Totally objects server config problem?

Hello all,

The totally objects news server might be having configuration problems;
both my Mozilla and OE installations think that all of its messages are
expired.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 14:59:40 -0400, Bill Schwab
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>The totally objects news server might be having configuration problems;
>both my Mozilla and OE installations think that all of its messages are
>expired.
>
>Have a good one,
>
>Bill
We have a problem in that our server unexpectedly shuts down once a
day. Our server is co-located so it is not easy for us to look at such
things due to us being in the UK and it being in Maryland. We rely on
the local sysop to manage some things.

He did a virus scan and decided that there were some message
attachments in out spool directory for our news server that contained
viruses. This could not affect our server because, of course, we
merely receive these files and never execute them as part of the news
server process.
He, without discussion with us quarantined these files (or the bits of
the spool that contained htem. This seems to have caused a few
messages from sometime Friday until Saturday to be expired.

I have been monitoring this and all seems to be OK now as messages
that were received yesterday are fine.

We are sorry for any inconvenience caused here but it was done without
consultation with us. However, it did not stop the random reboots.
Fortunately, the news process is robust enough in itself not to be
bothered by the reboots. It is irritating though becuase we have in
the last year experienced uptimes of 90 - 100 days and this is
somewhat mistifying. We still use NT 4 on this machine and i8t has
been extremely robust.

Hope this clarifies things. If you see any different behaviour perhaps
you could contact me directly

David Pennington
Totally Objects
Davi

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 14:59:40 -0400, Bill Schwab
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>The totally objects news server might be having configuration problems;
>both my Mozilla and OE installations think that all of its messages are
>expired.
>
>Have a good one,
>
>Bill
We have a problem in that our server has started to unexpectedly shut
down once a day. Our server is co-located so it is not easy for us to
look at such things due to us being in the UK and it being in
Maryland. We rely on the local sysop to manage some things.

He did a virus scan and decided that there were some message
attachments in our spool directory for our news server that contained
viruses. This could not affect our server because, of course, we
merely receive these files and never execute them as part of the news
server process.
He, without discussion with us quarantined these files (or the bits of
the spool that contained them. This seems to have caused a few
messages from sometime Friday until Saturday to be expired.

I have been monitoring this and all seems to be OK now as messages
that were received yesterday are fine.

We are sorry for any inconvenience caused here but it was done without
consultation with us. However, it did not stop the random reboots.
Fortunately, the news process is robust enough in itself not to be
bothered by the reboots. It is irritating though becuase we have in
the last year experienced uptimes of 90 - 100 days and this is
somewhat mistifying. We still use NT 4 on this machine and it has been
extremely robust.

Hope this clarifies things. If you see any different behaviour perhaps
you could contact me directly - [hidden email]

David Pennington
Totally Objects
http://www.totallyobjects.com

On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 09:09:26 +0100, David Pennington
<[hidden email]> wrote:
Snipped

Mind you my fat finger did cause the double post. Sorry :-)

David,

> We are sorry for any inconvenience caused here but it was done without
> consultation with us.

No apology necessary - thanks for running the server!


 > However, it did not stop the random reboots.

Random reboots sound like hardware troubles (bad memory?) to me.


> Fortunately, the news process is robust enough in itself not to be
> bothered by the reboots. It is irritating though becuase we have in
> the last year experienced uptimes of 90 - 100 days and this is
> somewhat mistifying. We still use NT 4 on this machine and it has been
> extremely robust.

In addition to bad RAM, it could be a recent update, but those problems
usually seem to crash (or more often hang) individual programs vs.
resetting the box.  How old is the machine?  If NT4 is any indication,
it's been around a while :)

Good luck!

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 15:06:12 -0400, Bill Schwab
<[hidden email]> wrote:

With a smile I ask, 'so I presume that the messages aren't expiring
any more ? :-)'

Thant's a good point which I will take up with them. At the money they
get paid for the co-location, their reply might be interesting.

Regards

David

On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 23:15:21 +0100,
David Pennington <[hidden email]> wrote:
What gets written on the BSOD? There is a chance of the error
message pointing to the cause .... If there's not BSOD and no
dump info available, it's most probably the power supply.

s.

David,

> With a smile I ask, 'so I presume that the messages aren't expiring
> any more ? :-)'

If you are taking my reply as evidence, not necessarily.  The expired
messages prompted me to finally let the 10-15 minute download of every
big 8 group on the planet to proceed over my (distressed) dialup
connection, allowing me to use UF's news server.  I didn't want to have
done that w/o telling you about the problem on your (much appreciated)
server.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]