System Status

Current Status:  We recently had to repair several backend servers. Old articles were lost, but all current articles should arrive complete from this point on. We are offering all paying users a 7 day credit. Please click here to apply the 7 days. Please do not email us requesting credit.

New unlimited server!
Try unlimited.teranews.com at port 119 (only allows 1 connection per user).  Anything downloaded from this server does not count against your download limit! This server is an unsupported bonus server for our pay members with a $7.95/month account or higher.

1/21/2010
There was a problem with our DNS servers causing host not found errors for some users. It's been resolved, but if still get that message you can use the server ip 69.16.185.250 instead of news/free.teranews.com.

9/25/2006
We were performing some work on the servers this weekend in preparation for installing some new servers.  Although it was suppose to be fairly seamless it didn't quite work out that way.  The servers should be running smoother now and any remaining slowness should be resolved in the next couple days as the new servers are brought on-line.

9/22/2006
We are noticing packet loss to/from our servers.  We're working with our upstream vendors to solve this.  User will experience slow downloads until this is solved.  Update: This problem has been solved.

9/11/2006
The recent free account footer change has been removed.  We've been promised that there will be no more 'ALL Protocols/P.r.i.v.a.c.y' spam.  We'll see how well that goes.

9/9/2006
We are in the process of cleaning our group list.   If any group quits receiving articles or needs to be added just let us know. 

We also adjusted the footer at the end of posts made on the free server.  This was in response to a certain worthless web site using our news server to spam advertisements.

9/3/2006
We had to delete the queue of locally posted articles very early in the morning due to a spammer flooding.  There may have been a handful of non-spam articles in the queue.

9/1/2006
We have increased the download limit of the sponsor package.  You now get nearly three times the downloads for the same price.  The sponsor package is now 30GB for $29.95 per year.  Unused download credits roll over to next year as long the yearly billing cycle isn't broken. We added 20GB to all existing users with the sponsor package.

8/22/2006
We have installed a script that is watching for failed group requests and will add any missing groups.  If you notice a missing group just wait 10 minutes and then download the group list again.  It should be there.

We are also slightly behind in answering email due to the problems yesterday.  Please be patient.

8/21/2006
What we believed to be a power outage turned out to be a failed switch.  It's been replaced and all servers are back online.  It did cause some article headers to be lost.  The articles are available if requested via Message-ID. The missing articles can be downloaded if you use NZB files or download headers from another server.

8/12/2006
We are cleaning up the group list.  It's grown too large and full of empty newsgroups. Select 'download all groups' from your client to see the cleaned version.  We're starting on news and will sync all the others servers to it later.

8/16/2006
We fixed a problem that was causing some headers to not appear or appear very late on the front ends.   All the front ends are now caught up at this time. We also restarted some front ends to fix a timeout problem.

8/6/2006
We are in the process of overhauling our spam filters for locally posted articles.  Due to high amount of abuse we had to block posting to some of the picture groups for the last few days.  We have now restored posting to all groups, but spam filtering policies still apply.

8/1/2006 updated 8/4/06
We have received several reports that Rogers DNS server can not resolve anything@teranews.com.  Use the IP address for the time being and send rogers and email asking why you can't resolve news.teranews.com. Point out that dnsstuff.com and the rest of the Internet does not have any similar problems. If you find out anything please send us an email.  At this point the complaints have stopped, but we are unsure if Rogers has fixed anything.

Proof to send to Rogers:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=news.teranews.com&type=A

news.teranews.com = 66.150.105.230
free.teranews.com = 66.150.105.47

7/22/2006
We had some problems with news from midnight to 8am.  It's been fixed and shouldn't happen again.

7/21/2006
We made some changes that should make the main server (news.teranews.com) run smoother.  There is a small backlog of articles, but we expect that it will processed shortly.

7/20/2006
We had a small problem with the pay server (news) from midnight to 7am EST.  It's been fixed and you should be able to log in now. This didn't affect any other servers (free, alt, unlimited).

7/19/2006
Our recent changes broke the blocking of the NNTP-Posting-Host header.  We are in the process of fixing this.  It is our policy to not show the posters IP address.  This should be fixed today.  Please expect to be disconnect for a few minutes while we restart the server software.

7/18/2006
We found a bug in our news server software that was causing the excessive CPU usage.  We have a work-a-round in place and it seems to have solved the problem.  The servers are running very well now. 

We also configured the servers to block users that have configured their news client to repeatedly re-connect even when being denied access.  If you are now blocked the solution is to correctly configure you news client so it will not open more than 1 connection and wait at least 1 hour.  The banning lasts 1 hour after the last failed login attempt.

