[Pan-users] Pan won't connect Was: help

[Duncan]

Brian posted on Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:50:14 -0400 as excerpted:

> I have just installed Pan and set up my news server. It is the same one
> I have been using in Windows for years. On the bottom of the Pan window
> it says "no connections" and does not get the groups available from my
> server. Can you help me out with this.

While chances are it doesn't matter so much for this question, please 
remember to mention pan version[1].  Sometimes it /does/ make a 
difference, particularly if you're asking about or reporting a potential 
bug.

Additionally, a subject line describing the issue a bit more verbosely 
than simply "help" can be useful, too.  I actually thought this was 
probably going to be a spam message based on the single one-word subject 
and very nearly skipped it as a result.  See the change I've made to the 
subject line above for an example of a rather more useful subject line 
for in this case.

Thanks. =:^)

As to the question (in case it's different, the below is based on pan's 
current git version, unreleased 0.140, as of the last time I checked, a 
few days ago, see my headers for the specific git commit) ...

Normally, as soon as you enter valid server information and hit OK on the 
server setting dialog, pan should automatically connect and start 
downloading the group list.

There are a few reasons why it might not, with various fixes.

1) Pan is offline.  This might be due to accidentally hitting the 
keyboard shortcut (looks like it's "l" by default) that toggles online/
offline mode.

Verify that pan is online.  File menu, work online should be CHECKED.

2) Perhaps the task was canceled for some reason.

On the left hand side of the status bar, by the "no connections" text you 
mentioned, what does it say for tasks?  1/1 means it should be 
downloading.  0/1 (or possibly 0/N, N=2 or more) means it can't connect 
for whatever reason (offline, bad server info, etc) and has the download 
group list task queued but not running.  0/0 means it was canceled or not 
queued for some reason.

Double-clicking that tasks section of the status bar should popup the 
task list, letting you start and stop tasks, delete them, reorder them, 
etc.

Double-clicking the icon on the right-hand side (which will change 
depending on whether pan encountered any errors or not) should popup the 
log window, letting you see what pan has done or tried to do.  Obviously 
if there are errors there, they might be helpful in further diagnosing 
the problem.

Of course both of these windows are available via the menu as well, under 
file, for these functions.

Anyway, you can try queuing up another group list refresh.  Groups menu, 
refresh groups list.

3) If the news server information is wrong, you can use edit menu, edit 
news servers, to get a servers dialog, and from there add or edit 
individual news servers.

The default unencrypted NNTP port is 119.  If you switch on security 
(assuming your build of pan supports it), pan should automatically switch 
to the default NNTPS port, 563.  You can of course change this port to 
something else if your server supports it.  Obviously if you're trying to 
use NNTPS and your server doesn't support it, you'll have a problem.

Additionally, there's three types of header compression.  Get that wrong 
and you'll have a problem.

Obviously if your server requires a login and password, you'll need to 
enter those as well.

I'd try getting it working with an unencrypted connection without 
compression, first.  Once you know that's working, you can try enabling 
encryption and compression.

Again, pan's log should give you a bit more information about the attempt 
to connect and what might have gone wrong, assuming you're not offline.

---
[1] Pan version:  Available as usual from help, about, from the user-
agent header of a post using pan, or by running pan from the command line 
as pan --version.  One of the first two is preferred as they are normally 
more precise as they include specific git commit information, while pan
--version only lists the release version itself.  You can see an example 
of the user-agent header in my own headers since I'm posting with pan 
right now (using gmane.org's list2news service).

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman