[lots of helpful stuff snipped]
>I could add code to Souper to write a log file for the communications
>between Souper and their NNTP server. Perhaps the same could be done
>for vSoup. This log file could then be checked for discreptencies in
>the NNTP protocol.
Hmmm. Just going to throw out a few random guesses/questions based on the
above. I assume that since unsubscribing and subscribing to a group
seems to affect souper that it is actually a news problem and that
it is not choking while getting mail. Is this in fact always the case?
Is it possible you are using the same newsrc file for vsoup/souper as for
yarn and the isp's server is (inappropriately) choking on (to it) bizarre
article numbers?
Hardy or Bob, could you send a list of the actual nntp commands that
your programs go through up through the point of fetching the first article
and Gerry could try them through a telnet session and post the results (i.e.
incoming and outgoing data)? That way we could at least see what kind of
nntp server we are dealing with. Hardy, does the above "ill URL" message
come from vsoup? If not, is it possible (horror of horrors) that the
1SP could be running a http server on the std nntp port 119!?
I'm afraid none of the above will be of any help, but it never hurts to try.
-- I am not the sort of person that goes to bed at night thinking, "Gee, I wonder what I can do to make life difficult for systems administrators." -Eric Allman, author:sendmail