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Hello all
Anyone having problems with virgins news server over the past few days ?
For days now i've been getting low speeds about a half of what i normally get from them (i'm on 20Mb) However as of tonight at 10pm i can't connect at all. Apart from this issue everything else seems to be working fine. I'm sure it's not a STM issue as i only download after 9pm.
I'm in the G72 area of Glasgow and i'm using Grabit 1.7.2(b3)
General Maximus
02-01-2009, 00:26
I have just checked and it takes about 1 minute for me to connect and then downloads go at 1.5k/sec. I have been using it for the last couple of days and it has been alright.
I have just checked the VM website and there is no mention of any problems. I can't be arsed to ring India now and start moaning. They might be doing some maintenance or something over night. I'll check again tomorrow morning and then make a phone call.
Thanks for the reply, i'll give them a call too if it's not any better by tomorrow afternoon.
Thanks again.
homealone
02-01-2009, 00:48
Hello all
Anyone having problems with virgins news server over the past few days ?
For days now i've been getting low speeds about a half of what i normally get from them (i'm on 20Mb) However as of tonight at 10pm i can't connect at all. Apart from this issue everything else seems to be working fine. I'm sure it's not a STM issue as i only download after 9pm.
I'm in the G72 area of Glasgow and i'm using Grabit 1.7.2(b3)
I tried some downloads earlier tonight & the VM news server was noticeably slower & more erratic than astraweb on my connection. I also use Grabit & ended up switching all the grabs to the astraweb server as the VM one was not performing very well, at all..I, also, was concerned it was an STM/application throttling issue, but switching servers seemed to rule that out??
I'm also struggling along - very poor erratic speeds
General Maximus
02-01-2009, 11:21
looks like everything is back up and running now although I am only pulling 350k max atm
looks like everything is back up and running now although I am only pulling 350k max atm
running?? more like crawling!!
Thats why everyone should pay for Giganews! ;) ;)
Credit Crunch?
What credit crunch :)
PS Its not working very well here.
Is the most upto date address news.virginmedia.com?
deathtrap3000
02-01-2009, 18:28
Very bad connection for me.
Im on 20meg as well.
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/01/134.jpg
Stuttering a bit and erratic speeds.
6Mbps - 10Mbps on a 20Mb line
EDIT 18Mbps now, getting there :)
Updating 3 groups at 3.98KB/s at the moment on a 10MB connection...
---------- Post added at 20:02 ---------- Previous post was at 19:57 ----------
>> I have raised an issue regarding erratic download speeds earlier today
>> from our Highwinds servers. The reference for this is F000874779. I
>> apologise for any inconvenience caused. Since it is specific to
>> Newsgroups I have set a F.U to Usenet support.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Kind regards
>> Paul McFly
>> VirginMedia Technical Support
virginmedia.support.usenet
Yup still really erratic :( spiking all over the place :(
Bottesford
03-01-2009, 13:46
Been pretty bad for the past 4 days here. I only use NGs for basic message reading/posting and it's taking around 30 seconds to download the message headers (normally 2 seconds max) and up to 10 seconds to get each message (normally instant).
It's pretty frustrating trying to read a discussion thread with such long message download times.
It's still start-stop at ridiculously low speeds... slower than dialup!!
"Unable to Connect" for several minutes.... then the same stop-start connection to download headers...
Yeah speeds have been poor from newsgroups, get 1.2mb then drops to 50k then back up etc.
cook1984
04-01-2009, 22:20
It's up and down all the time. Maybe it's the new 50 meg people hammering their servers.
Virgin are outsourcing the binary newsgroups to Highwinds - you expected better service? LOL.
homealone
04-01-2009, 23:02
Virgin are outsourcing the binary newsgroups to Highwinds - you expected better service? LOL.
tbh, in my experience, it has only been recently the VM servers have been flakey.
I had previously used VM servers for 'standard' groups, without any fear of diminished performance, mainly to see if it would be viable to reduce the tariff I am paying for on 'other' servers.
Unfortunately, recent performance has suggested that reliable NG downloads are best done on the 'paid for' servers, which is a shame, as I thought the VM servers only differed in retention & the numbers of groups peered, previously??
I guess you had no experience of Highwinds when they provided the 'service' for NTL?
That was a complete and utter joke, which fell over every month and took days or even weeks for anyone to notice and attempt to get something done, which generally resulting in Highwinds botching some settings to get the system working again for a week or two before it all choked to death again.
Bad connection speeds, no connections, missing articles, poor retention; no retention, no server response, no articles.... been there, done that.
I don't expect this current issue to be fixed anytime soon, especially when you read this on the support groups:
the reason that you have had no updates as to what the fault is or when it will be fixed is because we haven't either. There has been no new information for almost two days now. We have been attempting to find out more information but to no avail, when I hear anything on this I'll post it.
I appreciate it is very irritating to have such a degraded service but we
cannot better manage expectations with no information to go on.
--
Kind Regards
Eric Roberts
Virgin Media Technical Support
Which doesn't exactly give the impression that anyone cares. :rolleyes:
Same trouble here (Walsall) periods of inactivity, spiking and hellish slow header downloads. Nothing on the status pages.
I queued up some downloads before bedtime, and they have happened overnight, so the service must come and go.
Real pain compared to the brilliant service over the past few months, and I just cancelled my Claranews account as I wasn't using any of it :mad:
Andrewcrawford23
05-01-2009, 15:41
I am gettign 2MB/s from the newsgroup sevrer without any problems maybe it the time of day your downloading? bu tthen again if people ar ehaivng troubles with text as well then i doubt it time of day but seems ot be fixed unless i am lucky
General Maximus
05-01-2009, 16:19
it must be localised to a problem with something in england then because I am still not getting over 300k/sec and you could always rely on newsgroups to get 2.2mb/sec no matter what time of the day it was.
It's been screwed here in Cardiff for days too.... at all times of day...
Now the speed is up, but no new headers since late this morning...
As chicken says it is a known issue and has been passed to the provider, that quote is taken from a thread on that subject on virginmedia.support.broadband.cable, it would seem to make sense to reply or watch that thread, it is titled 'newsgroup server' the latest post (3rd January) says
Hi,
the last update was at 19:21 yesterday evening. An email from Highwinds
stated that they were dealing with a fault with their frontend servers that
was causing slow speeds. They went on to state that they should have an
update in a couple of hours, this update has yet to transpire. The fault
reference for this is F000874779, there was another one but this seems to be
the chosen one..
Also stuff on virginmedia.support.usenet obviously.
General Maximus
06-01-2009, 15:47
it looks like things are on teack for being fixed, I am now pulling anything between 1-2mb/sec
I'm not - it's gone again.
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