TB on W-7 #2

[D. Arlington]

And there is nowhere to add my passwords for my NSPs in TB. Without adding
the passwords, even if I could connect to the servers with TB, I couldn't
download the headers.

Is anyone else unable to locate where the passwords for NSPs go in TB?

 

[Nil]

And there is nowhere to add my passwords for my NSPs in TB.
Without adding the passwords, even if I could connect to the
servers with TB, I couldn't download the headers.

Is anyone else unable to locate where the passwords for NSPs go in
TB?

A quick google search revealed this... This works for common POP mail
accounts on commercial ISPs. Dunno about "NSP"s, whatever they are.

========

For Thunderbird 3.x, follow these instructions.

1. Select Tools, Options from the top menu.
2. Select the Security button.
3. Select the Passwords tab.
4. Click the Saved Passwords button.

5.Look for the name of the e-mail account that you wish to change.
Highlight the account name and click the Remove button. This will allow
you to re-enter the password the next time you try to access your mail.

6. Click the OK button.

 

[Paul]

And there is nowhere to add my passwords for my NSPs in TB. Without
adding the passwords, even if I could connect to the servers with TB, I
couldn't download the headers.

Is anyone else unable to locate where the passwords for NSPs go in TB?

If you're using an authenticated news server, there is a tick box to request
that authentication be used. Once that is selected, a dialog box should
pop up asking for the username and password.

"Always Request Authentication"

http://www.stanford.edu/services/usenet/thunderbird_pc/images/tb_08.png

( From http://www.stanford.edu/services/usenet/thunderbird_pc/index.html )

Paul

 

[VanguardLH]

And ...

To continue a discussion, reply to a post in the *existing* thread.

 

[D. Arlington]

If you're using an authenticated news server, there is a tick box to
request
that authentication be used. Once that is selected, a dialog box should
pop up asking for the username and password.

"Always Request Authentication"

http://www.stanford.edu/services/usenet/thunderbird_pc/images/tb_08.png

( From http://www.stanford.edu/services/usenet/thunderbird_pc/index.html )

Paul

I got mail to work but not the Usenet part. I connected to the server for
datemas.de and a list of groups they carry came down. But as soon as I type
in the search window, the list in the window below vanishishes. Therefore I
can't subscribe to any newsgroups I know they carry. How can I subscribe to
any newsgroups when the list vanishes?

 

[Paul]

I got mail to work but not the Usenet part. I connected to the server
for datemas.de and a list of groups they carry came down. But as soon
as I type in the search window, the list in the window below
vanishishes. Therefore I can't subscribe to any newsgroups I know they
carry. How can I subscribe to any newsgroups when the list vanishes?

When you first connect to a new USENET server with Thunderbird, you
should see the furious downloading of the groups list. On my (current, WinXP)
computer, that list is stored in "hostinfo.dat". There will be one hostinfo.dat
file for each USENET setup. You can use the search on your Windows 7 OS
to find all those files (I have six of them right now).

In this bogus example, the profile "abcd1234" is randomly generated at
installation time by Thunderbird. So your path won't be abcd1234
but some other random string of eight characters. In any case, looking for
hostinfo.dat should get you in the right area of the disk. The size of
this file, implies that server carries somewhere around 46000 groups.

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\abcd1234\News\nntp.aioe.org

hostinfo.dat 1,444,203 bytes (about 46000 lines, as seen in Notepad)

If a server has an abnormally small list, that can be caused by an authentication
error, followed by being allowed to run as a "guest". If authentication succeeded
and you fetched the real group list, the resulting hostinfo.dat should be
substantial.

That list is not the "subscribed" list, which is stored separately as something
like "nntp.aioe.org.rc". So that file would be <servername>.rc . You can
look at the .rc file with Notepad as well. Since you haven't managed to
subscribe yet, the .rc could be empty. The .rc file is at the same
level as the nntp.aioe.org folder (i.e. above where you'd find hostinfo.dat).
For each group you subscribe to, a line is added to the .rc . To manually
remove a group completely, you'd delete the line from the .rc (while TB
wasn't running) and delete the corresponding alt.windows7.general.msf
and alt.windows7.general.dat files (i.e. <groupname>.msf and <groupname>.dat).
That would remove all memory of that group. If you later re-added
alt.windows7.general: 1-1 to the .rc file, then a new .msf and .dat for
the group, would be generated at run time.

nntp.aioe.org.rc (file contains one line per group - example shown...)

alt.windows7.general: 1-22613

That's how it works on TB2. YMMV.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Paul]

I got mail to work but not the Usenet part. I connected to the server
for datemas.de and a list of groups they carry came down. But as soon
as I type in the search window, the list in the window below
vanishishes. Therefore I can't subscribe to any newsgroups I know they
carry. How can I subscribe to any newsgroups when the list vanishes?

Are you absolutely sure you've ticked "Always Request Authentication"
for your datamas.de setup ? It sounds like authentication is failing.

