From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Been a long time since I could lookup Usenet articles at the Howard
Knight archive site (al.howardknight.net). When I start a search (with
the required angle brackets enclosing the MID), the address bar in the
web browser keeps spinning while waiting for a response from the server,
and about 5 minutes later I get an error page about a timeout at the
server which looks like:

HTTP Error 500.0 - Internal Server Error
D:\Program Files (x86)\Plesk\Additional\PleskPHP74\php-cgi.exe - The FastCGI process exceeded configured request timeout

See a screenshot at:
https://imgur.com/a/AkQw9Bc
(click on image to enlarge)

I can get their home page to load, enter the MID on which to search, but searches always fail after a prolonged wait for a response, and then a
timeout spews a server error page (not an error page presented by the
web client about a response timeout, but an error page sent from the
server). Their web server is up as I can get to the home and other web
pages, but their search is dead. Looks like their webhosted account (at zayo.com via interserver.net) no longer can use the Plesk PHP feature
for database lookups, the link to the database using Plesk is broken, or
their database is down.

This is not a recent issue. I haven't been able to use the HK archive
site for many weeks if not months. I can load their home page, but
searches always fail. Without the search, the website is useless.

I sent an message using the e-mail address shown in their contact page,
but will have to wait to see if I get a response.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On 20.03.2026 14:20 Uhr VanguardLH wrote:

I sent an message using the e-mail address shown in their contact
page, but will have to wait to see if I get a response.

I sent an email some days ago, but did not get back an answer yet.
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1774012856muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> posted:

Been a long time since I could lookup Usenet articles at the Howard
Knight archive site (al.howardknight.net).

Yes, fails for me too. Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.
--
Colin Macleod ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ https://cmacleod.me.uk

FEED HOUSE SAVE FEED HOUSE SAVE FEED HOUSE SAVE
GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA
NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Mar 20, 2026 at 2:20:56rC>PM CDT, "VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Been a long time since I could lookup Usenet articles at the Howard
Knight archive site (al.howardknight.net). When I start a search (with
the required angle brackets enclosing the MID), the address bar in the
web browser keeps spinning while waiting for a response from the server,
and about 5 minutes later I get an error page about a timeout at the
server which looks like:

It hasn't worked for me for about a year it feels like. I offered him to use
my server as an additional backend to fetch from and he did say he would look into it, but the errors on the site were not fixed.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> posted:

Been a long time since I could lookup Usenet articles at the Howard
Knight archive site (al.howardknight.net).

Yes, fails for me too. Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.

That worked. I selected to use the site as a guest, entered the MID,
and the article appeared immediately (much faster than HK ever was when
it did work).

Because of the immediate retrieval of the article, I'm wondering how
much Newsgrouper is archiving the Usenet. How long back (retention)?
How many newsgroups? What type of newsgroups?

https://newsgrouper.org/help.htm
"Historical searches now use blueworldhosting.com as they have more
history available."

Not familiar with Blueworld nor their retention, coverage of which
newsgroups, or what type of newsgroups (binary, or just text).

With HK, I could call it by adding the MID to the URL, as in:

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E

I add a search (bookmark with the "hk" keyword) along with the %s
parameter in the URL, so I can just enter "hk <MID>" in the URL of the
web browser. The bookmark's keyword and URL are:

keyword = HK
http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%s

Then, in the address bar of the web browser (after copying the MID
value which is needed regardless whose archive I use), I enter:

hk <MID>

I have a lot of similar bookmarked search URLs using keywords (the
prefix in the address bar of the web browser) along with the search
string the site uses when adding the search parameter to the URL with %s
as the variable as the placeholder for the <MID> I add to the prefix in
the address bar.

I don't see how to do that with Newsgrouper. When I load Newsgrouper's
home page, click to login as guest, and enter the MID in the input
field, the resulting URL when finding the article just has:

https://newsgrouper.org/msgid

No argument for the MID value, so I can't see how to search Newsgrouper
using an argument in the URL.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> posted:

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> posted:

Been a long time since I could lookup Usenet articles at the Howard
Knight archive site (al.howardknight.net).

Yes, fails for me too. Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.

That worked. I selected to use the site as a guest, entered the MID,
and the article appeared immediately (much faster than HK ever was when
it did work).

