Yes, Virginia, even the vaunted Giganews (US) screws up

[Beck38]

I use a simple (bottom/cheapest) Giganews account to keep an eye on things.

Today, I started getting 'net work read error' from their US plant on every newsgroup I tried to update headers on; interestingly, the EU plant was working just fine (if a little slower from the other side of the planet, to be expected).

Giganews initial response, 'we're working fine'. Right. Well, they're still looking at it so I'll give them some time to 'wake up' and actually test some things out since they initially said I was transferring data (and indeed I was, from the EU plant but not the US one). I wonder if they have outsourced their service staff to the Dutch or they 'assume' that folks are all using the EU plant by 'default' or something.

Anyway, all just goes to prove (again) that the 'high priced spread' is nowhere near perfect in their operation and do suffer crap outs from time to time. :w00t::w00t::w00t:

Some update: it appears to be 'group' affecting, in that many are being affected but some are not. Very interesting! So, it isn't my newsreader (Newsrover) or any other setting.

MORE updates: They must/might be doing something, groups that were returning the 'network read error' are now working. Maybe I'll see some of those groups I found were working before, now going bad. (!) Okay. like the thread title says, even Giga screws up!

Final report: Getting close to around 12 hours since I first noticed this, and as of now, things have settled down in that the main/popular groups (like a.b.blu-ray, and a.b.dvd9 for example) have both been 'fixed'. Some others, like a.b.teevee, that maybe were never affected (who knows, my figures aren't that fast) are still okay.

Don't have any idea why this happened, I just tripped across it kinda by accident.

[pokitisme]

well theres the added issue of their customer service chatters not knowing shit all about usenet .ive had many issues with them in the last few months due to dmca.such as asking why 95 percent of a file is on a server and downloads 95 of that specific rar file like 45 mb's of a 50 mb file---ALTHOUGH that file dl's 95 percent the file comes up unrepairable and is 403 on the last parts--but the header is still listed on the server---so what u have is lets just say u pay for gigs instead of unlimited u dl headers and u dl the file now uve used ur gigs to dl a file and even though the file shows up in the headers and downloads 95 percent it doesnt exist---this is scammy and is 1 of the reasons besides cost that ive virtually abandoned giga. why pay a high price for retention if most of the files that show up in a header are not even there---they should clean up the headers as well as the files but if they did that they would show almost nothing on header dl's.so i ask why this is and the answer i got a few times was the files were removed due to dmca----so i ask why am i still able to dl the file and why is the header still there if removed and i get "the files have been removed due to dmca"----so know i go with tweaknews for completion and newshosting for speed and retention.

[Beck38]

Well, here they go again.

Usenet is a digital bucket brigade, and it all depends on who you're primary peer is. If you're Giganews, and you peer with Astraweb, then things that are posted on Astra (or that Astra gets from IT'S peers) you get. If Giganews CHANGES it's peering to, say, Highwinds and Highwinds peering is wacked out, then Giganews gets wacked 'connections'.

This is what started happening some 2-3 days ago, and has continued since, with occasional changing back to their 'standard' peering, then back to Highwinds.

One can 'track' this by simply going to Binsearch (which peers off of Giganews) and take a look at something that is being posted ;(something large with with many parts over x hours/days) and you'll see that recent postings have gaps, fades, whatever one wants to call time.

In the past, these have usually been repaired in a few days, we'll see if they are (once again) this time. But why Giganews falls into this 'trap' once every couple of months is one of those 'mysteries' of life I guess. If you want to get something 'new' and recently posted, one hopes you have a fills server that isn't closely 'linked/peered' to Giganews for those fills.

[pokitisme]

In the past, these have usually been repaired in a few days, we'll see if they are (once again) this time. But why Giganews falls into this 'trap' once every couple of months is one of those 'mysteries' of life I guess. If you want to get something 'new' and recently posted, one hopes you have a fills server that isn't closely 'linked/peered' to Giganews for those fills.


you may be right on the every few months thing as i have just recently noticed it but that doesent seem to fully explain that the last few months takes up more than 4 years of post meaning that on giga those post of lets say 1200 days back some are missing due to dmca and if it was just a hickup then even the old and sometimes not well know post should return.but after about 3 months of me trying to catch up i have gotten sick of paying for imaginary headers.heres a few examples from way back / plastic man 1979 / xmen 90's volume / the fugitive / bewitched / as u can see plastic man is not one of high demand but for months now its unatainable by giga same with bewitched seasons which i just finished up with nh and tweak but 2 months back got nothing from nh and giga but 403 and fake hd storage.not to mention the complete idiocy of the online chat help which continually refers to dmca instead of any relevant answers .so for me for now its a sad farwell to a once giant giga and a 2006 companion.they lost me as a customer and would dare say many others as well.why pay for headers and dl's of useless files.

[Beck38]

You might format your messages with a bit more gaps between thoughts instead of a huge chunk of text rambling on for ...

BTW, Giganews finally 'caught up' about 36 hours later, and seems to be fully recovered. However, some folks 'downstream' of Giga seem to still be having problems, whether or not those probs were caused by or exacerbated by thing there going off the tracks. Binsearch, for example, seems to be halted dead in it's tracks for the last 12 hours or so, not getting anything 'new'. As Giga 'caught up' with all those 'skips', a flood of headers was seen and perhaps that 'choked' Binsearch. Hopefully, it can get going again sometime today.