Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
Rick Rothstein and I had similar experiences recently: posting responses
that failed to appear on the MSNews server. Of course, there can be many factors that be the cause. But in our cases, the problem exists on the MSNews server. I will explain in more detail below. But the upshot of it all is.... Do not include the characters x y z (any capitalization) without interstitial spaces, either in the subject or message body. The MSNews server deletes any message that contains that character sequence. The deletion usually happens immediately after receiving the message, either from a newsreader or from another news server. But sometimes, the deletion occurs minutes later. Consquently, the message might or might not get propagated to other servers before it is deleted on the MSNews server. For the same reason, the message might appear momentarily on the MSNews server, allowing you to read it. And if you use Outlook Express, Windows Mail or any other newsreader that maintains its own message archive on your computer, you might think the message persists longer "on the MSNews server" than it really does simply because it is on your computer. But someone else might not see your message on the MSNews server because they looked later. And if you reset and resynch the NG, the message will no longer appear. Another symptom is that you might get a "removed from server" error when you try to read a message whose header is already in the newsreader archive on your computer. Originally, I misinterpreted the deferred deletion as an "intermittent" failure to post the message. But the behavior is actually consistent. Also, I had conjectured that this "filtering" (deletion) was related to messages or responses to messages that originated on Google Groups. In the final analysis, that has nothing to do with it. Note: I can only confirm this behavior when the x y z character sequence (without interstitial spaces) is in the subject or message body. But I suspect it can also be triggered when the character sequence occurs in any message header, which includes random character sequences that we have no control over. I come to these conclusions based on a careful analysis of the NNTP protocol in network traces. The network traces reveal that the MSNews server always receives and accepts the messages. They also reveal that the news server assigns an article index to the message before it is deleted. And the network traces demonstrate that the messages are deleted sometimes in less than 0.2 sec and sometimes after more than 5 min. Finally, in a sampling of 28 deleted messages, only about 11 of them were propagated to the Google Groups server. (I presume that they were also propagated to other news servers, e.g. the MS Discussion Groups server. But I stopped monitoring the MSDG server because the propagation delay is typically 30-35 min, at least in recent days.) The deferred deletions and inconsistent propagation to other news servers suggests to me that the messages are always stored on the MSNews server initially, and independent separate processes forward and delete the messages afterward. |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
I have a Few of questions 1) does the MSNews server filter response from postings that originat from other servers. ? 2) Microsoft has at least two user groups. Is MSNews server onl posting listings from Microsoft user Groups? 3) Is this problem related to the fact that the Microsoft User Grou stops sending emails to responses on a regualr basis? 4) Don't you think it is better to move to one of the non-microsof user groups that don't have problems? Microsoft doesn't seem to car that their. webservers don't work properly -- joe ----------------------------------------------------------------------- joel's Profile: 22 View this thread: http://www.thecodecage.com/forumz/sh...ad.php?t=16640 [url="http://www.thecodecage.com"]Microsoft Office Help[/url |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
That is quite interesting Joe... thanks for making the analysis. I guessing
this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I wonder when it started? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... Rick Rothstein and I had similar experiences recently: posting responses that failed to appear on the MSNews server. Of course, there can be many factors that be the cause. But in our cases, the problem exists on the MSNews server. I will explain in more detail below. But the upshot of it all is.... Do not include the characters x y z (any capitalization) without interstitial spaces, either in the subject or message body. The MSNews server deletes any message that contains that character sequence. The deletion usually happens immediately after receiving the message, either from a newsreader or from another news server. But sometimes, the deletion occurs minutes later. Consquently, the message might or might not get propagated to other servers before it is deleted on the MSNews server. For the same reason, the message might appear momentarily on the MSNews server, allowing you to read it. And if you use Outlook Express, Windows Mail or any other newsreader that maintains its own message archive on your computer, you might think the message persists longer "on the MSNews server" than it really does simply because it is on your computer. But someone else might not see your message on the MSNews server because they looked later. And if you reset and resynch the NG, the message will no longer appear. Another symptom is that you might get a "removed from server" error when you try to read a message whose header is already in the newsreader archive on your computer. Originally, I misinterpreted the deferred deletion as an "intermittent" failure to post the message. But the behavior is actually consistent. Also, I had conjectured that this "filtering" (deletion) was related to messages or responses to messages that originated on Google Groups. In the final analysis, that has nothing to do with it. Note: I can only confirm this behavior when the x y z character sequence (without interstitial spaces) is in the subject or message body. But I suspect it can also be triggered when the character sequence occurs in any message header, which includes random character sequences that we have no control over. I come to these conclusions based on a careful analysis of the NNTP protocol in network traces. The network traces reveal that the MSNews server always receives and accepts the messages. They also reveal that the news server assigns an article index to the message before it is deleted. And the network traces demonstrate that the messages are deleted sometimes in less than 0.2 sec and sometimes after more than 5 min. Finally, in a sampling of 28 deleted messages, only about 11 of them were propagated to the Google Groups server. (I presume that they were also propagated to other news servers, e.g. the MS Discussion Groups server. But I stopped monitoring the MSDG server because the propagation delay is typically 30-35 min, at least in recent days.) The deferred deletions and inconsistent propagation to other news servers suggests to me that the messages are always stored on the MSNews server initially, and independent separate processes forward and delete the messages afterward. |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
what can we do to get this corrected?
MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. There is a private ng dedicated to this topic (ng problems) and it's monitored by someone from MS. I'll post a link to this thread in that ng. BTW, I tried posting a reply to this thread that contained the offending character string and as you can see (or, in this case, can not see!) it didn't show up. -- Biff Microsoft Excel MVP "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... "Rick Rothstein" wrote: I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I agree. It is not unusual for us to suggest solutions that include the 26-character string "ab...yz", for example. Then again, there are the common example names like Company X#Y#Z (without #) in the following message, which I do not see on the MSNews server today: From: Subject: Sumproduct wildcard Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:13:01 -0800 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.misc Lastly, there may also be other contributing factors that I did not explore, in particular the content type, charset and encoding of the message. I am not saying that it is a factor. I am simply saying that I did not bother to consider that factor in my experiments. I wonder when it started? I think that will be almost impossible to answer with any credibility. First, the MSNews server retains only the last 90 days of messages. At least, that seems to be the retention policy for the m.p.excel* NGs. Second, even if we see evidence of lost messages within the last 90 days, we cannot determine if the deletion process was in effect that long ago, or if the deletion process was started more recently and it scrubbed the NGs of offending messages posted earlier. For example, I cannot find the following message in the MSNews server, which contains the 26-character string "AB...YZ". (The MSNews server has m.p.e.w-f messages dating back to 4 Oct 2009.) From: "RagDyeR" Subject: Insert single quote symbol Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:56:22 -0700 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions Even if someone has that message (not just the header) in their computer's "cache", we cannot know if they simply got lucky and read the message before it was deleted soon thereafter. I think the more important question is: what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. I hope you take advantage of every opportunity to make MS aware of this problem. I know: you are probably speaking with the wrong group within MS. But perhaps they can pass along the information. The rest of us will have to settle with submitting "feedback" messages through the MS support web site. I don't know how effective that will be. ----- original message ------ "Rick Rothstein" wrote in message ... That is quite interesting Joe... thanks for making the analysis. I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I wonder when it started? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... Rick Rothstein and I had similar experiences recently: posting responses that failed to appear on the MSNews server. Of course, there can be many factors that be the cause. But in our cases, the problem exists on the MSNews server. I will explain in more detail below. But the upshot of it all is.... Do not include the characters x y z (any capitalization) without interstitial spaces, either in the subject or message body. The MSNews server deletes any message that contains that character sequence. The deletion usually happens immediately after receiving the message, either from a newsreader or from another news server. But sometimes, the deletion occurs minutes later. Consquently, the message might or might not get propagated to other servers before it is deleted on the MSNews server. For the same reason, the message might appear momentarily on the MSNews server, allowing you to read it. And if you use Outlook Express, Windows Mail or any other newsreader that maintains its own message archive on your computer, you might think the message persists longer "on the MSNews server" than it really does simply because it is on your computer. But someone else might not see your message on the MSNews server because they looked later. And if you reset and resynch the NG, the message will no longer appear. Another symptom is that you might get a "removed from server" error when you try to read a message whose header is already in the newsreader archive on your computer. Originally, I misinterpreted the deferred deletion as an "intermittent" failure to post the message. But the behavior is actually consistent. Also, I had conjectured that this "filtering" (deletion) was related to messages or responses to messages that originated on Google Groups. In the final analysis, that has nothing to do with it. Note: I can only confirm this behavior when the x y z character sequence (without interstitial spaces) is in the subject or message body. But I suspect it can also be triggered when the character sequence occurs in any message header, which includes random character sequences that we have no control over. I come to these conclusions based on a careful analysis of the NNTP protocol in network traces. The network traces reveal that the MSNews server always receives and accepts the messages. They also reveal that the news server assigns an article index to the message before it is deleted. And the network traces demonstrate that the messages are deleted sometimes in less than 0.2 sec and sometimes after more than 5 min. Finally, in a sampling of 28 deleted messages, only about 11 of them were propagated to the Google Groups server. (I presume that they were also propagated to other news servers, e.g. the MS Discussion Groups server. But I stopped monitoring the MSDG server because the propagation delay is typically 30-35 min, at least in recent days.) The deferred deletions and inconsistent propagation to other news servers suggests to me that the messages are always stored on the MSNews server initially, and independent separate processes forward and delete the messages afterward. |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
All I can say is X Y Z (without spaces) is a most surprising text string to