Because of the immediate retrieval of the article, I'm wondering how
much Newsgrouper is archiving the Usenet. How long back (retention)?
How many newsgroups? What type of newsgroups?

Newsgrouper keeps some very old posts in a local database, but mostly it
just pulls articles on-demand from a set of nntp servers, currently eternal-september, blueworldhosting and pugleaf. Once an article has been loaded it gets cached locally in Redis for a week, that probably explains
the fast response you saw. Between these sources I hope to cover the full history of all non-binary groups.

With HK, I could call it by adding the MID to the URL, as in:

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E

The Newsgrouper equivalent is just:
https://newsgrouper.org/%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E
In a browser address bar you can just paste the <MID> after the site/ .

Once you have loaded the individual post, you can click the group name
in the Newsgroups header line to get the whole thread that it's part of.
This does require logging in at least as a guest though, to keep out the
bots.

At the bottom of the Newsgrouper Preferences page there is a button
"Handle news: links" which tries to register newsgrouper as a handler
for URLs of the form news:groupname or news:msgid . Such URLs are not
often used these days though, also some browsers do not support this functionality at all, e.g. Chrome.
--
Colin Macleod ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ https://cmacleod.me.uk

FEED HOUSE SAVE FEED HOUSE SAVE FEED HOUSE SAVE
GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA GAZA
NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

[...]

With HK, I could call it by adding the MID to the URL, as in:

<http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E>

The Newsgrouper equivalent is just: <https://newsgrouper.org/%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E>
In a browser address bar you can just paste the <MID> after the site/ .

[...]

Nice, very useful, thank you, Colin.
--
^-^. Sn!pe, bird-brain. My pet rock Gordon just is.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> posted:

With HK, I could call it by adding the MID to the URL, as in:

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E

The Newsgrouper equivalent is just:
https://newsgrouper.org/%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E
In a browser address bar you can just paste the <MID> after the site/ .

Thanks for the URL with MID argument. Using a keyworded bookmark in
Firefox, or adding a search engine in Edge, makes it easy for me to
enter "ng <MID>" in the web browser's address bar to search Newsgrouper
for the specified article.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> posted:

Colin Macleod <user7@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> posted:

With HK, I could call it by adding the MID to the URL, as in:

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E

The Newsgrouper equivalent is just:
https://newsgrouper.org/%3C10pgie8%24j5a6%241%40dont-email.me%3E
In a browser address bar you can just paste the <MID> after the site/ .

Thanks for the URL with MID argument. Using a keyworded bookmark in Firefox, or adding a search engine in Edge, makes it easy for me to
enter "ng <MID>" in the web browser's address bar to search Newsgrouper
for the specified article.

IrCOve had some success using Usenapp on macOS although it rather depends
on which news server you have an account with due presumably to retention.
--
Cheers, Alan
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On 20/03/2026 22:16, Jesse Rehmer wrote:

On Mar 20, 2026 at 2:20:56rC>PM CDT, "VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Been a long time since I could lookup Usenet articles at the Howard
Knight archive site (al.howardknight.net). When I start a search (with
the required angle brackets enclosing the MID), the address bar in the
web browser keeps spinning while waiting for a response from the server,
and about 5 minutes later I get an error page about a timeout at the
server which looks like:

It hasn't worked for me for about a year it feels like. I offered him to use my server as an additional backend to fetch from and he did say he would look into it, but the errors on the site were not fixed.

It was working last August, but had failed by mid-October. I'm pretty
certain that it's dead.

I have wondered how it was financed.
--
Jeff
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:48:29 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:

Yes, fails for me too. Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.

I can do that with Fort|- Agent. (-:
--
s|b
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

s|b <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

Colin Macleod wrote:

Yes, fails for me too. Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.

I can do that with Fort|- Agent. (-:

For newsgroups to which you do NOT subscribe, too?

Searching on MID to find an article cached in a local newsreader is not
the same as searching an archive. For example, I configure my NNTP
client to purge articles over 180 days old. The older they get, the
less pertinent they become. Old articles are rarely repeatedly
reviewed, and clutter and enlarge the local article database. Mostly
wasted space.

