Hi

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I can
see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
read NG's?


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

Hi

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I can
see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
read NG's?

You are using blueyonder and get exactly the same as me.
Some days, loads of posts go missing and I only know they have been
made when someone replies.

Also some in here seem to be killfiled although they are not.

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I can
see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
read NG's?

Could be a combination of a short keep-time on your news server and a
not-regular-enough connect frequency by you. If your news server only
keeps messages for e.g. 3 days after arrival you need to connect at
least this frequently to not miss posts (or change news server).

OTOH, does OE perhaps have an automatic deletion schedule? E.g
perhaps it deletes read posts after 5 days. If so that may be
removing the earlier posts in a thread.

If none of the above applies, you could try changing news server
anyway.

"James Hawkins" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads -
although I can
see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using
Firefox to
read NG's?

Could be a combination of a short keep-time on your news server and
a
not-regular-enough connect frequency by you. If your news server
only
keeps messages for e.g. 3 days after arrival you need to connect at
least this frequently to not miss posts (or change news server).

OTOH, does OE perhaps have an automatic deletion schedule? E.g
perhaps it deletes read posts after 5 days. If so that may be
removing the earlier posts in a thread.

If none of the above applies, you could try changing news server
anyway.

TOOLS OPTIONSMAINTENANCE and you then have a box to set the period
before deletion

AWEM

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT The Medway Handyman wrote :
I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads -
although I can see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using
Firefox to read NG's?

Virtual Access www.virtual-access.org is open source and free and
does a great job as a newsgroup reader. It builds a local database of
messages on your own machine that you can go back and search at a
later date.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

|Hi
|
|I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I can
|see them online.

Use news.individual.net at a near 10 Euros per year. Text only
|
|I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
|read NG's?

No IME you would be better off using Agent.
--
Dave Fawthrop dave hyphenologist co uk Google Groups is IME the *worst*
method of accessing usenet. GG subscribers would be well advised get a
newsreader, say Agent, and a newsserver, say news.individual.net. These
will allow them: to see only *new* posts, a killfile, and other goodies.

The Medway Handyman wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads -

can happen either if someone adds a cross-post to this group mid-thread
from somewhere else, or as you suspect, if your ISP's news server is a
bit tardy.

although I can see them online.

where online? do you mean e.g. google groups

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
read NG's?

I'd certainly say ditch OE6, if you want the firefox equivalent it is
called thunderbird, or as someone else has mentioned Forté Agent or
FreeAgent (I used to use Agent and it was very good, but not used it in
years, so can't comment on recent versions)

The Medway Handyman wrote:

Hi

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I can
see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
read NG's?

Mine go missing sometimes too, I use google groups and they dont always
see the light of day. Are the missing OPs in those threads google group
users too?


NT

James Hawkins wrote:
On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads -
although I can see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using
Firefox to read NG's?

Could be a combination of a short keep-time on your news server and a
not-regular-enough connect frequency by you. If your news server only
keeps messages for e.g. 3 days after arrival you need to connect at
least this frequently to not miss posts (or change news server).

I'm confused now. I get on to the group every day.

OTOH, does OE perhaps have an automatic deletion schedule? E.g
perhaps it deletes read posts after 5 days. If so that may be
removing the earlier posts in a thread.

Nope, I can see threads tha go back ages.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

"Dave Fawthrop" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

|Hi
|
|I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I
can
|see them online.

Use news.individual.net at a near 10 Euros per year. Text only
|
|I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
|read NG's?

No IME you would be better off using Agent.

I disagree.

Switch to Agent is the usual tune on Usenet, and I tried Free Agent for
while but found, amongst other things, that it did not display the posts as
I would like. The various configurations I desired were only available in
the paid for version. It was as though they designed quite a good
application called Agent and then turned every setting back to front and
gave that away as the free version as a come on.

And the paid for version is not a one off purchase, it's an annual
subscription.
So I'm back with OE 6. Free.

Roger R

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 20:28:41 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

I'd certainly say ditch OE6, if you want the firefox equivalent it is
called thunderbird, or as someone else has mentioned Forté Agent or
FreeAgent (I used to use Agent and it was very good, but not used it in
years, so can't comment on recent versions)

I would throw 40tude dialog into the mix ( http://www.40tude.com/dialog/ )
, freeware for private users. Its the newsreader that finally got me to
switch from OE.

Thunderbird is a very good mail client, but just isn't there yet as a
newsreader imo.

Steve

The Medway Handyman wrote:
James Hawkins wrote:
On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads -
although I can see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using
Firefox to read NG's?

Could be a combination of a short keep-time on your news server and a
not-regular-enough connect frequency by you. If your news server
only keeps messages for e.g. 3 days after arrival you need to
connect at least this frequently to not miss posts (or change news
server).

I'm confused now. I get on to the group every day.

OTOH, does OE perhaps have an automatic deletion schedule? E.g
perhaps it deletes read posts after 5 days. If so that may be
removing the earlier posts in a thread.

