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Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted

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On Thu, 6/5/2025 8:22 AM, NY wrote:
> I have Thunderbird installed on a Windows 10 computer. The present version is 139.
> 
> For a long time, it has got into a state after reading newsgroups for a while where it hangs when I try to post to a newsgroup (any group, not specifically one group), and then does not see new postings either, as if contact with the server has been lost, although there are no error messages displayed.
> 
> If I save a stalled outgoing posting in the Drafts folder, and close and restart Thunderbird, I can always post the message that was in Drafts. But at some stage in the future, the problem will re-occur.
> 
> It's happened with two different news servers. One was associated with my ISP (Plusnet) and did not require username/password authorisation: it accepted anonymous postings as long as the internet connection was from the ISP that operated the server. The other is eternal-september and needs username/password validation. I know that Plusnet have recently stopped operating their news server which is why I've just changed to use E-S and hence know that the problem still happens with a different server.
> 
> Is there any debug logging that I can turn on to gather evidence of why it is periodically locking up?
> 
> When it happens, email access by POP/SMTP still works fine; it's only incoming and outgoing NNTP access that fails without error message.

Connect on Port 119 and use Wireshark to record the attempt to POST ?

Wireshark has "dissectors" and if there is one for NNTP, you
can make a bit of a summary of the packets. The purpose of
Port 119, is to avoid TLS and unreadable packets.

I doubt there is much to see. In some cases, you might see an
attempt to POST, and the process seems hung and everyone at
either end is sitting on their thumbs.

Unless it throws a visible error, there might not be much in
the way of debug info to go on.

If you were posting with a Microsoft tool, the NNTP server
might have a three digit code (say "211") and Microsoft
would convert that to one of their hex code 0x80070023
and then you had the task of first translating the Microsoft
code, then guessing what possible response in NNTP causes
that to happen. On clients that more directly report the
NNTP error, you have something to work with.

But on a failed POST, there isn't always a nice error
code, and sometimes it just hangs. And that is not a lot
to go on. You would see the same thing in Wireshark, you see
a last packet, and then everything stops. And the client itself
may not be well-designed enough, to have a timer and report
a timeout.

Maybe Thunderbird is stopping in the middle of uploading
the body of the message to be POSTed. In which case, only
your knowledge of the actual message content, would help
you notice that the message isn't getting completely sent
(a packet missing at the end perhaps).

*******

You might check the max_connections setting in Config Editor
for the server in question. I usually set mine to 2, and
the default for Thunderbird new accounts might be 4. If one connection
were to hang while attempting to POST, having a second connection
would allow it to continue for a while. Until you made
a second attempt to POST, and both connections were
jammed up :-)

   user_pref("mail.server.server2.max_cached_connections", 2);

If I have five servers, then I have five max_connection settings.
as each server can be set for a different maximum. The server
has its own limit, but by adjusting the local limit, the
lowest of the two limitations, determine how many
connections a session can use at once. For example, when
updating unread messages using the overview database,
Thunderbird can be downloading headers for two groups
at the same time. The server operator limits connections,
because each connection record uses up server RAM and
limits how many customers can work simultaneously.
Maybe a giganews could support 20 connections or so.

   Paul

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Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted NY <me@privacy.net> - 2025-06-05 13:22 +0100
  Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted D <noreply@dirge.harmsk.com> - 2025-06-05 08:53 -0400
  Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-06-05 11:32 -0400
  Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Brian Gregory <void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> - 2025-06-05 17:24 +0100
    Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-06-05 17:49 +0100
      Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Brian Gregory <void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> - 2025-06-05 18:50 +0100
        Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted NY <me@privacy.net> - 2025-06-05 21:08 +0100
          Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted NY <me@privacy.net> - 2025-06-05 21:12 +0100
            Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Brian Gregory <void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> - 2025-06-06 00:48 +0100
        Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2025-06-06 11:27 +0200
          Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-06-06 07:49 -0400
            Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-06-06 13:01 +0100
          Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2025-06-06 14:33 +0100
          Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted NY <me@privacy.net> - 2025-06-09 15:09 +0100
            Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-06-09 16:46 +0100
            Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2025-06-11 16:32 +0200
              Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted NY <me@privacy.net> - 2025-06-12 19:47 +0100
                Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2025-06-15 18:03 +0100
                Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-06-15 18:11 +0100
                Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2025-06-18 16:43 +0100
                Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted NY <me@privacy.net> - 2025-06-15 21:24 +0100
                Re: Followup - Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2025-06-18 16:50 +0100
  Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-06-05 17:44 +0100
    Re: Thunderbird V139 loses contact with newsgroup server - cannot send or receive postings until TB is restarted NY <me@privacy.net> - 2025-06-05 21:11 +0100

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