Newsgroup Tech Problem

Steve Juniper said:

I use Red Hat/Firefox and just restarted using newsgroups. However,
with rec.bicycles.tech listed as one of the ones to which I subscribe, I
am always asked "Do you want to subscribe to rec.bicycles.tech?" I
always hit "OK" and am shown that ALL of the postings are unread
(although I have it set to download only 50 at a time). Postings appear
fine. I click "mark all read" (or use shift-C). All postings on screen
dim, as they used to.
However, if I leave rec.bicycles.tech and then come back to it, I am
again asked if I want to subscribe and ALL (apparently around 16,000!)
postings are shown as not read, including the initial 50 which I
downloaded before. Although the (3 at this point) newsgroups to which I
subscribed appear as before, the system seems not to remember that I
already subscribed and have tried to mark "all read".
Any ideas as to how I can fix this or where else I could go to find
out???
Appreciatively,
Steve J
PS: If you would care to cc: me directly, please note that "remove"
needs to be deleted from my email address before mailing.

Have you tried Mozilla Thunderbird?

catzz66 said:

Steve Juniper said:

I use Red Hat/Firefox and just restarted using newsgroups.

snip

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Any ideas as to how I can fix this or where else I could go to
find out???
Appreciatively,
Steve J

Have you tried Mozilla Thunderbird?

To expand a bit on catz66's good idea, (I, too, use Thunderbird) if you
are using Firefox (mozilla.org's web browser) then you must be reading
newsgroups in the form of web pages (something I don't like to do).
Thunderbird is an email/newsgroup reading program. You can set up an
account for your email, and subscribe to any number of newsgroups.
Clicking on either an email account or a newsgroup brings you a list of
unread items, which you read however you like. Thunderbird keeps track
of which ones you have read, and which ones you haven't, regardless of
the order in which you read/skip/mark-as-read, etc. (The same is true of
other mail/newsgroup readers, such as those which are part of Netscape
or Mozilla).

Thunderbird is a product of The Mozilla Organization
(http://www.mozilla.org), and is very similar to the email/newsgroup
portion of its predecessor, Mozilla. Likewise, the browser Firefox is
also derived from Mozilla. Mozilla also was/is the basis of Netscape -
every version of Netscape is first created and released by mozilla.org,
then is modified and released by Netscape. It is free, open source
software, and is available for Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows.

Newsgroups are basically the same as email, where all postings are
stored on a server, and postings are passed around from source to many
destinations automatically. When you read a newsgroup, it's the same
mechanism as reading email stored on a server. If you download your
email, not news, from your server, then the actual postings are
downloaded to your computer before you read them. News is usually
downloaded one message at a time, as you progress through your list of
unread postings, though you can download a bunch for offline reading.

So, try Thunderbird from http://www.mozilla.org , and I'll bet you're
happier with it than you are with Firefox (for reading news and email).
Firefox is a fine web browser for anyone who might have read this far -
I especially like the Tabbed Browsing feature, which lets you keep
multiple web pages available in a single window, behind familiar tabs,
one page per tab. You can bookmark an entire set of tabs/pages in a
single action, which is great when you're comparison shopping. And you
can set a preference in Thunderbird to open a new tab in Firefox when
you click a link in email or news, like the one at the beginning of this
paragraph.

Hope this helps.

-Mark

Ooops my mistake. I, of course, use Thunderbird for newsgroups. Rest of
my post still applies. Basic problem is that T-bird does not keep track
of posts I have read, whether I have actually read them one at a time,
or used the "mark all read" feature. Every time I go back to look at the
newsgroup, all of the ones I previously read are appear as if I had not
read them.

Steve

Mark Schecter said:

catzz66 said:

Steve Juniper wrote:

I use Red Hat/Firefox and just restarted using newsgroups. However, with rec.bicycles.tech listed as one of the ones to which I subscribe, I am always asked "Do you want to subscribe to rec.bicycles.tech?" I always hit "OK" and am shown that ALL of the postings are unread (although I have it set to download only 50 at a time). Postings appear fine. I click "mark all read" (or use shift-C). All postings on screen dim, as they used to.

