Is ELN's outsourced NNTP server down?

[Ant]

$ ping nntp.earthlink.net
PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.

Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
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[David Schultz]

On Friday, August 12, 2022 at 12:03:46 PM UTC-5, Ant wrote:
> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>
> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(

Dead here as well. I get the same results from ping as you. I tried news.supernews.com and news.giganews.com and they responded. Those IP addresses are quite different (69.80...) for what that is worth.
I think I will go with my idea that this is how Earthlink terminates what was left of their Usenet service. No notice. Don't tell the customers and of course don't tell the customer service people.

[Ant]

Let's go bug their supports even though they don't know what usenet is!
I'm waiting for their answers. I doubt I will get any for today since
it's Friday. :/
--
Here we go again with da outages, leaks, fires, smokes, aches, sickness,

[Scott Dorsey]

Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> wrote:
>Let's go bug their supports even though they don't know what usenet is!
>I'm waiting for their answers. I doubt I will get any for today since
>it's Friday. :/

Skip the support people, try investor relations.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Ant]

On 8/12/2022 3:06 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> wrote:
>> Let's go bug their supports even though they don't know what usenet is!
>> I'm waiting for their answers. I doubt I will get any for today since
>> it's Friday. :/
>
> Skip the support people, try investor relations.

Did that work in the past?

[David Schultz]

On Friday, August 12, 2022 at 5:06:57 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Skip the support people, try investor relations.
> --scott

Pull the other one.
Earthlink was acquired by a private equity firm in 2019.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <td6p8g$io1$1...@gioia.aioe.org>, Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> wrote:
>On 8/12/2022 3:06 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> wrote:
>>> Let's go bug their supports even though they don't know what usenet is!
>>> I'm waiting for their answers. I doubt I will get any for today since
>>> it's Friday. :/
>>
>> Skip the support people, try investor relations.
>
>Did that work in the past?

It worked for me briefly but I ditched Earthlink after they shut down the
Netcom shell services. (But about a year after they thoroughly broke them.)

[Scott Dorsey]

David Schultz <david....@earthlink.net> wrote:
>On Friday, August 12, 2022 at 5:06:57 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Skip the support people, try investor relations.
>

> Pull the other one.
>Earthlink was acquired by a private equity firm in 2019.

Oh, that gives you even more interesting possibilities to complain.

[Ant]

It pings, but it won't let me log in. :( What about the rest of you who
still use ELN's outsourced NNTP service?

On 8/12/2022 10:03 AM, Ant wrote:
> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>
> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
--

Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the
colony. :(

[Ant]

On 8/15/2022 9:35 AM, Retired at Home wrote:

>
>
> On 8/15/22 12:11 PM, Ant wrote:
>> It pings, but it won't let me log in. :( What about the rest of you
>> who still use ELN's outsourced NNTP service?
>>
>> On 8/12/2022 10:03 AM, Ant wrote:
>>> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
>>> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>>>
>>> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
>

> Looks like they changed the IP address to 69.80.103.36

Ooh, good catch!


> Maybe Supernews is making changes that ELN doesn't know about ?
>
> FWIW, Years ago I dropped ELN's NNTP , and went with GigaNews direct for
> $5 / month.
> ELN is still my main e-mail provider.

How much is your ELN e-mail service without NNTP? I only still have it
for old e-mails and NNTP. :/

[David Schultz]

On Monday, August 15, 2022 at 11:46:24 AM UTC-5, Ant wrote:
> On 8/15/2022 9:35 AM, Retired at Home wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 8/15/22 12:11 PM, Ant wrote:
> >> It pings, but it won't let me log in. :( What about the rest of you
> >> who still use ELN's outsourced NNTP service?
> >>
> >> On 8/12/2022 10:03 AM, Ant wrote:
> >>> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
> >>> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
> >>>
> >>> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
> >
> > Looks like they changed the IP address to 69.80.103.36
>
> Ooh, good catch!
>
>

Idiots. That points to supernews directly but whatever magic that happened with the old IP is gone. I don't have an account with supernews/giganews so now I get an invalid username/password error.

[Ant]

For years, ELN always connected to Supernews that was bought out by
Giganews. Here's my tin result:

tin 2.6.1 release 20211226 ("Convalmore") (c) Copyright 1991-2022 Iain Lea.
Connecting to earthlink.us.supernews.com...
News.GigaNews.Com
Server expects authentication.
Please enter username:...

