Hello Libor.

> AFA I have realized,
> Newsplex is scheduling server exploration every 2 hours.
>
> But, when awakened from longer standby
> (exactly hybrid mode in vista ),
> it seems it is still waiting for schedule,
> instead of performing explore immediately.
> ( last schedule was expired long time ago )
>
> If I do not want to wait, I need to
> either perform Newsplex restart,
> or trigger exploration manually, .
>
> Did I miss anything ?

The thread which is responsible for triggering task execution sleeps for
a fixed relative amount of time till the next scheduling moment. I guess
that
hybrid mode does not change this relative sleep time, even though the
absolute
time varies.

To retrigger a re-evaluation of times, you can use npnntp.exe
and issue a "npforcetask 1" or "npforcetask 2" commands. Tasks
with handles 1 and 2 are fixed tasks. This will wake up the
sleeping thread and cause an internal recomputation of
times. Logically, all server explores will be started immediately.

If this does not work, send the result of the "nptasks"
command before and after a long sleep.

A+
-A

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I've had NewsPlex running fine for years on an XP box used as a home server. I'm in the process of updating the h/w and o/s to Vista x64. I copied over the existing NewsPlex 4.4 installation, making copies of the writeable folders in the virtual store area, which it found and used. So far, so good. However, it consistently emits the "Error during synchronization with main server" error at startup. The URL, username, and PW are known good (currently working on the XP box) and work using the new version of Outlook Express on Vista. According to the connection log at my proxy server, Newsplex never makes a connection attempt.

I've tried wiping it all out and installing version 4.5. It ran the startup auto-configuration properly, found the sample news servers, and established a connection with most of them. So I wiped out all the files associated with those and started again with my own server list.

With some additional troubleshooting, it appears that the problem stems from Newsplex being unable to deal with a name lookup when a server login and PW are included. When I substituted the dotted-quad IP address for the news server name, it was able to establish a connection, login, and retrieve the list of groups on the server. (Remember, the name lookup and subsequent connection works with "Outlook Express" on this same box)

All is not yet well, however. After connecting a newsreader client to newsplex (successfully) and requesting a refresh of several group headers, Newsplex refuses to make any of the requested groups active. Fortunately, they can be activated manually from the all-groups list on the web interface, but this is a nuisance to say the least. Once activated this way, Newsplex retrievs headers normally and successfully passes them to the client newsreader.

Summary of the two (Vista-related) issues:
1) Newsplex has some difficulty with server name resolution.
2) It is not automatically activating groups

BTW, I like 4.5 a LOT so far. It's a whole lot faster than 4.4. Thank you! If I can be of further assistance in nailing down these two issues, please let me know. (However, my mailing addr is temporarily non-functional due to an idiot hosting company. Pls reply to the group.)

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A followup on issue 2 -- I stopped Newsplex shortly after posting the previous message to set the flag for background operation. On restarting it the automatic group activation decided to work. There doesn't seem to be any obvious relationship between those two events, but that's what happened.

I may play around with the name resolution problem a bit more. I don't much like hard-coding the IP address in servers.ini so I may try to put the address in the hosts file as any change wouldn't mean a shutdown/restart of Newsplex. Ideally, it would be nice to resolve this bug though.

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