However, if I leave rec.bicycles.tech and then come back to it, I
am again asked if I want to subscribe and ALL (apparently around
16,000!) postings are shown as not read, including the initial 50 which
I downloaded before. Although the (3 at this point) newsgroups to which
I subscribed appear as before, the system seems not to remember that I
already subscribed and have tried to mark "all read".
Any ideas as to how I can fix this or where else I could go to find
out???

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Steve J

Have you tried Mozilla Thunderbird?

To expand a bit on catz66's good idea, (I, too, use Thunderbird) if you
are using Firefox (mozilla.org's web browser) then you must be reading
newsgroups in the form of web pages (something I don't like to do).
Thunderbird is an email/newsgroup reading program. You can set up an
account for your email, and subscribe to any number of newsgroups.
Clicking on either an email account or a newsgroup brings you a list of
unread items, which you read however you like. Thunderbird keeps track
of which ones you have read, and which ones you haven't, regardless of
the order in which you read/skip/mark-as-read, etc. (The same is true of
other mail/newsgroup readers, such as those which are part of Netscape
or Mozilla).

Thunderbird is a product of The Mozilla Organization
(http://www.mozilla.org), and is very similar to the email/newsgroup
portion of its predecessor, Mozilla. Likewise, the browser Firefox is
also derived from Mozilla. Mozilla also was/is the basis of Netscape -
every version of Netscape is first created and released by mozilla.org,
then is modified and released by Netscape. It is free, open source
software, and is available for Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows.

Newsgroups are basically the same as email, where all postings are
stored on a server, and postings are passed around from source to many
destinations automatically. When you read a newsgroup, it's the same
mechanism as reading email stored on a server. If you download your
email, not news, from your server, then the actual postings are
downloaded to your computer before you read them. News is usually
downloaded one message at a time, as you progress through your list of
unread postings, though you can download a bunch for offline reading.

So, try Thunderbird from http://www.mozilla.org , and I'll bet you're
happier with it than you are with Firefox (for reading news and email).
Firefox is a fine web browser for anyone who might have read this far -
I especially like the Tabbed Browsing feature, which lets you keep
multiple web pages available in a single window, behind familiar tabs,
one page per tab. You can bookmark an entire set of tabs/pages in a
single action, which is great when you're comparison shopping. And you
can set a preference in Thunderbird to open a new tab in Firefox when
you click a link in email or news, like the one at the beginning of this
paragraph.

Hope this helps.

-Mark

Steve Juniper said:

Ooops my mistake. I, of course, use Thunderbird for newsgroups. Rest of
my post still applies. Basic problem is that T-bird does not keep track
of posts I have read, whether I have actually read them one at a time,
or used the "mark all read" feature. Every time I go back to look at the
newsgroup, all of the ones I previously read are appear as if I had not
read them.

Steve

I'm on MacOSX, and my version is working fine. I see you're on Linux.
Maybe it's a bug. You could ask on:
snews://secnews.netscape.com/netscape.mozilla.thunderbird

HTH.

-Mark

Quoted message said:

Mark Schecter blathered pointlessly on:
snip <

Steve Juniper said:

Ooops my mistake. I, of course, use Thunderbird for newsgroups. Rest of
my post still applies. Basic problem is that T-bird does not keep track
of posts I have read, whether I have actually read them one at a time,
or used the "mark all read" feature. Every time I go back to look at the
newsgroup, all of the ones I previously read are appear as if I had not
read them.

I don't know about Thunderbird, but Pan does a very good job of dealing
with newsgroups. Good bozo filter, too, which is essential.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | It is a scientifically proven fact that a mid life crisis can
_`\(,_ | only be cured by something racy and Italian. Bianchis and
(_)/ (_) | Colnagos are a lot cheaper than Maserattis and Ferraris. --
Glenn Davies

Steve Juniper said:

Ooops my mistake. I, of course, use Thunderbird for newsgroups. Rest of
my post still applies. Basic problem is that T-bird does not keep track
of posts I have read, whether I have actually read them one at a time,
or used the "mark all read" feature. Every time I go back to look at the
newsgroup, all of the ones I previously read are appear as if I had not
read them.

Thunderbird's been working fine for me under WindowsFXPro. Each post is
highlighted until I read it or mark it (or the thread) as read.

catzz66 said:

Thunderbird's been working fine for me under WindowsFXPro. Each post is
highlighted until I read it or mark it (or the thread) as read.