[pyotr filipivich]

Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> on Fri, 12 Aug 2022 10:03:43 -0700 typed in
alt.provider.earthlink the following:

>$ ping nntp.earthlink.net
>PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>
>Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(

Yes and no.

It is down. Earthlink decided they no longer want to provide
Usenet service. Had to contact support and ask for a human to learn
that.

Giganews may, or may not have a (small) number of newsgroups I
follow. "TBD".

OTOH, I can now cut Earthlink back to just the email boxes.
--
pyotr filipivich
This Week's Panel: Us & Them - Eliminating Them.
Next Month's Panel: Having eliminated the old Them(tm)
Selecting who insufficiently Woke(tm) as to serve as the new Them(tm)

[David Schultz]

And a little bit later it works again. Only a month after I reported
trouble. Of course it had to get worse before it got better. For a while
there all I could get were destination unreachable errors.

It appears that they took down the Earthlink destination
(216.168.4.170). Then sometime later (perhaps a DNS propagation thing)
it had a new Supernews subnet IP. That I couldn't login to. Now I can.


It took a while for Thunderbird to catch up with headers. In the past I
could have read articles while it did that but today it produced an
error. So instead of two connections it appears it is now limited to one.

At least it works. Still waiting for that call back from Earthlink
customer service.


--
http://davesrocketworks.com
David Schultz

[Ant]

On 8/15/2022 3:46 PM, Retired at Home wrote:

>>> FWIW, Years ago I dropped ELN's NNTP , and went with GigaNews direct
>>> for $5 / month.
>>> ELN is still my main e-mail provider.
>>
>> How much is your ELN e-mail service without NNTP? I only still have it
>> for old e-mails and NNTP. :/
>

> Last Sept my annual prepayment was $59.40

Huh? I didn't know they had annual payments. I pay every month! I don't
see that option in my account.

[Ant]

On 8/15/2022 3:09 PM, pyotr filipivich wrote:
> Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> on Fri, 12 Aug 2022 10:03:43 -0700 typed in
> alt.provider.earthlink the following:
>> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
>> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>>
>> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
>
> Yes and no.
>
> It is down. Earthlink decided they no longer want to provide
> Usenet service. Had to contact support and ask for a human to learn
> that.
>
> Giganews may, or may not have a (small) number of newsgroups I
> follow. "TBD".
>
> OTOH, I can now cut Earthlink back to just the email boxes.

I still haven't gotten any answers from EarthLink. They really terminate
its usenet service without telling us in advance? :(

--
Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the
colony. :(

[Ant]

I still can't log into its server (it goes to 69.80.103.36). :(

[Ant]

In alt.online-service.earthlink Ant <a...@zimage.comant> wrote:
> On 8/15/2022 3:09 PM, pyotr filipivich wrote:
> > Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> on Fri, 12 Aug 2022 10:03:43 -0700 typed in
> > alt.provider.earthlink the following:
> >> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
> >> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
> >>
> >> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
> >
> > Yes and no.
> >
> > It is down. Earthlink decided they no longer want to provide
> > Usenet service. Had to contact support and ask for a human to learn
> > that.
> >
> > Giganews may, or may not have a (small) number of newsgroups I
> > follow. "TBD".
> >
> > OTOH, I can now cut Earthlink back to just the email boxes.

> I still haven't gotten any answers from EarthLink. They really terminate
> its usenet service without telling us in advance? :(

Oh hey, it works again. :D

--
Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the colony. :(
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[Ant]

In alt.online-service.earthlink Ant <a...@zimage.comant> wrote:

> On 8/15/2022 9:35 AM, Retired at Home wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 8/15/22 12:11 PM, Ant wrote:
> >> It pings, but it won't let me log in. :( What about the rest of you
> >> who still use ELN's outsourced NNTP service?
> >>
> >> On 8/12/2022 10:03 AM, Ant wrote:
> >>> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
> >>> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
> >>>
> >>> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
> >
> > Looks like they changed the IP address to 69.80.103.36

> Ooh, good catch!