filter on. I wonder if, perhaps, it was introduced at some point for debugging purposes and then left in by accident? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "T. Valko" wrote in message ... what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. There is a private ng dedicated to this topic (ng problems) and it's monitored by someone from MS. I'll post a link to this thread in that ng. BTW, I tried posting a reply to this thread that contained the offending character string and as you can see (or, in this case, can not see!) it didn't show up. -- Biff Microsoft Excel MVP "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... "Rick Rothstein" wrote: I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I agree. It is not unusual for us to suggest solutions that include the 26-character string "ab...yz", for example. Then again, there are the common example names like Company X#Y#Z (without #) in the following message, which I do not see on the MSNews server today: From: Subject: Sumproduct wildcard Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:13:01 -0800 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.misc Lastly, there may also be other contributing factors that I did not explore, in particular the content type, charset and encoding of the message. I am not saying that it is a factor. I am simply saying that I did not bother to consider that factor in my experiments. I wonder when it started? I think that will be almost impossible to answer with any credibility. First, the MSNews server retains only the last 90 days of messages. At least, that seems to be the retention policy for the m.p.excel* NGs. Second, even if we see evidence of lost messages within the last 90 days, we cannot determine if the deletion process was in effect that long ago, or if the deletion process was started more recently and it scrubbed the NGs of offending messages posted earlier. For example, I cannot find the following message in the MSNews server, which contains the 26-character string "AB...YZ". (The MSNews server has m.p.e.w-f messages dating back to 4 Oct 2009.) From: "RagDyeR" Subject: Insert single quote symbol Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:56:22 -0700 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions Even if someone has that message (not just the header) in their computer's "cache", we cannot know if they simply got lucky and read the message before it was deleted soon thereafter. I think the more important question is: what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. I hope you take advantage of every opportunity to make MS aware of this problem. I know: you are probably speaking with the wrong group within MS. But perhaps they can pass along the information. The rest of us will have to settle with submitting "feedback" messages through the MS support web site. I don't know how effective that will be. ----- original message ------ "Rick Rothstein" wrote in message ... That is quite interesting Joe... thanks for making the analysis. I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I wonder when it started? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... Rick Rothstein and I had similar experiences recently: posting responses that failed to appear on the MSNews server. Of course, there can be many factors that be the cause. But in our cases, the problem exists on the MSNews server. I will explain in more detail below. But the upshot of it all is.... Do not include the characters x y z (any capitalization) without interstitial spaces, either in the subject or message body. The MSNews server deletes any message that contains that character sequence. The deletion usually happens immediately after receiving the message, either from a newsreader or from another news server. But sometimes, the deletion occurs minutes later. Consquently, the message might or might not get propagated to other servers before it is deleted on the MSNews server. For the same reason, the message might appear momentarily on the MSNews server, allowing you to read it. And if you use Outlook Express, Windows Mail or any other newsreader that maintains its own message archive on your computer, you might think the message persists longer "on the MSNews server" than it really does simply because it is on your computer. But someone else might not see your message on the MSNews server because they looked later. And if you reset and resynch the NG, the message will no longer appear. Another symptom is that you might get a "removed from server" error when you try to read a message whose header is already in the newsreader archive on your computer. Originally, I misinterpreted the deferred deletion as an "intermittent" failure to post the message. But the behavior is actually consistent. Also, I had conjectured that this "filtering" (deletion) was related to messages or responses to messages that originated on Google Groups. In the final analysis, that has nothing to do with it. Note: I can only confirm this behavior when the x y z character sequence (without interstitial spaces) is in the subject or message body. But I suspect it can also be triggered when the character sequence occurs in any message header, which includes random character sequences that we have no control over. I come to these conclusions based on a careful analysis of the NNTP protocol in network traces. The network traces reveal that the MSNews server always receives and accepts the messages. They also reveal that the news server assigns an article index to the message before it is deleted. And the network traces demonstrate that the messages are deleted sometimes in less than 0.2 sec and sometimes after more than 5 min. Finally, in a sampling of 28 deleted messages, only about 11 of them were propagated to the Google Groups server. (I presume that they were also propagated to other news servers, e.g. the MS Discussion Groups server. But I stopped monitoring the MSDG server because the propagation delay is typically 30-35 min, at least in recent days.) The deferred deletions and inconsistent propagation to other news servers suggests to me that the messages are always stored on the MSNews server initially, and independent separate processes forward and delete the messages afterward. |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
"joel" wrote:
I have a Few of questions Pretending that this is not the troll that it obviously is.... 1) does the MSNews server filter response from postings that originate from other servers. ? I don't know. I have not seen any evidence of that. But I have determined that the problem I am reporting is unrelated to the source of the message; and it affects "new" messages as well as responses. 2) Microsoft has at least two user groups. Is MSNews server only posting listings from Microsoft user Groups? No. 3) Is this problem related to the fact that the Microsoft User Group stops sending emails to responses on a regualr basis? No. 4) Don't you think it is better to move to one of the non-microsoft user groups that don't have problems? Non sequitur. There are probably many thousands of people who read and participate in the MS Excel newsgroups alone, not to mention the many other MS NGs that are probably also impacted. (Certainly m.p.test.here is ;-.). We cannot control what server they use to read the NGs. ----- original message ------ "joel" wrote in message ... I have a Few of questions 1) does the MSNews server filter response from postings that originate from other servers. ? 2) Microsoft has at least two user groups. Is MSNews server only posting listings from Microsoft user Groups? 3) Is this problem related to the fact that the Microsoft User Group stops sending emails to responses on a regualr basis? 4) Don't you think it is better to move to one of the non-microsoft user groups that don't have problems? Microsoft doesn't seem to care that their. webservers don't work properly. -- joel ------------------------------------------------------------------------ joel's Profile: 229 View this thread: http://www.thecodecage.com/forumz/sh...d.php?t=166406 Microsoft Office Help |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