Sorry, WindowsXPPro is what I meant. It's too early in the morning to
be typing.

Steve Juniper said:

Ooops my mistake. I, of course, use Thunderbird for newsgroups. Rest of
my post still applies. Basic problem is that T-bird does not keep track
of posts I have read, whether I have actually read them one at a time,
or used the "mark all read" feature. Every time I go back to look at the
newsgroup, all of the ones I previously read are appear as if I had not
read them.

No problem here (RH9/Thunderbird 1.0). ISTR having problems like that a
while back -- like at Netscape 4.something.

Two suggestions:
(1) If you don't have too much saved, delete the whole dang server.
Close/restart to force file cleanup. Create a new account with the
correct news server, etc., load all the groups, subscribe to the ones
you want, mark everything up to last night as read. Yeah, it's a pain.

(2) Try a different news server, if that's a possibility. My experience
was several ISPs ago -- if it was Bellsouth, well, they could administer
a server in a paper bag OK, as long as it wasn't powered on. I don't
recall if the problem went away with a new newsreader/browser build or
with a news server switch.

Pat

catzz66 said:

Steve Juniper said:

I use Red Hat/Firefox and just restarted using newsgroups.
However, with rec.bicycles.tech listed as one of the ones to which I
subscribe, I am always asked "Do you want to subscribe to
rec.bicycles.tech?" I always hit "OK" and am shown that ALL of the
postings are unread (although I have it set to download only 50 at a
time). Postings appear fine. I click "mark all read" (or use shift-C).
All postings on screen dim, as they used to.
However, if I leave rec.bicycles.tech and then come back to it, I
am again asked if I want to subscribe and ALL (apparently around
16,000!) postings are shown as not read, including the initial 50
which I downloaded before. Although the (3 at this point) newsgroups
to which I subscribed appear as before, the system seems not to
remember that I already subscribed and have tried to mark "all read".
Any ideas as to how I can fix this or where else I could go to
find out???
Appreciatively,
Steve J
PS: If you would care to cc: me directly, please note that "remove"
needs to be deleted from my email address before mailing.

Have you tried Mozilla Thunderbird?

I get the same thing on Mozilla...no big deal, just click it each time I
open it...

Steve Juniper said the following, on 04/08/05 00:08:

Quoted message said:

Ooops my mistake. I, of course, use Thunderbird for newsgroups. Rest of
my post still applies. Basic problem is that T-bird does not keep track
of posts I have read, whether I have actually read them one at a time,
or used the "mark all read" feature. Every time I go back to look at the
newsgroup, all of the ones I previously read are appear as if I had not
read them.

Steve

Mark Schecter said:

catzz66 said:

Steve Juniper wrote:

I use Red Hat/Firefox and just restarted using newsgroups.
However, with rec.bicycles.tech listed as one of the ones to which I
subscribe, I am always asked "Do you want to subscribe to
rec.bicycles.tech?" I always hit "OK" and am shown that ALL of the
postings are unread (although I have it set to download only 50 at a
time). Postings appear fine. I click "mark all read" (or use shift-C).
All postings on screen dim, as they used to.

However, if I leave rec.bicycles.tech and then come back to it, I am
again asked if I want to subscribe and ALL (apparently around 16,000!)
postings are shown as not read, including the initial 50 which I
downloaded before. Although the (3 at this point) newsgroups to which I
subscribed appear as before, the system seems not to remember that I
already subscribed and have tried to mark "all read".
Any ideas as to how I can fix this or where else I could go to find
out???

Quoted message said:

I haven't seen this problem exactly, but I have seen some
sort-of-similar "bookkeeping" problems when the user's profile is
somehow screwed up. Try creating a new profile by running Thunderbird
from the command line with the '-profilemanager' switch:
/usr/local/bin/thunderbird -profilemanager

Obviously, you will need to specify the actual directory path for
Thunderbird on your system. You can then create a new profile, and see
if that fixes the problem. (You will unfortunately have to re-enter your
subscriptions under the new profile.)

More info on profiles:
<http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile>

Alternatively, try asking for help in the support forums at MozillaZine:
<http://forums.mozillazine.org/>

or perhaps in one of the general Linux newsgroups, like comp.os.linux.misc.

Good luck!

--
Rich Gibbs
[email hidden]