1@dont-email.me...
On 14/01/2012 01:45, Arfa Daily wrote:


So anyone else had any problems ? Any of the computah
deep-understanders
on here, got any idea what exactly Avast is doing to cause this
behaviour, or what has started it ?

Arfa

Firstly, if you are using the same isp as you email address, their news
server (or their implementation of it) is known to be flakey on occasion
so it may just be them and the Avast thing is a coincidence...

Avast used to complain about my ssl connections to Gmail and Eternal
September but since update 6.0.1367 it's been quite happy about them.




I do use both their mail and news servers by default, and yes, I have in
the past had some 'issues', often a weekends, and usually associated with
server maintenance, upgrading, or migration. I have a friend who works
for them, and I can usually find out if anything has gone on when there's
been a problem.

However, in this case, it does not appear to be server / ISP related. I
did suspect that it might be, so I Googled for another free-access news
server, and put that into Xnews. It behaved exactly the same.

Thanks to all so far for the useful and interesting insights.

Arfa

Xnews on my PC has been playing up for a few days (I don't use Avast).

It started with both sliders at the RHS so it only downloaded a couple of
headers, when I moved the start slider to the LHS it took most of the day
only to fail woth out of memory error.

At each try I halved the start slider until it completed getting headers
and displayed ready - the latest article was dated December.

Then I double checked the finish slider was hard to the RHS and set the
start slider just a smidge to its left, with group/findI was then able to
search the most recent file in my downloads folder and resume tagging from
there on.

Late last year there were problems with one or more virus spammers
uploading *HUGE* numbers of rar files all the same size - Xnews couldn't
handle that many headers!

Hmmm. Oddly enough, I've been having that as well with my Xnews. I just
assumed that it was all part and parcel of the original problem, until I
discovered the Avast connection. I just went and tried a couple of groups,
and same thing, except sliders as far apart as they can go. This is a pretty
quick computer, and the 'net connection is 20 meg so it will download all
those headers in a relatively short space of time, but of course, they go
back a long way, and although the headers are there, the message bodies seem
not to be, and you get the "message not found - shall I search Google"
message. Thing is, I've never quite figured in Xnews, what exactly invokes
the window with the sliders in, when you enter a group. You seem to get it
on some, but not on others. And then ones that you do get it on, will
suddenly stop showing it, and will only download 'new' article headers for
weeks, before suddenly starting to show it again. Has that been your
experience as well ? I wish I knew where the setting was to stop it coming
up so that only new headers were loaded, and why it seems to reset itself
from time to time. Anyone know ? If you really want to download all the
headers, you can always invoke that window manually with the "Refresh
Headers Special" setting in the "Groups" drop down.

Arfa