On Eternal-September, if you don't authenticate, the newsgroup list
only contains a small number of entries, like perhaps a dozen or
so. A very short list, hopefully including eternal-september.support.
By allowing posting to the support group, a user with authentication
failure issues, can talk to the operator of the system.

If on E-S, authentication with username and password is successful,
then the returned group list has thousands of entries. After
those thousands of entries are downloaded, they should be cached
in hostinfo.dat . By storing them there, that avoids annoying the
operator of that server, by fetching the list each time TB starts.
You can request TB to update the list of newsgroups, but that
should be done on an infrequent basis (because it wastes
server bandwidth).

To debug USENET issues, I use a copy of Wireshark, while the
news reader software is trying to connect. If I connect to
port 119, everything is in plaintext. I can see

Request: AUTHINFO user <accountname>
Response: 381 Enter password
Request: AUTHINFO pass <mypassword>
Response: 281 Authentication succeeded

USENET servers use numbered messages for their message strings.
Whether they are "errors" or simply "responses", a number appears
in front of the string. And I can see this in the trace window
of Wireshark. Wireshark samples transmitted and received packets
on my Ethernet interface leading to my router.

This trace, shows a session with a web server and web browser,
so you'll have to imagine how it would look with
"281 Authentication succeeded" on the right hand side.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Wireshark_screenshot.png

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireshark )

With port 119, everything is in plaintext. With some of the
other port choices, communications would be encrypted, so
you can't check the username and password values as they
fly out of your computer.

Paul

 

[Char Jackson]

I got mail to work but not the Usenet part. I connected to the server for
datemas.de and a list of groups they carry came down. But as soon as I type
in the search window, the list in the window below vanishishes. Therefore I
can't subscribe to any newsgroups I know they carry. How can I subscribe to
any newsgroups when the list vanishes?

Valorie, Valorie, Valorie...

Did you check the Help file? This is basic stuff you're asking about.

 

[D. Arlington]

From: "Nil" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: TB on W-7 #2
Date: Friday, April 22, 2011 2:12 AM

And there is nowhere to add my passwords for my NSPs in TB.
Without adding the passwords, even if I could connect to the
servers with TB, I couldn't download the headers.

Is anyone else unable to locate where the passwords for NSPs go in
TB?

A quick google search revealed this... This works for common POP mail
accounts on commercial ISPs. Dunno about "NSP"s, whatever they are.

========

::: NSPs are NewsServiceProviders. This is how people post and read NG
(newsgroups) on Usenet.

For Thunderbird 3.x, follow these instructions.

1. Select Tools, Options from the top menu.
2. Select the Security button.
3. Select the Passwords tab.
4. Click the Saved Passwords button.

5.Look for the name of the e-mail account that you wish to change.
Highlight the account name and click the Remove button. This will allow
you to re-enter the password the next time you try to access your mail.

6. Click the OK button.

::: OK, did that. I can get email now in TB = Thunderbird.

Thanks.

 

[D. Arlington]

Got it thanks. AgentRansack found it in seconds. It's a long list. I hope I
can get TB working and learn to cope with it so the W-7 PC does more than
sit here collecting dust.

I'm also finding more info on Google.

 

[D. Arlington]

Are you absolutely sure you've ticked "Always Request Authentication"
for your datamas.de setup ? It sounds like authentication is failing.

I went in and clicked on it..... and the list the other person mentoned is
quite long for datemas.de.

On Eternal-September, if you don't authenticate, the newsgroup list
only contains a small number of entries, like perhaps a dozen or
so. A very short list, hopefully including eternal-september.support.
By allowing posting to the support group, a user with authentication
failure issues, can talk to the operator of the system.

I'm familiar with eternal-september. I haven't entered that one yet.

If on E-S, authentication with username and password is successful,
then the returned group list has thousands of entries. After
those thousands of entries are downloaded, they should be cached
in hostinfo.dat . By storing them there, that avoids annoying the
operator of that server, by fetching the list each time TB starts.
You can request TB to update the list of newsgroups, but that
should be done on an infrequent basis (because it wastes
server bandwidth).

To debug USENET issues, I use a copy of Wireshark, while the
news reader software is trying to connect. If I connect to
port 119, everything is in plaintext. I can see

Request: AUTHINFO user <accountname>
Response: 381 Enter password
Request: AUTHINFO pass <mypassword>
Response: 281 Authentication succeeded

USENET servers use numbered messages for their message strings.
Whether they are "errors" or simply "responses", a number appears
in front of the string. And I can see this in the trace window
of Wireshark. Wireshark samples transmitted and received packets
on my Ethernet interface leading to my router.

This trace, shows a session with a web server and web browser,
so you'll have to imagine how it would look with
"281 Authentication succeeded" on the right hand side.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Wireshark_screenshot.png

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireshark )

This is a lot to digest.......... ;-)