Nope, I can see threads tha go back ages.

Have you ever reset the local file for your subscribed groups?
Right click on the NG name in the left panepropertieslocal filereset

This will delete all old posts and re-download new headers...you may be out
of memory allocated to OE

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
k...
James Hawkins wrote:
On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads -
although I can see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using
Firefox to read NG's?

Could be a combination of a short keep-time on your news server and a
not-regular-enough connect frequency by you. If your news server only
keeps messages for e.g. 3 days after arrival you need to connect at
least this frequently to not miss posts (or change news server).

I'm confused now. I get on to the group every day.

OTOH, does OE perhaps have an automatic deletion schedule? E.g
perhaps it deletes read posts after 5 days. If so that may be
removing the earlier posts in a thread.

Nope, I can see threads tha go back ages.


What you want to do is open the Tools drop down menu, select Message Rules
News, New rule, "Where the message was sent more than days ago" and then set
it to delete messages after X number of days from being sent. You make it
delete already received messages retrospectively.

This took me bloody ages to figure out :-)

H

The Medway Handyman wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I can
see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it?

Chances are your news server is not doing its job as well as it might.
You may even see cases where propagation from some ISPs servers is worse
than for others. This can result in some individual posters being
dropped more frequently than others.

Would I be better off using Firefox to
read NG's?

It is unlikely to fix this particular problem. Switching to a different
news server would help more.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Steve wrote:

Thunderbird is a very good mail client, but just isn't there yet as a
newsreader imo.

I tend to agree with that, but I put up with it's lack of features c.f.
Agent just to keep usenet under the same hat as email.

In article ,
The Medway Handyman wrote:

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads -
although I can see them online.

This happens with my ISP (Demon) when collecting
news via the NEWNEWS command. It offers article-
-ID's for some articles that are actually not ready
to be collected from the news spool (by about a few
minutes). Around about 1-2% of the articles in any
large download now, although it did reach over 5%
at one time. Having offered the ID of a missing
article, it will never offer it again (normally).

So the trick I have to do is to reach into the
news collecting software and set the day/date/time
of the last download back by one hour, and recollect
about an hour later. Backdating the d/d/t fools
Demon into re-offering the missing articles, which
should now have reached the spool, ready for collection.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using
Firefox to read NG's?

Dig into OE6 and see if you can edit the time
of the last download. If not find another
news/mail reader.

By the way, backdating the time of the last fetch
should not cause *all* articles to be re-fetched
because any decent newsreader will maintain its
own history of article-ID's already collected.

--
Tony Williams.

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
...
Hi

I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I
can see them online.

I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
read NG's?


Sounds like it is your ISP's news server.
Mine does this from time to time.
I switched to http://news.datemas.de/ and haven't missed a post yet and its
free.

Steven

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:10:44 -0000, "Roger R"
wrote:

"Dave Fawthrop" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:50:07 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:

|Hi
|
|I keep missing the OP in a thread and some complete threads - although I
can
|see them online.

Use news.individual.net at a near 10 Euros per year. Text only
|
|I'm using OE6 - would that be it? Would I be better off using Firefox to
|read NG's?

No IME you would be better off using Agent.

I disagree.

Switch to Agent is the usual tune on Usenet, and I tried Free Agent for
while but found, amongst other things, that it did not display the posts as
I would like.

It displays text, in any font you want, fixed or proportional spacing,
and it quotes properly. What more do you want for a text based
messaging service?

The various configurations I desired were only available in
the paid for version. It was as though they designed quite a good
application called Agent and then turned every setting back to front and
gave that away as the free version as a come on.

And the paid for version is not a one off purchase, it's an annual
subscription.

No it's not, you pay a measly few dollars ($29 or 15 quid) for a
licence to use the version that is currently available. I'm using
version 2 from about 2 or 3 years ago, but version 1.5 from about 10
years ago would still offer 95% of the functionality of version 2
needed for non binary groups.

If you are really cheap then get a keygen if it makes you feel any
better.

So I'm back with OE 6. Free.

Which also happens to be the choice of Dr Dribble. If Microsoft did
plumbing it would be push fit on plastic pipes cut with a junior
hacksaw.

Microsoft have had years and probably a billion dollars to try and
perfect an email and news client with passable usability. Not even
understanding the requirements has meant they failed, miserably.

Their browser is a pile of stinking crap as well, always was, always
will be. The *only* thing that I could possibly think that microsoft
has got right is individual bookmark files per url, something that
Firefox and all other Mozilla/Netscape derived products have sadly
failed to adopt.




--

Andy Burns wrote:
Steve wrote:

Thunderbird is a very good mail client, but just isn't there yet as a
newsreader imo.

I tend to agree with that, but I put up with it's lack of features c.f.
Agent just to keep usenet under the same hat as email.

Its more than good enough for me...

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its more than good enough for me...

I'm not saying thunderbird's bad, just that there are areas when Agent
was (and presumably still is) better, I don't use Agent anymore, I'm
afraid Forté's "wilderness period" lost me as a customer ...