"T. Valko" wrote:
BTW, I tried posting a reply to this thread that contained the offending character string and as you can see (or, in this case, can not see!) it didn't show up. Patient: Doctor, my head hurts when I bang it against the wall like this! Doctor: Don't do that. (Well, it got lots of laughs on vaudeville stages.) There is a private ng dedicated to this topic (ng problems) and it's monitored by someone from MS. I'll post a link to this thread in that ng. Thanks. I can provide a summary of the hundreds of NNTP network traces that resulted from my many hours of experimentation over the past 3 days, if that's necessary to convince any MS engineer or IT person that the problem is real and exactly as I described it. ----- original message ----- "T. Valko" wrote in message ... what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. There is a private ng dedicated to this topic (ng problems) and it's monitored by someone from MS. I'll post a link to this thread in that ng. BTW, I tried posting a reply to this thread that contained the offending character string and as you can see (or, in this case, can not see!) it didn't show up. -- Biff Microsoft Excel MVP "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... "Rick Rothstein" wrote: I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I agree. It is not unusual for us to suggest solutions that include the 26-character string "ab...yz", for example. Then again, there are the common example names like Company X#Y#Z (without #) in the following message, which I do not see on the MSNews server today: From: Subject: Sumproduct wildcard Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:13:01 -0800 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.misc Lastly, there may also be other contributing factors that I did not explore, in particular the content type, charset and encoding of the message. I am not saying that it is a factor. I am simply saying that I did not bother to consider that factor in my experiments. I wonder when it started? I think that will be almost impossible to answer with any credibility. First, the MSNews server retains only the last 90 days of messages. At least, that seems to be the retention policy for the m.p.excel* NGs. Second, even if we see evidence of lost messages within the last 90 days, we cannot determine if the deletion process was in effect that long ago, or if the deletion process was started more recently and it scrubbed the NGs of offending messages posted earlier. For example, I cannot find the following message in the MSNews server, which contains the 26-character string "AB...YZ". (The MSNews server has m.p.e.w-f messages dating back to 4 Oct 2009.) From: "RagDyeR" Subject: Insert single quote symbol Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:56:22 -0700 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions Even if someone has that message (not just the header) in their computer's "cache", we cannot know if they simply got lucky and read the message before it was deleted soon thereafter. I think the more important question is: what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. I hope you take advantage of every opportunity to make MS aware of this problem. I know: you are probably speaking with the wrong group within MS. But perhaps they can pass along the information. The rest of us will have to settle with submitting "feedback" messages through the MS support web site. I don't know how effective that will be. ----- original message ------ "Rick Rothstein" wrote in message ... That is quite interesting Joe... thanks for making the analysis. I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I wonder when it started? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... Rick Rothstein and I had similar experiences recently: posting responses that failed to appear on the MSNews server. Of course, there can be many factors that be the cause. But in our cases, the problem exists on the MSNews server. I will explain in more detail below. But the upshot of it all is.... Do not include the characters x y z (any capitalization) without interstitial spaces, either in the subject or message body. The MSNews server deletes any message that contains that character sequence. The deletion usually happens immediately after receiving the message, either from a newsreader or from another news server. But sometimes, the deletion occurs minutes later. Consquently, the message might or might not get propagated to other servers before it is deleted on the MSNews server. For the same reason, the message might appear momentarily on the MSNews server, allowing you to read it. And if you use Outlook Express, Windows Mail or any other newsreader that maintains its own message archive on your computer, you might think the message persists longer "on the MSNews server" than it really does simply because it is on your computer. But someone else might not see your message on the MSNews server because they looked later. And if you reset and resynch the NG, the message will no longer appear. Another symptom is that you might get a "removed from server" error when you try to read a message whose header is already in the newsreader archive on your computer. Originally, I misinterpreted the deferred deletion as an "intermittent" failure to post the message. But the behavior is actually consistent. Also, I had conjectured that this "filtering" (deletion) was related to messages or responses to messages that originated on Google Groups. In the final analysis, that has nothing to do with it. Note: I can only confirm this behavior when the x y z character sequence (without interstitial spaces) is in the subject or message body. But I suspect it can also be triggered when the character sequence occurs in any message header, which includes random character sequences that we have no control over. I come to these conclusions based on a careful analysis of the NNTP protocol in network traces. The network traces reveal that the MSNews server always receives and accepts the messages. They also reveal that the news server assigns an article index to the message before it is deleted. And the network traces demonstrate that the messages are deleted sometimes in less than 0.2 sec and sometimes after more than 5 min. Finally, in a sampling of 28 deleted messages, only about 11 of them were propagated to the Google Groups server. (I presume that they were also propagated to other news servers, e.g. the MS Discussion Groups server. But I stopped monitoring the MSDG server because the propagation delay is typically 30-35 min, at least in recent days.) The deferred deletions and inconsistent propagation to other news servers suggests to me that the messages are always stored on the MSNews server initially, and independent separate processes forward and delete the messages afterward. |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
"Rick Rothstein" wrote:
