I have a brand new reinstall of Vista. Outlook email and my NNTP client are
not working. The Outlook error manifests as the infamous 0x800CCC0F. The
NNTP client simply tries to connect to the server and fails. IE works fine,
Berkeley's BOINC distributed computing client works fine, all local network
tasks work fine.

I have no antivirus software running. I have tried turning off Vista's
firewall. I have reinstalled Vista with or without updates, with home or
work network selected at install time. Email settings are correct. I have
another Vista machine with identical email settings which works. The problem
machine was working prior to the reinstall.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Just a shot in the dark but I would be interested to see how far a tracert
gets when going to your NNTP server and your mail server.

Compare ipconfig /all results with the working PC. If local networking is
in order seems like it has to be DNS, routing or a firewall issue.

Why did you reinstall? Maybe the MAC or IP address of that machine has been
cached and blocked because of previous issue, trojan etc.

Really narrowed it down didn't I?

HTH

"Andy Williams" wrote:

I have a brand new reinstall of Vista. Outlook email and my NNTP client are
not working. The Outlook error manifests as the infamous 0x800CCC0F. The
NNTP client simply tries to connect to the server and fails. IE works fine,
Berkeley's BOINC distributed computing client works fine, all local network
tasks work fine.

I have no antivirus software running. I have tried turning off Vista's
firewall. I have reinstalled Vista with or without updates, with home or
work network selected at install time. Email settings are correct. I have
another Vista machine with identical email settings which works. The problem
machine was working prior to the reinstall.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Output of tracert to the NNTP server from either machine was identical right
down to the number of time outs:

C:\tracert news.giganews.com

Tracing route to news.giganews.com [216.196.97.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms ool-45770080.dyn.optonline.net [69.119.0.128]
2 10 ms 12 ms 11 ms 10.121.96.1
3 17 ms 14 ms 19 ms dstswr1-vlan2.rh.ltfdct.cv.net [67.83.229.33]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 60 ms 237 ms 242 ms g3-16.gw2.dca.giganews.com [216.196.96.61]
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 20 ms 23 ms 18 ms news.giganews.com [216.196.97.131]

Trace complete.

Output of tracert to the mail server from working machine and problem
machine was identical:

C:\tracert mail.optonline.net

Tracing route to mail.optonline.net [167.206.5.250]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms ool-45770080.dyn.optonline.net [69.119.0.128]
2 7 ms 9 ms 7 ms 10.121.96.1
3 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms dstswr2-vlan2.rh.ltfdct.cv.net [67.83.229.34]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 13 ms 13 ms 12 ms rtr4-tg10-2.wan.whplny.cv.net [64.15.8.29]
6 15 ms 30 ms 19 ms 64.15.0.181
7 95 ms 209 ms 216 ms rtr4-tg10-1.mhe.hcvlny.cv.net [64.15.4.14]
8 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms 167.206.15.149
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

This trace never reached the mail server, but on the working machine I was
able to fetch mail while the problem machine failed. Firewall on or off made
no difference.

It seems that DNS can't be the problem since tracert works as expected;
furthermore IE works as expected. Results from ipconfig /all are identical
except for hardware and IP addresses. The traces should be identical since
both machines are behind the same router, so as far as the Internet is
concerned, they are coming from the same place (as I understand it).

The reinstall was done in an attempt to get dual 1920x1200 monitors working
with an EVGA 8600 GTS. Dual 1600x1200 work, dual 1920x1200 do not.
Unfortunately, I'm moving in the wrong direction as far as solving problems
goes.

"SonoraComm" wrote:

Just a shot in the dark but I would be interested to see how far a tracert
gets when going to your NNTP server and your mail server.

Compare ipconfig /all results with the working PC. If local networking is
in order seems like it has to be DNS, routing or a firewall issue.

Why did you reinstall? Maybe the MAC or IP address of that machine has been
cached and blocked because of previous issue, trojan etc.

Really narrowed it down didn't I?

HTH

"Andy Williams" wrote:

I have a brand new reinstall of Vista. Outlook email and my NNTP client are
not working. The Outlook error manifests as the infamous 0x800CCC0F. The
NNTP client simply tries to connect to the server and fails. IE works fine,
Berkeley's BOINC distributed computing client works fine, all local network
tasks work fine.