I use the archives to lookup articles in newsgroups to which I do NOT subscribe, or are older than my own retention. I cannot remember the
last time I needed to lookup anything older than 180 days, but have
needed to lookup articles in newsgroups to which I do not subscribe.
There are also cases where an article does not peer to my Usenet
provider, or they filtered it out. Some users will report their article
did not post, but a copy from the archive shows it did. Saying I have a
copy of their article really does not show them it got posted.
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:05:18 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

s|b <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

Colin Macleod wrote:

Yes, fails for me too. Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.

I can do that with Fort|- Agent. (-:

For newsgroups to which you do NOT subscribe, too?

Yes, too.
Fort|- Agent supports finding a post by message-id INCLUDING in groups
to which you do NOT subscribe.

Searching on MID to find an article cached in a local newsreader is not
the same as searching an archive.

Fort|- Agent can search for the article by MID on all your news servers
in addition to the local cache.
-a*-a Even if you do not subscribe to the group, Fort|- Agent can find
-a-a-a the message on your news server.
-a*-a If one of your news servers has over 20 years retention, as one
-a-a-a of mine does, Fort|- Agent can find messages 20 years old.

For example, I configure my NNTP
client to purge articles over 180 days old.

This is not relevant when the client can also search news servers by
MID.
--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox
EfaeN+A

The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.

--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

In news.software.readers, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid> wrote:

On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:05:18 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

For newsgroups to which you do NOT subscribe, too?

Yes, too.
Fort|- Agent supports finding a post by message-id INCLUDING in groups
to which you do NOT subscribe.

The NNTP protocol supports finding a post by message-id without
specifying a newsgroup. I usually use Lynx, but I have a simple News::NNTPClient perl script for getting articles in patches:

getarticle group.name:article[-article]
getarticle messageid [messageid ...]

In group mode, it specifies a GROUP then runs ARTICLE for each
id number. In messageid mode, it just runs ARTICLE for each
message id. You can do the same in raw NNTP easily:

$ telnet newserver 119
[ auth, if needed ]

MODE READER
ARTICLE <fauz1rwc2yww$.dlg@v.nguard.lh>

<<< 220 0 <fauz1rwc2yww$.dlg@v.nguard.lh> article
<<< Path: [...]
<<< From: VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH>
...
<<< .

QUIT

$

The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.

This sig seems relevant.

Elijah
------
whose local news server uses source network as auth
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Sat, 21st Mar 2026 13:05:18 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.

I can do that with Forto Agent. (-:

For newsgroups to which you do NOT subscribe, too?

You can do this with 40tude Dialog, as well. <Find a Message-ID>
from the <Edit> menu has 3 modes:
* Search in local cache [works]
* Get it from Google Groups (doesn't work, anymore)
* Retrieve it from any subscribed NNTP server and place it in any
subscribed group or folder (works, regardless of subscription
state of the group[s], the message was initially sent to)

Bernd
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:05:18 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

s|b <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

I can do that with Fort|- Agent. (-:

For newsgroups to which you do NOT subscribe, too?

Certainly. And it will use all the newsservers in my Agent News Access
Plan.
--
s|b
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Bernd Rose <b.rose.tmpbox@arcor.de> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Note that my site https://newsgrouper.org
also supports finding a post by message-id.

I can do that with Fort|- Agent. (-:

For newsgroups to which you do NOT subscribe, too?

You can do this with 40tude Dialog, as well. <Find a Message-ID>
from the <Edit> menu has 3 modes:
* Search in local cache [works]
* Get it from Google Groups (doesn't work, anymore)
* Retrieve it from any subscribed NNTP server and place it in any
subscribed group or folder (works, regardless of subscription
state of the group[s], the message was initially sent to)

I just tried the 3rd option, retrieve from NNTP server, entered a MID
value, but the unwanted behavior is Dialog will place the article in the currently selected subscribed newsgroup. That is okay if the article to retrieve had been submitted to the currently selected newsgroup, but not
when it was submitted elsewhere.

For example, in this newsgroup (news.software.readers), I have your post selected, so "retrieve from NNTP server" automatically selects the MID
for your post. However, the next dialog wants to retrieve and save your article here in my alt.comp.software.thunderbird newsgroup. For a MID
selected from the selected article, I would've thought Dialog would
retrieve it to the same newsgroup as the selected article.