All I can say is X Y Z (without spaces) is a most surprising text string to filter on. Yes. My first guess was that it was the entire 26-character string "ab...yz" that triggered it. Not so. I wonder if, perhaps, it was introduced at some point for debugging purposes and then left in by accident? Perhaps. My guess is that it is a misguided rule in some spam "filter". (It's not really a filter, but a post-processing "scrubber".) But yeah, it might have been put there to debug the spam "filter", and someone failed to remove it. If that's the case, it did a lot of damage, not just limited to messages posted during the debugging period (and since then by mistake, presumptively). Oh well, we are straying into conjecture. I wanted to convey "just the facts, ma'am". ----- original message ----- "Rick Rothstein" wrote in message ... All I can say is X Y Z (without spaces) is a most surprising text string to filter on. I wonder if, perhaps, it was introduced at some point for debugging purposes and then left in by accident? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "T. Valko" wrote in message ... what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. There is a private ng dedicated to this topic (ng problems) and it's monitored by someone from MS. I'll post a link to this thread in that ng. BTW, I tried posting a reply to this thread that contained the offending character string and as you can see (or, in this case, can not see!) it didn't show up. -- Biff Microsoft Excel MVP "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... "Rick Rothstein" wrote: I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I agree. It is not unusual for us to suggest solutions that include the 26-character string "ab...yz", for example. Then again, there are the common example names like Company X#Y#Z (without #) in the following message, which I do not see on the MSNews server today: From: Subject: Sumproduct wildcard Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:13:01 -0800 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.misc Lastly, there may also be other contributing factors that I did not explore, in particular the content type, charset and encoding of the message. I am not saying that it is a factor. I am simply saying that I did not bother to consider that factor in my experiments. I wonder when it started? I think that will be almost impossible to answer with any credibility. First, the MSNews server retains only the last 90 days of messages. At least, that seems to be the retention policy for the m.p.excel* NGs. Second, even if we see evidence of lost messages within the last 90 days, we cannot determine if the deletion process was in effect that long ago, or if the deletion process was started more recently and it scrubbed the NGs of offending messages posted earlier. For example, I cannot find the following message in the MSNews server, which contains the 26-character string "AB...YZ". (The MSNews server has m.p.e.w-f messages dating back to 4 Oct 2009.) From: "RagDyeR" Subject: Insert single quote symbol Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:56:22 -0700 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions Even if someone has that message (not just the header) in their computer's "cache", we cannot know if they simply got lucky and read the message before it was deleted soon thereafter. I think the more important question is: what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. I hope you take advantage of every opportunity to make MS aware of this problem. I know: you are probably speaking with the wrong group within MS. But perhaps they can pass along the information. The rest of us will have to settle with submitting "feedback" messages through the MS support web site. I don't know how effective that will be. ----- original message ------ "Rick Rothstein" wrote in message ... That is quite interesting Joe... thanks for making the analysis. I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I wonder when it started? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... Rick Rothstein and I had similar experiences recently: posting responses that failed to appear on the MSNews server. Of course, there can be many factors that be the cause. But in our cases, the problem exists on the MSNews server. I will explain in more detail below. But the upshot of it all is.... Do not include the characters x y z (any capitalization) without interstitial spaces, either in the subject or message body. The MSNews server deletes any message that contains that character sequence. The deletion usually happens immediately after receiving the message, either from a newsreader or from another news server. But sometimes, the deletion occurs minutes later. Consquently, the message might or might not get propagated to other servers before it is deleted on the MSNews server. For the same reason, the message might appear momentarily on the MSNews server, allowing you to read it. And if you use Outlook Express, Windows Mail or any other newsreader that maintains its own message archive on your computer, you might think the message persists longer "on the MSNews server" than it really does simply because it is on your computer. But someone else might not see your message on the MSNews server because they looked later. And if you reset and resynch the NG, the message will no longer appear. Another symptom is that you might get a "removed from server" error when you try to read a message whose header is already in the newsreader archive on your computer. Originally, I misinterpreted the deferred deletion as an "intermittent" failure to post the message. But the behavior is actually consistent. Also, I had conjectured that this "filtering" (deletion) was related to messages or responses to messages that originated on Google Groups. In the final analysis, that has nothing to do with it. Note: I can only confirm this behavior when the x y z character sequence (without interstitial spaces) is in the subject or message body. But I suspect it can also be triggered when the character sequence occurs in any message header, which includes random character sequences that we have no control over. I come to these conclusions based on a careful analysis of the NNTP protocol in network traces. The network traces reveal that the MSNews server always receives and accepts the messages. They also reveal that the news server assigns an article index to the message before it is deleted. And the network traces demonstrate that the messages are deleted sometimes in less than 0.2 sec and sometimes after more than 5 min. Finally, in a sampling of 28 deleted messages, only about 11 of them were propagated to the Google Groups server. (I presume that they were also propagated to other news servers, e.g. the MS Discussion Groups server. But I stopped monitoring the MSDG server because the propagation delay is typically 30-35 min, at least in recent days.) The deferred deletions and inconsistent propagation to other news servers suggests to me that the messages are always stored on the MSNews server initially, and independent separate processes forward and delete the messages afterward. |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
Mea culpa....
