Steve Calvin > wrote in message >...
> Boron Elgar wrote:
>
> >
> > The Optonline news server has been completely trash the past 2-3 days.
> > I only use it as my back up news feed.
> >
> > As a primary, I heartily recommend a German news server that works
> > flawlessly. They do not handle binary groups, though, in case that is
> > something you use.
> >
> > http://news.individual.net/
> >
> > Boron
>
> A more accurate statement would have been, "The Optonline new server
> IS completely trash" *period*. One of the worst I've ever
> encountered. I use news.individual.net as well. It's not great but
> it's miles ahead of OOL. And OOL doesn't show any signs of improving
> it either.

Thanks, Steve and Gloria, both!
Barb also emailed me the link to news.individual.net.

You confirmed my suspicion that something was up with the server.

Gloria, you're right, it's gone downhill the past few days. I also
noticed i've got THOUSANDS of headers, and it's retaining them for
weeks and weeks. It never did that before, I always just had the past
3-4 days of posts available to me. I never noticed it was that bad,
but then again, I only read one ng and at that, didn't even read it
for 6 months or so. I've been away from usenet so maybe that's why I
finally noticed how bad it was.

Yeah, I know they don't know anything about usenet on the cust.
service line. I didn't even bother. I may email their help desk,
though, just to satisfy my own need to complain to someone who might
be able to do something about it.

Thanks for your help, everyone.
Sheryl