> Conclusions? I'm pretty sure the problem is still on the
>server side. Do you use a separate .newsrc file for each NNTPSERVER
>setting? If so, are you sure, that you don't import the same messages
>twice? I mean - when You use one NNTPSERVER with its .newsrc, do you
>also catchup the other .newsrc's? (Well, there's another trick here -
Yes, all that is in order - catching up the backup .newsrc after
it's been updated, etc. On further testing today, I realise that there
may not be any problem at all. After testing this with the alternate
server by subscribing to a single newsgroup only, getting a 35k soup
packet, and finding that none of the articles were accepted - I was
too quick to jump to conclusions. It seems that all those articles
were already in my news.dat.
I guess I just had too little confidence in our local news server, or
too much confidence in the alternate. The newsgroup I'm most keen on
not missing any articles (talk.politics.tibet) generally has about 30
new articles a day (by checking dejanews), and only a fraction of
these show up here. It seems my alternate news server wasn't any
better up to date, but I had jumped to the conclusion that any server
would be so.
>much more info to be able to say anything more... so... could you send
>me scripts you use? And one more thing: why do you have to use
>multiple servers? (going down frequently? lost connections? slow
>connections? some other reasons?)
I wasn't doing it by scripts, just manually copying .newsrc to a
backup name, and the other backup to .newsrc. Then changing the
NNTPSERVER setting. I wouldn't mind some pointers on doing this by
script. Our server is good as far as quick response, and rarely goes
down. It's just that I know I'm missing stuff when a whole day's worth
of articles from a dozen groups amounts to but a handful.
If anyone knows of a good public access news server, I'd be really
happy to hear about it. Thanks for your help.
Brian Jackson