With your article here selected, I get:
https://imgur.com/a/Y3Vw8yG
In the next prompt, I get:
https://imgur.com/a/dyte3UB

The "and place it in" input does not match the newsgroup where the
article was selected to get its MID. Don't know why the Tbird newsgroup
was pre-selected unless it was from a prior time I did a lookup. I have
to remember to look at which newsgroup that Dialog will save a copy of
the retrieved article. To get it in this newsgroup, I would have to
click the down-arrow to see the list of newsgroups, and only the
subscribed ones, to get the archived article retrieved into the proper newsgroup. While my list of subscribed newsgroups is down to about 25,
I used to subscribe to over 50 at one time, or more. That would be a
LOT of subscribed newsgroups to scroll through trying to find which one
was the appropriate newsgroup; however, the retrieved article may have
been submitted to a newsgroup to which I don't subscribe. Looks like I
can manually edit the destination newsgroup, but how would I know to
which newsgroup(s) to which the article had been posted since I may only
know its MID? I don't want to be polluting the wrong newsgroup, and I
can only pollute a subscribed newsgroup.

I just want to view the archived article, not add it to Dialog's message
store. The HK (and now Newsgrouper) web-based lookup show me a web page
for the archived article without disturbing my local NNTP client. I
don't know how Forte handles retrieving an article, like disturbing the
local message store by saving into there, or just viewing the article
outside of any newsgroup (subscribed, or not) as a temporary file that
does not get saved into the client's message store.

If the article is in my client's message store, but I don't know where
and just have its MID, the 1st option in Dialog works okay. It changes
the view to select the article in a subscribed newsgroup, if in a
subscribed newsgroup; i.e., it searches the local message store for
Dialog. The 2nd option died way back when Google Groups died.
Actually, it died before then when Google decided not to permit direct
links to Google Groups (Usenet) messages by adding the MID as an arg to
the URL for Google Groups. The 3rd option retrieves and disturbes
Dialog's message store, and only into a subscribed newsgroup (the
default choice I don't know why it picks), not into the original
newsgroup(s).

When searching for articles outside my half-year retention within
Dialog, the web-based archives work better since I'm not interested in retaining the archived article, especially if the article had not been
posted in a subscribed newsgroup, and because the original newsgroup to
which the article got posted does not get added as a subscribed one, or
even as an unsubscribed one (that won't get further polluted with other articles when Dialog syncs to the server).
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

On Sun, 22nd Mar 2026 16:57:55 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

[40tude Dialog]

<Find a Message-ID> from the <Edit> menu has 3 modes:
* Search in local cache [works]
* Get it from Google Groups (doesn't work, anymore)
* Retrieve it from any subscribed NNTP server and place it in any
subscribed group or folder (works, regardless of subscription
state of the group[s], the message was initially sent to)

I just tried the 3rd option, retrieve from NNTP server, entered a MID
value, but the unwanted behavior is Dialog will place the article in the currently selected subscribed newsgroup.

Preselected is the group/folder you used last for this mode. If selecting
a subscribed group is too much hassle, create a dedicated folder for such purposes.

Bernd
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.software.readers

Bernd Rose <b.rose.tmpbox@arcor.de> wrote:

On Sun, 22nd Mar 2026 16:57:55 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

[40tude Dialog]

<Find a Message-ID> from the <Edit> menu has 3 modes:
* Search in local cache [works]
* Get it from Google Groups (doesn't work, anymore)
* Retrieve it from any subscribed NNTP server and place it in any
subscribed group or folder (works, regardless of subscription
state of the group[s], the message was initially sent to)

I just tried the 3rd option, retrieve from NNTP server, entered a MID
value, but the unwanted behavior is Dialog will place the article in the
currently selected subscribed newsgroup.

Preselected is the group/folder you used last for this mode. If selecting
a subscribed group is too much hassle, create a dedicated folder for such purposes.

Bernd

Hmm, that would work. I'd create a new (local only) folder, and specify
that for the destination for where to store the retrieved (archived)
article. Once I retrieve an article into that local folder, it is
specified by default when I next retrieve by MID. Thanks.
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2