And I can log in again. :D

--
Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the colony. :(
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[Ant]

Ant <a...@zimage.comant> wrote:
> On 8/15/2022 4:25 PM, David Schultz wrote:
> > And a little bit later it works again. Only a month after I reported
> > trouble. Of course it had to get worse before it got better. For a while
> > there all I could get were destination unreachable errors.
> >
> > It appears that they took down the Earthlink destination
> > (216.168.4.170). Then sometime later (perhaps a DNS propagation thing)
> > it had a new Supernews subnet IP. That I couldn't login to. Now I can.
> >
> >
> > It took a while for Thunderbird to catch up with headers. In the past I
> > could have read articles while it did that but today it produced an
> > error. So instead of two connections it appears it is now limited to one.
> >
> > At least it works. Still waiting for that call back from Earthlink
> > customer service.

> I still can't log into its server (it goes to 69.80.103.36). :(

Now, I can log in again. :D

--
Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the colony. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.

[Ant]

On 8/15/2022 6:49 PM, Ant wrote:
> In alt.online-service.earthlink Ant <a...@zimage.comant> wrote:
>> On 8/15/2022 9:35 AM, Retired at Home wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 8/15/22 12:11 PM, Ant wrote:
>>>> It pings, but it won't let me log in. :( What about the rest of you
>>>> who still use ELN's outsourced NNTP service?
>>>>
>>>> On 8/12/2022 10:03 AM, Ant wrote:
>>>>> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
>>>>> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
>>>
>>> Looks like they changed the IP address to 69.80.103.36
>
>> Ooh, good catch!
>
> And I can log in again. :D

Well, sometimes. Hit and miss. :(

--
Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the
colony. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see
this signature correctly.

[Ant]

On 8/15/2022 6:47 PM, Ant wrote:
> In alt.online-service.earthlink Ant <a...@zimage.comant> wrote:
>> On 8/15/2022 3:09 PM, pyotr filipivich wrote:
>>> Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> on Fri, 12 Aug 2022 10:03:43 -0700 typed in
>>> alt.provider.earthlink the following:
>>>> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
>>>> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>>>>
>>>> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
>>>
>>> Yes and no.
>>>
>>> It is down. Earthlink decided they no longer want to provide
>>> Usenet service. Had to contact support and ask for a human to learn
>>> that.
>>>
>>> Giganews may, or may not have a (small) number of newsgroups I
>>> follow. "TBD".
>>>
>>> OTOH, I can now cut Earthlink back to just the email boxes.
>
>> I still haven't gotten any answers from EarthLink. They really terminate
>> its usenet service without telling us in advance? :(
>
> Oh hey, it works again. :D

Well, sometimes. Hit and miss. :(

--
Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the
colony. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see
this signature correctly.

[Ant]

In alt.online-service.earthlink Retired wrote:

> On 8/15/22 9:34 PM, Ant wrote:
> > On 8/15/2022 3:46 PM, Retired at Home wrote:
> >
> >>>> FWIW, Years ago I dropped ELN's NNTP , and went with GigaNews
> >>>> direct for $5 / month.
> >>>> ELN is still my main e-mail provider.
> >>>
> >>> How much is your ELN e-mail service without NNTP? I only still have
> >>> it for old e-mails and NNTP. :/
> >>
> >> Last Sept my annual prepayment was $59.40
> >
> > Huh? I didn't know they had annual payments. I pay every month! I
> > don't see that option in my account.

> Not sure but I suspect my "e-mail only" account is a legacy BYOA account
> that they don't offer anymore. My access now is via my daughter's
> Xfinity cable service. Been ELN customer since about 2000 when they
> acquired Mindspring (who earlier acquired Rocky Mountain Internet, my
> first ISP)

Interesting. I signed up for EarthLink's dialup in 1998.

--
Too many problems like water, illness, etc. Slammy hotty Sunday with the colony. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.

[David Samuel Barr]

On 8/16/2022 2:18 AM, Ant wrote:
> In alt.online-service.earthlink Retired wrote:
>
>
>> On 8/15/22 9:34 PM, Ant wrote:
>>> On 8/15/2022 3:46 PM, Retired at Home wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> FWIW, Years ago I dropped ELN's NNTP , and went with GigaNews
>>>>>> direct for $5 / month.
>>>>>> ELN is still my main e-mail provider.
>>>>>
>>>>> How much is your ELN e-mail service without NNTP? I only still have
>>>>> it for old e-mails and NNTP. :/
>>>>
>>>> Last Sept my annual prepayment was $59.40
>>>
>>> Huh? I didn't know they had annual payments. I pay every month! I
>>> don't see that option in my account.
>
>> Not sure but I suspect my "e-mail only" account is a legacy BYOA account
>> that they don't offer anymore. My access now is via my daughter's
>> Xfinity cable service. Been ELN customer since about 2000 when they
>> acquired Mindspring (who earlier acquired Rocky Mountain Internet, my
>> first ISP)
>
> Interesting. I signed up for EarthLink's dialup in 1998.