7/6/2006
We fixed a small bug that would cause users passwords to be rejected randomly under rare circumstances.

7/5/2006
We upgrading some internal feeding machines.  In the process a small number of headers were lost.  The articles are still available, but you won't see them in a group list.  Downloading from NZB files or using headers from another server will allow you to download the articles.

7/3/2006
We had some issues with a couple of the backend storage servers.  We believe everything has been corrected at this time.

6/19/2006
The alt and unlimited servers are back online.  Alt is a new server so it will take time to fill. 

6/18/2006
The unlimited and alt servers are off line.  We're working to correct this.  They will be either fixed or replaced by Monday.

6/2/2006
Our domain issues are over.  Everyone should be able to connect to our servers now.  We're very sorry about this.  It was completely
our of our control.  We have doubled everyones download limits so you can catch up on your reading.  A lot of people helped us. We're very thankful for your efforts and understanding.  We're behind in answering email, but we should be caught up by tomorrow night.

5/15/2006
We restarted the server software this evening.  There were some processes stuck causing 100% CPU usage.  The restart seemed to have fixed the CPU usage and all related problems.

5/8/2006
The public beta of unlimited.teranews.com is over, but just for fun we left 50 public (no user/pass needed) ports open.   Do you feel lucky today?

5/5/2006
We made some changes and the random pauses seem to be gone.  The severs are running smoothly again. :)


5/4/2006
We are getting reports that requests for articles will randomly pause for up to two minutes.  We're working to fix these pauses.

5/2/2006
A small group of users have opening a large number of connections to the servers causing a denial of service attack.  We have placed connection limits on the server to prevent this.  It's caused erratic behavior for the last day or so.  We think we have it under control.  If you use the pay server, news.teranews.com, make sure you have your client configured for 4 (the recommended) or 8 connections to the server. Update: this issue seems to be solved.

4/28/2006
We have made several changes recently to improve reliability and performance.  They seem to be paying off.   Problem reports are at an all time low and usage is up.

Some free users have commented that the new debit/credit system for free users is a punishment, well it's not a punishment for most.  It was required because too many people have figured out that they can just bang on the free server and download gigabytes each day for free.  These people were destroying the free server for everyone.  This method will keep the free server on-line and running correctly.  For many people, the free server is the only chance they have to participate in Usenet.

4/23/2006
The problem backend has been replaced.  Older articles that were stored on it are lost.  All current (last 4-5 days) articles should be fine. Update: All articles should be available now.

4/20/2006
Starting tomorrow we are increasing the download limits of the free accounts by 25% to allow for headers.  We will still call them 50MB accounts by in reality they allow 62.5MB now.

4/17/2006
We have started a new policy for free users who greatly exceed their daily limit will have 50MB of credits applied each day until their account becomes positive again.  Think of this as overdraft protection.  If you download too much one day you have to pay it back the next.  Note that this rule only applies to the 50MB free accounts and only if you greatly exceed the limit.

4/15/2006
The problem backend has been fixed.

4/3/2006
Locally posted articles were not being processes correctly. This has been fixed.

4/2/2006
The free server is back online. If you are still having problems check your account status by logging into the account manager.

4/2/2006
We have started disabling free accounts that do not have valid email addresses. If your account shows "Unverified" as the current status it may be due to you not clicking on the verification link we emailed you two weeks ago.

4/1/2006
We fixed a bug that was causing random 'article not found' errors.

3/28/2006
We fixed a bug that was causing download credits to be counted incorrectly.

3/20/2006
We are having a problem with one of the backends. Older articles will return unavailable at random. Update: this has been fixed, but a small number of articles were lost.

2/12/2006
We are sending out an email to all free users to verify the account is in use. It not a scam so don't worry.

1/31/2006
Everything is running smoothly and completion has returned to nearly perfect levels.

1/22/2006
We restructured our article feeding system to prevent lost/delayed articles.

1/20/2006
Upgraded  the memory in several backends to improve performance

1/4/2006
We fix a problem that was causing some users IP's address from appearing in posts.

1/4/2006
We fix a problem that was causing some users IP's address from appearing in posts.

12/29/2005
We disabled the free server until after the memory upgrades.

12/19/2005
We removed a faulty frontend server today. Please use your download all headers to correct any missing article problems.

12/14/2005
We updated the server software tonight and brought another frontend online to help performance. The updates have been completed and the servers are working normally again.

12/12/2005
We're currently having a problem with completion. We're working on correcting this.

12/12/2005
The free server has been reset. You will need to remove/add your news server profile and do a download all as the article numbers have changed.