Re: Can't post news

Mark Weinstock (woody@interactive.net)
Tue, 17 Sep 1996 11:14:45 -0500

In article <oKlPycun8L1Y092yn@ibm.net>,
rgriech@ibm.net (Hardy Griech) said something like:
>On Sat, 14 Sep 1996 19:35:46 -0400, jstein@cnct.com (Judy Stein) wrote:
[snip]
>> My ISP, as I noted, had just changed servers; what appears to
>> have happened is that uqwk can't access some file it needs to
>> post news to the new server; or, uqwk is still set up to post to
>> the old server, which is no longer available. It already has
>> everything it needs from my side to post what I had uploaded,
>> i.e., the unzipped uqwk/Soup packet.
>>
>> I've never gotten this error message before, following precisely
>> the same procedure. As noted, the only thing that's changed is
>> that my ISP has switched news servers.
>>
>> Right after the switch, I tried to get news and couldn't; I got
>> this error message:
>>
>> Can't get the name of the news server from /usr/local/news/server
>> Either fix this file, or put NNTPSERVER in your environment.
> :
>
>This indicates, that /usr/local/news/server does not exist! So
>something must have been changed, if the message is new. Or is uqwk
>capable of accessing the local directories of your provider (which
>have been changed)?

These directories are on her ISP, not her local machine. Her ISP obviously
had these directories set up, and changed the location of (or deleted) inews.

[snip]

>> > If I am remembering correctly, uqwk can send news also directly to the
>> > NNTP server. Try this one, if the above doen't help.
>>
>> I have no idea how to do this (or even what you mean!).
> :
>
>Sorry, I was wrong! For news transmission uqwk needs the external
>command (file) inews, if it is transmitting to an NNTP server. Dont't
>know if it's a shell script or a binary. I suspect inews, which is
>not at the correct place (perhaps inews feels offended by something,
>but then you should get the message 'inews: i dont like blabla').
>INews should be located at /usr/local/bin as the below message
>indicates:
>
>> > > uqwk: Posting article to alt.meditation.transcendental
>> > > sh: /usr/local/bin/inews: not found
>
>But as you stated before: you didn't change anything! Perhaps you
>did, but you don't know you have (again: how did the operator fix your
>problem?). My idea was, that you have changed a script or something
>else in a way, that 'inews' is no longer an the currently selected
>drive (BTW: which 'OS' are you using, how do you call uqwk
>(options)?). Also you could start uqwk with the '-p' command line
>option, to check if uqwk is thinking the same way you do.

I think the confusion is where uqwk resides. Uqwk is on her ISP's machine,
not hers. inews is SUPPOSED to be on her ISP's machine, and uqwk is looking
for it in a very specific place. It's not finding it. The ISP did not
recompile uqwk when they switched over, or if they did, they didn't
properly change the location of the inews pointer in the uqwk source code.

Nothing she could have done locally would affect uqwk. And I would doubt
her ISP has permissions set for her to be able to change anything relating
to this on the server. The ISP screwed up uqwk, and just needs to recompile
with a fixed pointer.

>
>--
>Hardy Griech, Kurt-Schumacher-Str. 25/1, D-72762 Reutlingen
>

-- 
Mark                woody@interactive.net      mw4j@andrew.cmu.edu
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