Strange problem needs explaining
Hamster.user
[my From: field contains a valid e-mail address]
A day or two ago I got a *540 synchronisation error* in Agent
when downloading news headers from Hamster in one newsgroup.
I have little idea what caused it and I couldn't fix it.
The connection between Agent and Hamster kept closing.
I decided to unsubscribe from that newsgroup in Agent and Hamster
and recreate the group from scratch by re-downloading headers for
the past few months.
Then the problem started :-(
I have been through a cycle of un-subscribing/re-subscribing in
Agent and deleting/adding the group from all news servers in
Hamster, and even deleted the Hamster killfile contents for that
group. I have now done this 5-6 times.
I thought that procedure would allow me to start from fresh.
Each time I do it, I'm setting the number of articles to download
for an empty group in Hamster at about *80,000 of the newest*,
believing that will cover the past few months (it's a busy group).
When that lengthy process completes in Hamster and I Download All
New Headers into Agent, I'm getting only about 16,000 articles and
most of those go back to Jan-Dec 2007. There are a few for today
29th April 2008 and some for early March but none in between.
I know there are literally many hundreds of valid articles between
that period including some of my own. I assume these are not being
pulled from the external news servers by Hamster and do not appear
in the Hamster killfile list.
Where are they?
Thanks in advance...any help appreciated.
Wolfgang Jäth
>
> A day or two ago I got a *540 synchronisation error* in Agent
> when downloading news headers from Hamster in one newsgroup.
540 sounds like a comunication error code; i.e. it's most probably some
connecting problem between hamster and agent. Maybe the hamster local server
was offline or alike.
> I have little idea what caused it and I couldn't fix it.
> The connection between Agent and Hamster kept closing.
You fisrt should have checked the accessibility of hamster with telnet.
> I decided to unsubscribe from that newsgroup in Agent and Hamster
> and recreate the group from scratch by re-downloading headers for
> the past few months.
>
> Then the problem started :-(
>
> I have been through a cycle of un-subscribing/re-subscribing in
> Agent and deleting/adding the group from all news servers in
> Hamster, and even deleted the Hamster killfile contents for that
> group. I have now done this 5-6 times.
>
> I thought that procedure would allow me to start from fresh.
Not really. Unsubscribing will neither delete the articles itself, nor the
according history entries.
But un- and resubscribing itself is harmless, as long as you don't delete
the group within hamster. This would cause the articles only to be removed,
still leaving the according history entries; the only way to 'proper' remove
a group is to use the 'Reset' button at the newsgroups configuration window.
> Each time I do it, I'm setting the number of articles to download
> for an empty group in Hamster at about *80,000 of the newest*,
> believing that will cover the past few months (it's a busy group).
>
> When that lengthy process completes in Hamster and I Download All
> New Headers into Agent, I'm getting only about 16,000 articles and
> most of those go back to Jan-Dec 2007. There are a few for today
> 29th April 2008 and some for early March but none in between.
Because they are still marked in the history (see above).
At first, you should try to reset the group, maybe it still works (depends
on what exactly you did within your try and error period, and what not). If,
after resetting the group, the missing articles are still lacking (you
better try loading much less than '80,000 of the newest'; better you use the
slider inside of the group settings dialog), you have to rebuild the
history. But this step will loose the memory for *all* of your groups. :-(
And there's one good news after all: It sounds like your 540 problem of the
beginning has been solved by itself meanwhile. :-)
Wolfgang
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