I was handed off to Mindspring dialup in 1998
by my previous ISP when they went out of
business and remained with them when they
were acquired by Earthlink. Switched to
their cable service through Time Warner
in 2010 but was still billed (at a better
rate) through Earthlink. When Spectrum
took over TWC in 2017 they wouldn't let
me keep that arrangement but still offered
Earthlink at a higher price. Late in 2020
they dropped Earthlink service and Earthlink
did not have an alternate delivery method
my area so I had to take Spectrum Internet
and in order to keep my Mindspring address
of 22 years I signed up with Earthlink for
e-mail service (including Usenet). They
did offer an annual prepayment option
which I took and renewed last November at
$47.40; if they don't now show it on the
website as an option you might have to
call and ask a support person for it.

Meantime, back to the topic at hand, Usenet
was down from Friday until mid-Monday. We
had a similar outage last year; seems the
relevant techs don't work weekends. It's
back up but keep asking me to log back in
repeatedly. I haven't heard of Earthlink
dropping Usenet; don't call and give them
any ideas (I doubt the person Pyotr spoke
to is a source authority on company policy;
presumably if they had dropped it we
wouldn't still be posting here).

[pyotr filipivich]

a...@zimage.comANT (Ant) on Tue, 16 Aug 2022 01:47:57 +0000 typed in

alt.provider.earthlink the following:
>In alt.online-service.earthlink Ant <a...@zimage.comant> wrote:
>> On 8/15/2022 3:09 PM, pyotr filipivich wrote:
>> > Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> on Fri, 12 Aug 2022 10:03:43 -0700 typed in
>> > alt.provider.earthlink the following:
>> >> $ ping nntp.earthlink.net
>> >> PING earthlink.us.supernews.com (216.168.4.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
>> >>
>> >> Not connecting today. It was working yesterday afternoon PDT. :(
>> >
>> > Yes and no.
>> >
>> > It is down. Earthlink decided they no longer want to provide
>> > Usenet service. Had to contact support and ask for a human to learn
>> > that.
>> >
>> > Giganews may, or may not have a (small) number of newsgroups I
>> > follow. "TBD".
>> >
>> > OTOH, I can now cut Earthlink back to just the email boxes.
>
>> I still haven't gotten any answers from EarthLink. They really terminate
>> its usenet service without telling us in advance? :(
>
>Oh hey, it works again. :D

Hmmm. By this time, I've signed up for Giganews, redownload
umpteem million headers, and have determined that if I cut back
Earthlink to the bare minimum to keep the email addresses, I'm still
ahead.

[pyotr filipivich]

David Samuel Barr <dsb...@mindspring.com> on Tue, 16 Aug 2022 09:50:34
-0400 typed in alt.provider.earthlink the following:

>
>Meantime, back to the topic at hand, Usenet
>was down from Friday until mid-Monday. We
>had a similar outage last year; seems the
>relevant techs don't work weekends. It's
>back up but keep asking me to log back in
>repeatedly. I haven't heard of Earthlink
>dropping Usenet; don't call and give them
>any ideas (I doubt the person Pyotr spoke
>to is a source authority on company policy;
>presumably if they had dropped it we
>wouldn't still be posting here).

I figured that it would be Monday before the techs (for this part)
were in. I "chatted" with the support bot, and upgraded quickly to a
human. As I recall "Susan" said that they'd dropped Usenet service
for even legacy accounts.
I could get a connection, but it was asking for password, and I
don't recall. (wait, up, err ... now why didn't I try that one?) ....
Regardless, Usenet access was the sticking point. Why pay for
"the Web" when I'm just using email and Usenet?
Rolling back the earthlink account will, even after subscribing to
another source, will be cheaper. Reminds me of when I switched to
"free range" DSL (no phone number needed): while it cost $20 more, I
could save $70 by not having a landline for dialup/DSL.