I wrote: Patient: Doctor, my head hurts when I bang it against the wall like this! Doctor: Don't do that. Not to disparage the independent confirmation. It's part of the scientific process. ----- original message ----- "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... "T. Valko" wrote: BTW, I tried posting a reply to this thread that contained the offending character string and as you can see (or, in this case, can not see!) it didn't show up. Patient: Doctor, my head hurts when I bang it against the wall like this! Doctor: Don't do that. (Well, it got lots of laughs on vaudeville stages.) There is a private ng dedicated to this topic (ng problems) and it's monitored by someone from MS. I'll post a link to this thread in that ng. Thanks. I can provide a summary of the hundreds of NNTP network traces that resulted from my many hours of experimentation over the past 3 days, if that's necessary to convince any MS engineer or IT person that the problem is real and exactly as I described it. ----- original message ----- "T. Valko" wrote in message ... what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. There is a private ng dedicated to this topic (ng problems) and it's monitored by someone from MS. I'll post a link to this thread in that ng. BTW, I tried posting a reply to this thread that contained the offending character string and as you can see (or, in this case, can not see!) it didn't show up. -- Biff Microsoft Excel MVP "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... "Rick Rothstein" wrote: I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I agree. It is not unusual for us to suggest solutions that include the 26-character string "ab...yz", for example. Then again, there are the common example names like Company X#Y#Z (without #) in the following message, which I do not see on the MSNews server today: From: Subject: Sumproduct wildcard Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:13:01 -0800 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.misc Lastly, there may also be other contributing factors that I did not explore, in particular the content type, charset and encoding of the message. I am not saying that it is a factor. I am simply saying that I did not bother to consider that factor in my experiments. I wonder when it started? I think that will be almost impossible to answer with any credibility. First, the MSNews server retains only the last 90 days of messages. At least, that seems to be the retention policy for the m.p.excel* NGs. Second, even if we see evidence of lost messages within the last 90 days, we cannot determine if the deletion process was in effect that long ago, or if the deletion process was started more recently and it scrubbed the NGs of offending messages posted earlier. For example, I cannot find the following message in the MSNews server, which contains the 26-character string "AB...YZ". (The MSNews server has m.p.e.w-f messages dating back to 4 Oct 2009.) From: "RagDyeR" Subject: Insert single quote symbol Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:56:22 -0700 Message-ID: Newsgroups: microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions Even if someone has that message (not just the header) in their computer's "cache", we cannot know if they simply got lucky and read the message before it was deleted soon thereafter. I think the more important question is: what can we do to get this corrected? MVPs might have communication channels that we "mere mortals" do not. I hope you take advantage of every opportunity to make MS aware of this problem. I know: you are probably speaking with the wrong group within MS. But perhaps they can pass along the information. The rest of us will have to settle with submitting "feedback" messages through the MS support web site. I don't know how effective that will be. ----- original message ------ "Rick Rothstein" wrote in message ... That is quite interesting Joe... thanks for making the analysis. I guessing this is something new with the Microsoft servers as I cannot believe those letters have never been posted in a thread sometime in the past to this, or any other, Microsoft server. I wonder when it started? -- Rick (MVP - Excel) "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote in message ... Rick Rothstein and I had similar experiences recently: posting responses that failed to appear on the MSNews server. Of course, there can be many factors that be the cause. But in our cases, the problem exists on the MSNews server. I will explain in more detail below. But the upshot of it all is.... Do not include the characters x y z (any capitalization) without interstitial spaces, either in the subject or message body. The MSNews server deletes any message that contains that character sequence. The deletion usually happens immediately after receiving the message, either from a newsreader or from another news server. But sometimes, the deletion occurs minutes later. Consquently, the message might or might not get propagated to other servers before it is deleted on the MSNews server. For the same reason, the message might appear momentarily on the MSNews server, allowing you to read it. And if you use Outlook Express, Windows Mail or any other newsreader that maintains its own message archive on your computer, you might think the message persists longer "on the MSNews server" than it really does simply because it is on your computer. But someone else might not see your message on the MSNews server because they looked later. And if you reset and resynch the NG, the message will no longer appear. Another symptom is that you might get a "removed from server" error when you try to read a message whose header is already in the newsreader archive on your computer. Originally, I misinterpreted the deferred deletion as an "intermittent" failure to post the message. But the behavior is actually consistent. Also, I had conjectured that this "filtering" (deletion) was related to messages or responses to messages that originated on Google Groups. In the final analysis, that has nothing to do with it. Note: I can only confirm this behavior when the x y z character sequence (without interstitial spaces) is in the subject or message body. But I suspect it can also be triggered when the character sequence occurs in any message header, which includes random character sequences that we have no control over. I come to these conclusions based on a careful analysis of the NNTP protocol in network traces. The network traces reveal that the MSNews server always receives and accepts the messages. They also reveal that the news server assigns an article index to the message before it is deleted. And the network traces demonstrate that the messages are deleted sometimes in less than 0.2 sec and sometimes after more than 5 min. Finally, in a sampling of 28 deleted messages, only about 11 of them were propagated to the Google Groups server. (I presume that they were also propagated to other news servers, e.g. the MS Discussion Groups server. But I stopped monitoring the MSDG server because the propagation delay is typically 30-35 min, at least in recent days.) The deferred deletions and inconsistent propagation to other news servers suggests to me that the messages are always stored on the MSNews server initially, and independent separate processes forward and delete the messages afterward. |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
I use Google Groups and tried 5 times to post a solution here...
