From: lawgiver@csd.auth.gr (Panayiotis) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Messages out of order! (OFF-TOPIC!) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 12:39:03 GMT Organization: Central Computing Facility, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Lines: 24 Message-ID: <36d2a015.6049742@news.auth.gr> NNTP-Posting-Host: poseidi-ppp4.ccf.auth.gr X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.grnet.gr!news.auth.gr!not-for-mail Hello all. Excuse me forbeing off topic, but since this and alt.dreams.lucid are the only NGs I read, I'd like to ask you about this technical problem. The news I get from my news server seem to be out of order! It seems like many are lost! For example, I may post something. I will see then that someone replied to my post, but when I read their post, it's a reply to another post of someone else that I can't find anywhere! it confuses me and I don't like missing posts from other people. Do you know why this may happen or haow can I fix it if I can? This happens with both Agent and Netscape (I hope this post won't start another battle of Agent Vs Netscape!). The server must be the problem. In agent I checked the box "Server creates messages out of order" but it didn't help. Thank you! I am sorry once again for being off-topic! :-) Love, Panayiotis ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Messages out of order! (OFF-TOPIC!) Date: 23 Feb 1999 22:03:57 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 65 Sender: neil@chonsp.franklin.ch Message-ID: References: <36d2a015.6049742@news.auth.gr> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 lawgiver@csd.auth.gr (Panayiotis) writes: > > The news I get from my news server seem to be out of order! As it is for everyone else also. This is Usenet after all. > It seems like many are lost! That also happens often. It is Usenet. > confuses me and I don't like missing posts from other people. Learn to live with it. > Do you know why this may happen Usenet works by using what is called "distributed flood fill" as its method of distributing posts. Any post goes fron its writer to that persons news server, then it "floods" out to any server that one knows, then from them to all their friends, and to their friends, ... So therefore the path Poster1->Poster2->you can be faster than Poster1->you. Also for some posts there simply exists no path of friends from the writer to you. Then there are randomly crashing servers not passing on. While this method makes killing off the entire net nearly impossible, it makes the net unreliable and unpredictable. BTW: If you want to know the path posts take, read the Path: line in the headers of the posts. Every block separated by !s is one machine the post got passed through. Last one is the sender, second last the senders news server, first is your news server. > or haow can I fix it if I can? You can't. Other than by switching from Usenet to Mailinglist technology (and that has its own can of worms). > This happens with both Agent and Netscape (I hope this post won't > start another battle of Agent Vs Netscape!). The server must be the > problem. Actually the interrelationship of all the servers that constitute Usenet. > I am sorry once again for being off-topic! :-) alt.out-of-body is about learning, so you are not entirely off. -- Neil Franklin, Nerd, Geek, Unix Guru, Hacker, Mystic neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Programming: when you stop hammering around on the computer as if it were a piece of dumb matter and instead tell it what to do for you ###### From: johnf@melbpc.org.au (John Fitzsimons) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Messages out of order! (OFF-TOPIC!) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 23:20:49 GMT Organization: Melbourne PC User Group Inc, Australia Lines: 41 Message-ID: <36dd359a.10590027@news.melbpc.org.au> References: <36d2a015.6049742@news.auth.gr> NNTP-Posting-Host: bilby6.melbpc.org.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.mel.connect.com.au!news2.melbpc.org.au!not-for-mail On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 12:39:03 GMT, lawgiver@csd.auth.gr (Panayiotis) wrote: < snip > >The news I get from my news server seem to be out of order! It seems >like many are lost! < snip > One often has two problems with newsgroup posts ; (1) Late arrival of posts. (2) Non arrival of posts. There is little that can be done about the first situation. Depending on where someone is in the world it can take days for a post to go through the hundreds of thousands of news servers. If someone posts from the same country as you then you "might" get the post faster than other posts BUT due to complicated routing methods that some I.S.P.s use this is not necessarily the case. For example, with one of my I.S.P.s I could get some Australian sites faster by going via the States, rather than going direct ! The second situation can be improved by getting a better I.S.P. If you want to know if another I.S.P. is "better" then compare the posts received in a newsgroup at your I.S.P. compared to how many are received at the other I.S.P. for the same period. Regards, John. **************************************************** ,-._|\ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia. / Oz \ johnf@melbpc.org.au, Fidonet 3:632/309 \_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm v http://www.alphalink.com.au/~johnf/