[OT] Weird - please excuse test post

I've been trying for hours to follow up a post in another thread.
An earlier attempt to start a new thread also failed. Yet, test
posts to scot.test, rec.puzzles.crosswords, uk.telecom.broadband
all succeeded. Obviously I must be doing something very stupid!
But what?

 

It couldn't possibly be some problem with the Orange SMTP server
<smtp.orangehome.co.uk>, could it? Is SMTP involved in posting
to Usenet? (I wish I knew more about how the Internet works.)
And could an SMTP server be refusing to handle messages more than
a few lines in length?? Just guessing wildly. Tearing my hair
out over this. (And I don't have much to spare.)

 

That was never very likely, and it can't be the reason, because
I've just e-mailed myself one of the longer articles I couldn't
post here, and it arrived intact.

 

Not only that, but in another newsgroup, I just tried to post a
message of only 17 lines, and I got the same error message from
Agent:

"Connection closed unexpectedly by server."

So whatever the hell the problem is, it doesn't only affect long
messages.

 

No, SMTP isn't used for sending Usenet postings, only for send email.
However a protocol called NNTP is used for sending Usenet to a Usenet
server, and it could be this server which is rejecting the longer postings
for the same reasons that you suggest about SMTP. But why is it only doing
it for postings to this group, when the other groups that you mention are
OK?

Try using Google Groups (go to www.google.co.uk, select Groups and then
supply the name of this group) and see if you can post that way.

 

(Two attempts to reply to this message - one in detail, one just
a "stub" like this one - have failed. Please bear with me, as
anything anyone is likely to say to me about this is very likely
to have been anticipated in one of my lost replies! The most
important thing is that I intend to take this whole business to
a *.test group, and I apologise for the "noise" I've made here.)

 

With router MTU = 1492, I can post articles of length 1,730 bytes.
With router MTU = 1458, I can post articles of length 1,696 bytes.
So I can post articles of length MTU + 238 bytes (including this!).
Any suggestions as to the likely cause(s), and possible cure(s)?

 

Try setting the MTU on the router to 1500.

Alex

 

Anothers hope, anothers game
Anothers loss, anothers gain
Anothers lies, anothers truth
Anothers doubt, anothers proof
Anothers left, anothers right
Anothers peace, anothers fight
Anothers name, anothers aim
Anothers fall, anothers fame
Anothers pride, anothers shame
Anothers love, anothers pain
Anothers hope, anothers game
Anothers loss, anothers gain
Anothers lies, anothers truth
Anothers doubt, anothers proof
Anothers left, anothers right
Anothers peace, anothers fight

Marx had an idea from the confusion of his head
Then there were a thousand more waiting to be led
The books are sold, the quotes are bought
You learn them well and then you're caught

Anothers left, anothers right
Anothers peace, anothers fight

Mussolini had ideas from the confusion of his heart
Then there were a thousand more waiting to play their part
The stage was set, the costumes worn
And another empire of destruction born

Anothers name, anothers aim
Anothers fall, anothers fame

Jung had an idea from the confusion of his dream
Then there were a thousand more waiting to be seen
You're not yourself, the theory says
But I can help, your complex pays

Anothers hope, anothers game
Anothers loss, anothers gain

Satre had an idea from the confusion of his brain
Then there were a thousand more indulging in his pain
Revelling in isolation and existential choice
Can you truly be alone when you use anothers voice?

Anothers lies, anothers truth
Anothers doubt, anothers proof

The idea born in someones mind
Is nurtured by a thousand blind
Anonymous beings, vacuous souls
Do you fear the confusion, your lack of control?
You lift your arm to write a name
So caught up in the identity game
Who do you see? Who do you watch?
Who's your leader? Which is your flock?
Who do you watch? Who do you watch?
Who's your leader? Which is your flock?

Einstein had an idea from the confusion of his knowledge
Then there were a thousand more turning to advantage
They realised that their god was dead
So they reclaimed power through the bomb instead
Anothers code, anothers brain
They'll shower us all in deadly rain

Jesus had an idea from the confusion of his soul
Then there were a thousand more waiting to take control
The guilt is sold, forgiveness bought
The cross is there as your reward
Anothers love, anothers pain
Anothers pride, anothers shame
Do you watch at a distance from the side you have chosen?
Whose answers serve you best? Who'll save you from confusion?
Who will leave you an exit and a comfortable cover
Who will take you oh so near the edge, but never drop you over?
Who do you watch

 

Bingo! That seems to have done it, all right! Thank you from
the bottom of my heart! Now I'll have to learn something about
this MTU business: up to now, it was sheer guesswork on my part
that it might have something to do with it.

(My connection is terrible at the moment - servers timing out and
failing to respond, all over the place - so, a little ironically,
it took me half an hour to retrieve that article after posting it.)

From <http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/MTU.htm>:

"It does not matter too much if the MTU on your router is higher
than that on your PC, but the setting in your router must not be
less than the MTU on your PC."

So I guess my PC must have a MTU of 1500 (or higher - unlikely)?
The first order of business would seem to be finding out how to
find out where my PC is hiding its MTU ...

 

[snip]

The default (and maximum) MTU for Ethernet connections is 1500, so unless
you've changed it, it should be that.

Despite what the above says, it doesn't normally matter if the MTU on the
router is lower than that on the PC, because both the PC and servers it
connects to are likely to support Path MTU (or PMTU) discovery.
Unfortunately, this can go wrong, as you seem to have found out. That said,
I am not sure of the cause in your case; perhaps some unfortunate
interaction between your router and the news server, or a firewall issue.

On Windows, the MTU can be changed in the registry; see (for example):
http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/280/

If you are not happy modifying the registry, there are a number of small
utilities you can probably find with Google to do it for you.

Alex

 

Unfortunately, as I feared, this was not merely "ironic", but was
an effect of having set the router's MTU to 1500. Orange advise:
"In case of problems with a third party router, change MTU to 1492
(Livebox default setting)". I guess they must have things set up
pretty badly at their end? As a temporary expedient, therefore, I
will have to use MTU=1500 only when I have a long article to post
to Usenet! As a medium term solution, I will learn how to "tweak."
And as a long term solution, I should probably not stay with Orange
....

What /is/ ironic, as well as either numerological synchronicity or
unconscious cunning, is that the song lyrics I posted (to see if I
could post a long text, when MTU=1500), are of a song by the Crass,
entitled "Where Next Columbus?" (which somebody recently posted to
sci.math) - hence 1492! Before that, I had been using part of the
text of the Declaration of Independence of the United States. I'm
sure there is a weird message here somewhere. I said I was going
mad with this.