http://groups.google.com.au/group/mi...71c861c59d83d9 The following solution (no "x y z"s w/o spaces) just kept on disappearing after varying times... Try not using Dim oPic As Picture, use Dim oPic As Shape instead. It means an extra loop to hide Shapes that are Pictures without hiding any other Shapes... Private Sub Worksheet_Calculate() Dim oPic As Shape For Each oPic In Me.Shapes If oPic.Type = msoPicture Then oPic.Visible = False End If Next oPic With Range("ad1") For Each oPic In Me.Shapes If oPic.Name = .Text Then oPic.Visible = True oPic.Top = .Top oPic.Left = .Left Exit For End If Next oPic End With End Sub Ken Johnson Ken Johnson |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
"Ken Johnson" wrote:
I use Google Groups and tried 5 times to post a solution here... http://groups.google.com.au/group/mi...71c861c59d83d9 The following solution (no "x y z"s w/o spaces) just kept on disappearing after varying times... I am not sure what you are trying to say. Forgive me if I misunderstand. And if I did, please clarify the purpose of your comment. If you are trying to saying that you do not see your (five) responses in Google Groups, I confirm: I don't see them either using the GG web interface. But this thread is about problems with lost messages on the MSNews server, not the Google Groups server. I have no idea why you might not see your messages using GG, given that you submitted them using GG. That would be fodder for another thread ;-). It does not surprise me that it is not the same "x y z" problem that is plaguing the MSNews server. And even w.r.t the MSNews server, there might be other problems that cause lost messages. FYI, I do see five responses of yours to that thread on the MSNews server. They a Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:43:09 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:28:46 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:03:05 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:03:14 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:40:22 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: (MSNews m.p.e.misc article numbers 888882, 888886, 888912, 889048 and 889180 respectively.) If you want to investigate this further, you might try starting with a GG search using the those messages IDs. And you might try posting the body of those messages in test messages posted to m.p.test.here, trying isolate the content, if any, that is causing problems. If you need a exact copy of the GG messages that you posted, I can get them from the MSNews server and send them to you in email. BTW, since they do appear on the MSNews server, it does mean that they were transmitted successfully to the GG server; no external networking problem. What happened after that within the GG intranet is anyone's guess at this point. Good luck! ----- original message ----- "Ken Johnson" wrote in message ... I use Google Groups and tried 5 times to post a solution here... http://groups.google.com.au/group/mi...71c861c59d83d9 The following solution (no "x y z"s w/o spaces) just kept on disappearing after varying times... Try not using Dim oPic As Picture, use Dim oPic As Shape instead. It means an extra loop to hide Shapes that are Pictures without hiding any other Shapes... Private Sub Worksheet_Calculate() Dim oPic As Shape For Each oPic In Me.Shapes If oPic.Type = msoPicture Then oPic.Visible = False End If Next oPic With Range("ad1") For Each oPic In Me.Shapes If oPic.Name = .Text Then oPic.Visible = True oPic.Top = .Top oPic.Left = .Left Exit For End If Next oPic End With End Sub Ken Johnson Ken Johnson |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
On Jan 2, 10:04*pm, "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote:
"Ken Johnson" wrote: I use Google Groups and tried 5 times to post a solution here... http://groups.google.com.au/group/mi...l.misc/browse_... The following solution (no "x y z"s w/o spaces) just kept on disappearing after varying times... I am not sure what you are trying to say. *Forgive me if I misunderstand. And if I did, please clarify the purpose of your comment. If you are trying to saying that you do not see your (five) responses in Google Groups, I confirm: *I don't see them either using the GG web interface. But this thread is about problems with lost messages on the MSNews server, not the Google Groups server. I have no idea why you might not see your messages using GG, given that you submitted them using GG. *That would be fodder for another thread ;-). It does not surprise me that it is not the same "x y z" problem that is plaguing the MSNews server. *And even w.r.t the MSNews server, there might be other problems that cause lost messages. FYI, I do see five responses of yours to that thread on the MSNews server.. They a Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:43:09 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:28:46 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:03:05 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:03:14 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:40:22 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: (MSNews m.p.e.misc article numbers 888882, 888886, 888912, 889048 and 