SillyDog701 Message Centre

[Mr. Tinkles]

I've posted the following on Netscape secnews servers a couple of times in reply to questions as to why usernames and passwords are not saved properly at times in Netscape. I figured I might as well do it here as well.

I use Earthlink, which for some reason Netscape has a horrible time remembering usernames and passwords for in general. Perhaps it is the software that Elink uses (Typhoon something or other), who knows. Anyhoo, since I am constantly toying around with profiles, etc, I finally came up with a process that will remember all of your usernames and passwords. It is a PITA, but it does work, and once you have gone through it, Netscape v7.01 and Mozilla WILL remember your usernames and passwords. Well, I guess I should say they do for me, without fail.

I don't pretend to know why this procedure works, so please don't ask me. Just through trial and error I know that it does indeed work. I have used this on Windows 2K and Windows XP with Netscape v7.01 on each as well as nightly builds on each. It has never failed to work for me, and I sincerely hope it works for anyone else who tries it. I know it is time consuming as hell, especially if you subscribe to a lot of groups. But think of the time you will save in the long run.

Er, one BIG important extra..whenever I say "close Netscape", I mean close it entirely. This includes Quick Launch, and maybe even making sure there are no Ntscp.exe processes still running.

So, without further delay, here is the procedure I use:

STEP 1: Obviously, have pref set to remember usernames/passwords.
STEP 2: Create the newsgroup account.
STEP 3: Download groups list, enter username and password when asked
STEP 4: Subscribe to preferred groups, but don't get msg count yet
STEP 5: Close Netscape completely. Restart in *OFFLINE MODE*
STEP 6: *WHILE OFFLINE*, expand news server to show subscribed groups
STEP 7: Go online and click on first newsgroups listed under server.
STEP 8: When prompted, enter username/password. Headers will dnload.
STEP 9: Repeat steps 5 through 8 for the rest of the groups.

It is critical that you start up in offline mode (either via profile manager, or start browser first, go offline and then start mail), and that you only do one group at a time (and the initial subscription seperately as well). If you ever want to add another group at a later time, just follow the same steps .

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030131

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I was born by God's dear grace in extraordinary place
Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle flies.

[Wellander]

Hi,
I recommend netscape communicator 4.79.
It remembers all of my e-mail and newsgroups passwords with out a problem.
Thank You.

Added by admin.
Netscape Communicator can remember passwords for e-mail, but not for newsgroups.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.6 [en] (Win98; I)

[terra]

Communicator 4.79 has no facility to remember news passwords. If it did, I would still be using it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (Compact)

[Wellander]

Hi,
It does remember passwords and do not hhare a profile between communicator 4.79 and netscape 6/7.
Thank You.

Commented by Admin,
This reply is very confusing.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.6 [en] (Win98; I)

[DJGM]

Wellander, what the smeg are you talking about?!?

Netscape Communicator does NOT have a facility to remember passwords!
The Mozilla based versions of Netscape (6.x-7.x) have a totally different
user profile structure to that of NS Communicator, making it technically
impossible to share user profiles between them. Also, why are you
saying that you use Netscape 4.79, when your UA says 4.6?!?

Thank You
DJGM

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (CK-DJGM-i.net)

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Mozilla = Swiss Army Knife: It's versatile, reliable, and contains useful tools.
Microsoft Internet Explorer = Old Swiss Cheese: Full of holes, and it stinks!

[Josh]

If my memory is correct, Communicator supports remembering of mail passwords, but not NNTP passwords.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01

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Josh
SD701 Moderator
User of 2.0 on
HoshieMix on iTMS (USA)

[Mandrake]

I jumped on my old '95 OSR2 Pentium system that has Communicator 4.5.1 loaded on it, and there aint no feature in it to remember newsgroup paswords.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030204

[Antony]

Wellander, unless you can give us details on how to remember passwords for newsgroups, your replies will simply provide misleading information.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (CK-SillyDog)

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MozInfo701 | MacCentre701 | AntBlog701 | don't steal music.

[Mr. Tinkles]

Tinkles clarification note: When I say "Communicator" in this post, I am referring to the Netscape Communicator v4.x series internet suite. The newer v6 and v7 browsers/suites have dropped the name Communicator.

Okie dokie, this got me curious. So, last night I spent a great deal of time downloading some newsgroup data to test Wellander's claim.

In one respect he is right. As long as you don't close communicator, it will remember the password you entered for that session. I tested this by leaving Netscape open all day today while I was gone. When I got back home I dialed back up and got new articles for a couple of groups and didn't have to reenter the password.

However, as we all pretty much knew, the moment you shut down and restart communicator, you have to re-enter the nntp password.

One thing I didn't test was to setup two different news servers that require authentication and see if it could remember both at the same time in the same session. Sorry, but I didn't even think of trying that until I started typing this

So, Netscape Communicator cannot save passwords for nntp servers, it can just remember them for the current 'session' of communicator.

Where's a sushi bar?!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (CK-SillyDog)

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I was born by God's dear grace in extraordinary place
Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle flies.

[Wellander]

Hi,
When you tell it to remember mail passwords it seems to also remember newsgroups passwords too or at least for me that happened.
And I use a numder of netscape/mozilla borwsers basicaly all of them sorry for the confusion.
Thank You.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030206

[Antony]

[Edward]

[Mr. Tinkles]

[Edward]

I found out it's been outsourced to Giganews. Does anyone here access their service? If so, how good (or bad) is it?

There is a limit as to how much data can be retrieved from the service through Comcast, but as I don't access any binaries newsgroups, I'm not worried about reaching that limit.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01

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SillyDog701 Moderator
User of SeaMonkey and XFCE Desktop Environment under Mandriva Linux.

[John N]

Just signed on with Comcast cable who linked me to Giganews for news server. I had previously used sucessfully the detailed steps given for remembering passwords with Verizon dialup. Now I get pinged for user id and password following the same procedure. As long as I stay in news, I am ok. But going to mail or browser brings back the periodic prompts.

I am using 7.1 Does anyone recommend another news reader without these problems( not IE)?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax; CDonDemand-Dom)