• Re: OT: Is NovaBBS Down for Others?!

    From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Ian J. Ball on Wed Jul 16 05:01:05 2025
    Ian J. Ball <[email protected]d> wrote:

    So, because of the annoying firewall they use at my (soon-to-be-ending) >second job, I can't access Usenet thru ES (or using Thunderbird) when
    I'm there.

    So I've been using NovaBBS instead, which is a web-based front end for
    usenet (like Google Groups used to be, before GG when bad, and then...
    died).

    Anyway, over about the past week or two, I increasingly couldn't access
    RAT via NovaBBS when I tried:

    https://www.novabbs.com/arts/thread.php?group=rec.arts.tv

    I get a "Error: The connection to the Message Server failed." and "No
    article available" error messages.

    And when I try other random groups they have in the "arts" listings, I >usually get the same thing.

    Can anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same thing when the click
    on the RAT link above?

    (Trying to figure out if NovaBBS is really down, or if I just need to
    clear my cache or something... Thanks.)

    Thom Miller died in May. No one is administering it.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ian J. Ball@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jul 15 21:38:23 2025
    So, because of the annoying firewall they use at my (soon-to-be-ending)
    second job, I can't access Usenet thru ES (or using Thunderbird) when
    I'm there.

    So I've been using NovaBBS instead, which is a web-based front end for
    usenet (like Google Groups used to be, before GG when bad, and then...
    died).

    Anyway, over about the past week or two, I increasingly couldn't access
    RAT via NovaBBS when I tried:

    https://www.novabbs.com/arts/thread.php?group=rec.arts.tv

    I get a "Error: The connection to the Message Server failed." and "No
    article available" error messages.

    And when I try other random groups they have in the "arts" listings, I
    usually get the same thing.

    Can anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same thing when the click
    on the RAT link above?

    (Trying to figure out if NovaBBS is really down, or if I just need to
    clear my cache or something... Thanks.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ian J. Ball@21:1/5 to Adam H. Kerman on Wed Jul 16 09:42:45 2025
    On 7/15/25 10:01 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

    Ian J. Ball <[email protected]d> wrote:

    So, because of the annoying firewall they use at my (soon-to-be-ending)
    second job, I can't access Usenet thru ES (or using Thunderbird) when
    I'm there.

    So I've been using NovaBBS instead, which is a web-based front end for
    usenet (like Google Groups used to be, before GG when bad, and then...
    died).

    Anyway, over about the past week or two, I increasingly couldn't access
    RAT via NovaBBS when I tried:

    https://www.novabbs.com/arts/thread.php?group=rec.arts.tv

    I get a "Error: The connection to the Message Server failed." and "No
    article available" error messages.

    And when I try other random groups they have in the "arts" listings, I
    usually get the same thing.

    Can anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same thing when the click
    on the RAT link above?

    (Trying to figure out if NovaBBS is really down, or if I just need to
    clear my cache or something... Thanks.)

    Thom Miller died in May. No one is administering it.

    OK, well that would explain it. Thanks for the response.

    Too bad no one stepped up to take it over. It doesn't seem like the kind
    of thing that would be hard to keep up.

    Anyway, it looks like I am now out of options to read usenet when I am
    at my second job. It's a good thing that that job is very likely
    wrapping up for good for me in August.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Ian J. Ball on Wed Jul 16 16:55:10 2025
    Ian J. Ball <[email protected]d> wrote:
    7/15/25 10:01 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
    Ian J. Ball <[email protected]d> wrote:

    So, because of the annoying firewall they use at my (soon-to-be-ending) >>>second job, I can't access Usenet thru ES (or using Thunderbird) when
    I'm there.

    So I've been using NovaBBS instead, which is a web-based front end for >>>usenet (like Google Groups used to be, before GG when bad, and then... >>>died).

    Anyway, over about the past week or two, I increasingly couldn't access >>>RAT via NovaBBS when I tried:

    https://www.novabbs.com/arts/thread.php?group=rec.arts.tv

    I get a "Error: The connection to the Message Server failed." and "No >>>article available" error messages.

    And when I try other random groups they have in the "arts" listings, I >>>usually get the same thing.

    Can anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same thing when the click >>>on the RAT link above?

    (Trying to figure out if NovaBBS is really down, or if I just need to >>>clear my cache or something... Thanks.)

    Thom Miller died in May. No one is administering it.

    OK, well that would explain it. Thanks for the response.

    Too bad no one stepped up to take it over. It doesn't seem like the kind
    of thing that would be hard to keep up.

    I vaguely recall that he said he wasn't feeling well, then his wife
    announced that he had died of pancreatic cancer. That's pretty much the
    most horrid cancer of all as there is no early detection and even if
    there were, it's the most invasive surgery of all as the pancreas is
    behind other organs in the abdomen and those qualified for the surgery
    have a 30% survival rate with a very long recovery. Once you're
    diagnosed it's already Stage IV and you've got weeks to live. If you're
    ever told that this surgery is your only hope for survival, you are
    going to want to choose death.

    Needless to say, he had no succession plan for the News server and
    associated Web interface. It's too late to work on a succession plan
    once you receive this prognosis.

    Someone else announced days ago that he's further developing the rslight software and it's available to users. It's sort of a test platform.

    There is an unrelated Web interface, newsgrouper.

    Anyway, it looks like I am now out of options to read usenet when I am
    at my second job. It's a good thing that that job is very likely
    wrapping up for good for me in August.

    Do you have a shell account anywhere? Traditionally, one downloads PuTTY
    onto a stick because ports aren't always blocked. PuTTY is a tiny
    application for secure remote access to shell accounts. It's my daily
    go-to program.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)