889180 respectively.) If you want to investigate this further, you might try starting with a GG search using the those messages IDs. And you might try posting the body of those messages in test messages posted to m.p.test.here, trying isolate the content, if any, that is causing problems. *If you need a exact copy of the GG messages that you posted, I can get them from the MSNews server and send them to you in email. BTW, since they do appear on the MSNews server, it does mean that they were transmitted successfully to the GG server; no external networking problem.. What happened after that within the GG intranet is anyone's guess at this point. Good luck! ----- original message ----- "Ken Johnson" wrote in message ... I use Google Groups and tried 5 times to post a solution here... http://groups.google.com.au/group/mi...l.misc/browse_... The following solution (no "x y z"s w/o spaces) just kept on disappearing after varying times... Try not using Dim oPic As Picture, use Dim oPic As Shape instead. It means an extra loop to hide Shapes that are Pictures without hiding any other Shapes... * * Private Sub Worksheet_Calculate() * * * * Dim oPic As Shape * * * * For Each oPic In Me.Shapes * * * * * If oPic.Type = msoPicture Then * * * * * * oPic.Visible = False * * * * * End If * * * *Next oPic * * * * With Range("ad1") * * * * * * For Each oPic In Me.Shapes * * * * * * * * If oPic.Name = .Text Then * * * * * * * * * * oPic.Visible = True * * * * * * * * * * oPic.Top = .Top * * * * * * * * * * oPic.Left = .Left * * * * * * * * * * Exit For * * * * * * * * End If * * * * * * Next oPic * * * * End With * * End Sub Ken Johnson Ken Johnson Thanks Joe User, I might just leave it in the too-hard-basket. BTW I see your response to my message but I no longer see my message. Ken Johnson |
Why messages fail to appear on MSNews server
"Ken Johnson" wrote:
BTW I see your response to my message but I no longer see my message. Well, now this is piquing my interest. But I prefer to move any further discussion into another thread. Please post any further comments about the GG problem in the m.p.excel thread titled "GG posting problem (reported by Ken Johnson)" (or some other thread, if you wish). I do not want people to confuse this GG problem with the MSNews problem that I am alerting people to, especially since Biff has pointed MS people to this thread in a message that he posted in an MVP NG. ----- original message ----- "Ken Johnson" wrote in message ... On Jan 2, 10:04 pm, "Joe User" <joeu2004 wrote: "Ken Johnson" wrote: I use Google Groups and tried 5 times to post a solution here... http://groups.google.com.au/group/mi...l.misc/browse_... The following solution (no "x y z"s w/o spaces) just kept on disappearing after varying times... I am not sure what you are trying to say. Forgive me if I misunderstand. And if I did, please clarify the purpose of your comment. If you are trying to saying that you do not see your (five) responses in Google Groups, I confirm: I don't see them either using the GG web interface. But this thread is about problems with lost messages on the MSNews server, not the Google Groups server. I have no idea why you might not see your messages using GG, given that you submitted them using GG. That would be fodder for another thread ;-). It does not surprise me that it is not the same "x y z" problem that is plaguing the MSNews server. And even w.r.t the MSNews server, there might be other problems that cause lost messages. FYI, I do see five responses of yours to that thread on the MSNews server. They a Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:43:09 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:28:46 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:03:05 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:03:14 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:40:22 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: (MSNews m.p.e.misc article numbers 888882, 888886, 888912, 889048 and 889180 respectively.) If you want to investigate this further, you might try starting with a GG search using the those messages IDs. And you might try posting the body of those messages in test messages posted to m.p.test.here, trying isolate the content, if any, that is causing problems. If you need a exact copy of the GG messages that you posted, I can get them from the MSNews server and send them to you in email. BTW, since they do appear on the MSNews server, it does mean that they were transmitted successfully to the GG server; no external networking problem. What happened after that within the GG intranet is anyone's guess at this point. Good luck! ----- original message ----- "Ken Johnson" wrote in message ... I use Google Groups and tried 5 times to post a solution here... http://groups.google.com.au/group/mi...l.misc/browse_... The following solution (no "x y z"s w/o spaces) just kept on disappearing after varying times... [[...removed excerpt from original message...]] Ken Johnson Ken Johnson Thanks Joe User, I might just leave it in the too-hard-basket. BTW I see your response to my message but I no longer see my message. Ken Johnson |
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