I have no antivirus software running. I have tried turning off Vista's
firewall. I have reinstalled Vista with or without updates, with home or
work network selected at install time. Email settings are correct. I have
another Vista machine with identical email settings which works. The problem
machine was working prior to the reinstall.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Just in case the suspense is killing anyone... ;-)

It turns out in the middle of all these reinstalls my gigabit NIC was dying.
I eventually started to get failures on local network tasks when copying
large files. I eventually received a semaphore timeout error message,
followed shortly thereafter by a BSOD from a BAD_POOL_CALLER. I had never
seen a BSOD from Vista, so it finally occured to me that it was probably a
hardware problem. Replaced the NIC and all is well again. Just as a point
of reference, it was a NETGEAR GA311.

Extremely bad luck for me that this happened during a reinstall, but it does
serve as a reminder that problems MIGHT, just MIGHT, be hardware rather than
software.

"Andy Williams" wrote:

Output of tracert to the NNTP server from either machine was identical right
down to the number of time outs:

C:\tracert news.giganews.com

Tracing route to news.giganews.com [216.196.97.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms ool-45770080.dyn.optonline.net [69.119.0.128]
2 10 ms 12 ms 11 ms 10.121.96.1
3 17 ms 14 ms 19 ms dstswr1-vlan2.rh.ltfdct.cv.net [67.83.229.33]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 60 ms 237 ms 242 ms g3-16.gw2.dca.giganews.com [216.196.96.61]
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 20 ms 23 ms 18 ms news.giganews.com [216.196.97.131]

Trace complete.

Output of tracert to the mail server from working machine and problem
machine was identical:

C:\tracert mail.optonline.net

Tracing route to mail.optonline.net [167.206.5.250]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms ool-45770080.dyn.optonline.net [69.119.0.128]
2 7 ms 9 ms 7 ms 10.121.96.1
3 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms dstswr2-vlan2.rh.ltfdct.cv.net [67.83.229.34]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 13 ms 13 ms 12 ms rtr4-tg10-2.wan.whplny.cv.net [64.15.8.29]
6 15 ms 30 ms 19 ms 64.15.0.181
7 95 ms 209 ms 216 ms rtr4-tg10-1.mhe.hcvlny.cv.net [64.15.4.14]
8 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms 167.206.15.149
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

This trace never reached the mail server, but on the working machine I was
able to fetch mail while the problem machine failed. Firewall on or off made
no difference.

It seems that DNS can't be the problem since tracert works as expected;
furthermore IE works as expected. Results from ipconfig /all are identical
except for hardware and IP addresses. The traces should be identical since
both machines are behind the same router, so as far as the Internet is
concerned, they are coming from the same place (as I understand it).

The reinstall was done in an attempt to get dual 1920x1200 monitors working
with an EVGA 8600 GTS. Dual 1600x1200 work, dual 1920x1200 do not.
Unfortunately, I'm moving in the wrong direction as far as solving problems
goes.

"SonoraComm" wrote:

Just a shot in the dark but I would be interested to see how far a tracert
gets when going to your NNTP server and your mail server.

Compare ipconfig /all results with the working PC. If local networking is
in order seems like it has to be DNS, routing or a firewall issue.

Why did you reinstall? Maybe the MAC or IP address of that machine has been
cached and blocked because of previous issue, trojan etc.

Really narrowed it down didn't I?

HTH

"Andy Williams" wrote:

I have a brand new reinstall of Vista. Outlook email and my NNTP client are
not working. The Outlook error manifests as the infamous 0x800CCC0F. The
NNTP client simply tries to connect to the server and fails. IE works fine,
Berkeley's BOINC distributed computing client works fine, all local network
tasks work fine.

I have no antivirus software running. I have tried turning off Vista's
firewall. I have reinstalled Vista with or without updates, with home or
work network selected at install time. Email settings are correct. I have
another Vista machine with identical email settings which works. The problem
machine was working prior to the reinstall.

Any ideas? Thanks.