Discussion Groups Websites Service Temporarily Unavailable

[aussiegirlone]

Why is this happening every time I want to view a discussion, I get this
message "Service Temporarily Unavailable."

Is this happening to everyone or just me?

I have to close down the internet page and re-open it to get back to the
discussions page which looks fine until I select a question to view?

 

[DILipandey]

Hi Aussie,

Yes, you are right. It is happening to me as well.


Thanks & Best Regards,
Dilip Kumar Pandey
MBA, BCA, B.Com(Hons.)
(e-mail address removed)
(e-mail address removed)
New Delhi, India

 

[Jon Peltier]

Regular visitors to the newsgroups use other means to get here:

www.cpearson.com/excel/HintsAndTipsForNewsgroupUsers.aspx

- Jon

 

[Foxcole]

Regular visitors to the newsgroups use other means to get here:

www.cpearson.com/excel/HintsAndTipsForNewsgroupUsers.aspx

That is very helpful for people who have Outlook Express. However, I'm
at work and we do not use Outlook Express. Do you have any other
suggestions for connecting to the newsgroups?

I'm desperate for help with several problems on an overdue project and
have found this to be an excessive hindrance. It's hard enough to get
help, without being cut off from it in the first place.

Do you perhaps also have a link to more information on what that
service-unavailable message means... what's wrong and why we can't
connect via the website?

 

[Jim Cone]

If you have Internet Explorer, you have Outlook Express.
OE is included with Internet Explorer.

To start OE go to...
Start | Run and enter... msimn.exe ...and press OK.
--
Jim Cone
Portland, Oregon USA



"Foxcole" <[email protected]>
wrote in message

Regular visitors to the newsgroups use other means to get here:
www.cpearson.com/excel/HintsAndTipsForNewsgroupUsers.aspx

That is very helpful for people who have Outlook Express. However, I'm
at work and we do not use Outlook Express. Do you have any other
suggestions for connecting to the newsgroups?

I'm desperate for help with several problems on an overdue project and
have found this to be an excessive hindrance. It's hard enough to get
help, without being cut off from it in the first place.

Do you perhaps also have a link to more information on what that
service-unavailable message means... what's wrong and why we can't
connect via the website?

 

[JoeU2004]

Why is this happening every time I want to view a discussion, I get
this message "Service Temporarily Unavailable."

I presume you are using the MS "discussion groups" web browser interface --
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups . The "service" that is
temporarily unavailable is related to the browser interface, not the MS news
server. In other words, either something is wrong in the communication
between your browser and the MS web server or between the MS web and news
servers. In either case, the problem seems to be MS web server. Usually,
the MS news server is working just fine.

I know this because, lately, I have been comparing the behavior of the two.
I access the news server directly using Outlook Express. It works just
fine. In fact, putting the recent spate of "service temporarily
unavailable" aside, accessing the MS news server directly through OE instead
of the MS browser interface is generally more reliable.

I have been investigating a long-term problem with the MS browser interface,
namely: messages posted through that interface often do not appear on other
news servers, notably Google Groups. I have not yet figured out why. But I
have concluded that the problem is, again, most likely with the MS web
server -- or the design of the interaction between the MS web and news
servers.

The point is: there is more than one reason to abandon the MS browser
interface and access the MS news server directly. Admittedly, I miss some
features that Google Groups provides. But using OE (or similar alternative)
is the only reliable means of seeing all postings.

 

[Foxcole]

If you have Internet Explorer, you have Outlook Express.
OE is included with Internet Explorer.

I apologize, perhaps I wasn't very clear. Please note that I didn't
say we don't have it, but that we don't *use* it. Outlook Express is
included in the standard installation bundle, but it is a separate
Windows component that can be disabled by system administrators
through the control panel (on XP, through Add or Remove Programs).
This has been done on our office computers... and only users with
admin rights can go in and enable it.

While I personally have admin rights, overriding my employer's
decision to disable Outlook Express would of course abuse those
rights, so I was suggesting there is a need for alternatives to OE.

 

[Gord Dibben]

There are many third-party news readers but if you are not allowed to use OE
I am sure a third-party app would also be a no-no.

You are stuck with the discussion groups CDO Interface and its frequent
failures.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[David Biddulph]

I would have thought that the Google interface was a better bet than
Microsoft's shaky web portal.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Have never used that interface.

How do you access it?


Gord

 

[David Biddulph]

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.excel.misc

 

[Gord Dibben]

Thanks David.

Just for curiosity, of course.

I'm happy with my Forte Agent


Gord

 

[aussiegirlone]

Thankyou all for responding to my question, and your solution(s) are quite
helpful. However, if there were preferences and choices, the website was was
where I initially found discussion groups and I would prefer to use that
than windows mail, or outlook express. so this is my first use of windows
mail to answer all your responses. thankyou all very much.

 

[JoeU2004]

I would have thought that the Google interface was
a better bet than Microsoft's shaky web portal.

It is, IMHO, at least to some degree. Google Groups offers some features that are not available using OE, at least not easily and not equivalently.

However, the issue is: some/many/most messages posted using the MS web server do not seem to propagate onto the Google Groups news server. Yet they are on the MS news server.

(I believe the flaw lies in the MS web server. But I cannot prove that dispositively; and it is beside the point.)

I have been experimenting with this problem for a couple days this week. My conclusion (but really an educated guess) is the problem lies with the communication (whatever that is) between the MS web and news servers. (Note: I cannot rule all potential issues with Google Groups news server. But I have rules some of the obvious ones.)

Whatever the root cause, the fact remains that many recent postings using the MS web server are not see when using Google Groups. But they are visible when accessing the MS news server through a news reader like OE.

That leaves us (me) between a rock and hard place.

 

[Jon Peltier]

Have you tried it? It's awful.

- Jon

 

[Jon Peltier]

I guess your employer doesn't want you to have access to information that
would help with your job. But perhaps you could ask. The business case might
be:

This is an awesome source of information that helps greatly with my job. I
can access this through a regular browser, but the server for the browser
interface is flaky, is inefficient when it works, and often is down. I can
also access it using OE, which is available on my computer but disabled via
policy.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
http://PeltierTech.com/WordPress/
_______

If you have Internet Explorer, you have Outlook Express.
OE is included with Internet Explorer.

I apologize, perhaps I wasn't very clear. Please note that I didn't
say we don't have it, but that we don't *use* it. Outlook Express is
included in the standard installation bundle, but it is a separate
Windows component that can be disabled by system administrators
through the control panel (on XP, through Add or Remove Programs).
This has been done on our office computers... and only users with
admin rights can go in and enable it.

While I personally have admin rights, overriding my employer's
decision to disable Outlook Express would of course abuse those
rights, so I was suggesting there is a need for alternatives to OE.