Hi folks,

I have a problem I've never encountered before. I have the Pan newsreader setup on Mandrake 10.0 official distro. There's a realtek eth card and a d-link router (DL-713P) connected to a cable modem. I set up Pan as I have always done, but when I connect to my ISP (the cable company), I get an error when it tries to download the list of new messages. It doesn't do it every time, but a long download is sure to trigger the error (like a long message list). I also get the error sporadically, but regularly if I am download a binary file.

The error is: default handshake failed: 502 Invalid username or password

The news server account is "default". Sometimes is the number is 501 with the same message. I've tried inserting my user name and password and telling the newsreader to authenticate, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

As I say, it doesn't do it all the time, but it will do it pretty regularly.

Thanks for any help.

stunter

The fact that it's an intermittent error indicates that it might be a problem with your ISP's news server rather than Pan. Does this also happen with another newsreader (Mozilla Mail/News, for example)?

Hi Motub,

knode seems to work fine (though it a more limited newsreader). Haven't tried it with mozilla (I only have FireFox installed). I can try installing mozilla mail to give it a try. Pan has always worked fine before. This is new since I installed Mandrake 10.0.

stunter

edit: OK, I heard back from my ISP. It's their fault as it turns out. They are still setting up their news services and directed to me to a news server that they are basically renting until theirs is set up. I have a new cable service and they are apparently not quite up and running yet.

Thanks for the help.

Glad it's straightened out. Hope you get a couple of (dollars, pounds, euros, insert your currency here) back on your monthl bill for incomplete services. Ask 'em.