Like you, I also use eternal-september, and sometimes find it difficult to access. Two days ago, I couldn't get it to work at all for a few hours. Then, suddenly everything worked. My setting is port 119 and no security, although other settings may work. The fact that you sometimes must unsubscribe and resubscribe points to some inconsistency. I just checked my own account and it is working. I wish I had some particular advice to share, but I do not.

Thank you for your reply!

I'm using port 563 with SSL/TLS and that normally works. I have no idea if this could be a factor in the trouble I'm having today.

I think you *did* give me some advice: wait a few hours and see if the problem clears on its own (i.e. after Eternal September fixes whatever is wrong at their end). :-)

In the meantime, I remember someone posting to my newsgroup recently that there are some web-based interfaces to Usenet that I'd never heard of before. I don't know if they are new or have been around a while. Do you know where I can find these?

Ok, I'm not guru on usenet, having spent most of my usenet hours with the xnews app. Google used to support usenet, but no longer.There are a few web-based providers listed at https://www.newsgroupreviews.com/web-usenet.html - but there is a monthly fee. You might try changing configuration to port 119 with no security to see if that works more reliably.

Unfortunately, changing the settings to port 119 and no security has made no difference at all. I don't even get a newgroup list when I try to "Manage subscriptions".

Could I have broken something when I deleted the Thunderbird newsgroup? I realized a moment it was too late that I had right-clicked on the newsgroup and then chosen "Delete" rather than "Unsubscribe" so I wonder if that deleted some critical part of the underlying file structure and *that* is why I no longer get even newsgroup lists?

The good news is that I was able to subscribe to Newsgrouper, a free web interface to Usenet and it seems to work okay. I've used it to post to my newsgroup and asked if anyone else was having trouble with Eternal September. No replies yet....

In case anyone else sees this, all you have to do to use this service is go to newsgrouper.org, click on the Register button, then click on their email address (newsgrouper@yahoo.com) and write a short email asking them to register you for the service. Within a couple of hours, they send you a password. Then just go to newsgrouper.org again, fill in the email address you used to register and the password they gave you and click on "Login". That takes you to a page that lets you search for the newsgroup you want; once you've clicked on the newsgroup, you can read and post to the newsgroup.

blueworldhosting has been solid for me.

I have no recent experience with eternalseptember, and there are very few recent bug reports. But there is Bug 1901338 - When thunderbird loses connection to news.eternal-september.org:563 it can't reconnect.

I don't think that's my problem. I switched it to port 119 with no security and it worked no better than with port 563 and SSL/TLS so I've gone back to my original setup. I also tried closing and reopening Tbird just now but that doesn't seem to help either: still no newsgroup list let alone posts in my newsgroup.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Should I be posting a bug to Bugzilla then? I know users used to be able to do it but I don't know if it's still possible.

Please file a bug with an nntp log per https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Logging

Please keep in mind that it's working just fine for me. Clarifying the bug may be difficult.

I think I may have solved the problem by deleting the newsreader account and then adding it again. I wrote down my account settings, dropped the old account and re-created it. At least now I'm getting a list of newsgroups!

But the newsgroups I'm getting are the Eternal September newsgroups, not the Usenet ones. Can anyone remind me of what I need to do to get the Usenet newsgroups? [Confession: I've had this problem before with other newsreaders and even in Tbird when I set up a new computer and I know the solution is simple but I'm darned if I can remember what it is.]

Another thing I figured out recently was how to move accounts around within the Tbird interface. Right now, my newsreader account is the last of my three accounts but I want it to be the first. I thought I accomplished that by simply dragging and dropping the newsreader account to the top of the account list but that's not working so I must have done something else. I can't remember how I did it though. Can anyone refresh my memory?

Under server settings for the account, you must tick the box to always require authentication

I've done that but it made no difference. I'm still getting only the Eternal September newsgroups.

[Pause] I've closed and reopened Tbird. Still only getting the Eternal September groups.

[Pause] I've deleted the newsgroup account and added it again, this time with the "Always require authentication" ticked from the start. FINALLY! *Now* I get Eternal September groups and I'm reconnected to the newsgroup where I hang out.

I'm disappointed that I had to have the "Always require authentication" selected from the creation of the account for things to work. That should NOT have been necessary! I should have been able to toggle that on or off at any time and have it take immediate effect WITHOUT removing and re-adding the account.

But all's well that ends well so thanks to everyone who helped me get past this problem!