Time out on news.plus.net

[#1]

Since  I was <i>hijacking</i> mapletrees tread.
I still have no connection to news/usenet.plus.net
Same as yesterday:-
[tt]
[15:12:09] Level: ERROR  PROTOCOL=Download Engine, SERVER=usenet.plus.net, MSG=DL_SDM - Network Read Failure
[15:08:21] Level: ERROR  PROTOCOL=Download Engine, SERVER=usenet.plus.net, MSG=DL_SDM - Network Read Failure
[15:04:15] Level: ERROR  PROTOCOL=Download Engine, SERVER=usenet.plus.net, MSG=DL_SDM - Network Read Failure
[/tt]
today:-
[tt][09:21:35] Level: ERROR  MODULE=NNTPServerWorker, MSG=Failed to contact Server: usenet.plus.net - Will retry eventually
[09:21:35] Level: ERROR  MODULE=InterSocket, MSG=Error: Connection Failed, Host: usenet.plus.net Error Code: 10060:1106
[09:21:35] Level: ERROR  MODULE=InterSocket, MSG=Error: Connection Failed, Host: usenet.plus.net Error Code: 10060:1106
[09:21:35] Level: ERROR  MODULE=InterSocket, MSG=Error: Connection Failed, Host: usenet.plus.net Error Code: 10060:1106
[09:21:35] Level: ERROR  MODULE=InterSocket, MSG=Error: Connection Failed, Host: usenet.plus.net Error Code: 10060:1106
[/tt]
traceroute:-

ken@nas:~$ tracert news.plus.net
traceroute to news.plus.net (216.196.109.145), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  phoenix.x.co.uk (10.80.3.250)  0.236 ms  0.229 ms  0.249 ms
 2  192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254)  96.775 ms  96.483 ms  96.127 ms
 3  lo0-plusnet.thn-ag3.plus.net (195.166.128.80)  46.583 ms * *
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  * linx.ams.giganews.com (195.66.224.67)  48.815 ms  72.203 ms
 8  * * *
---cut----
28  * * *
29  * * *
30  * * *
ken@nas:~$ ping news.plus.net
PING europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- europe.isp.giganews.com ping statistics ---
15 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 14110ms

This has been intermittent for quite a while now, but constant over last 24 hours.

[#2]

Still down:-
[tt] ping news.plus.net
PING europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- europe.isp.giganews.com ping statistics ---
13 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 12011ms
ken@nas:~$ tracert news.plus.net
traceroute to news.plus.net (216.196.109.145), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1  phoenix.xxx.co.uk (10.80.3.250)  0.229 ms  0.234 ms  0.236 ms
2  192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254)  29.974 ms  29.675 ms  29.334 ms
3  lo0-plusnet.thn-ag3.plus.net (195.166.128.80)  46.340 ms * *
-----cut------------
28  * * *
29  * * *
30  * * *
ken@nas:~$
[/tt]

[#3]

Ok - Strange.
I'm happily pinging news.plus.net.  Is anyone else seeing this problem?

[#4]

working ok here..
adie$ ping news.plus.net
PING europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.196.109.145: icmp_seq=0 ttl=123 time=45.520 ms
64 bytes from 216.196.109.145: icmp_seq=1 ttl=123 time=40.458 ms
64 bytes from 216.196.109.145: icmp_seq=2 ttl=123 time=40.606 ms
64 bytes from 216.196.109.145: icmp_seq=3 ttl=123 time=41.891 ms
64 bytes from 216.196.109.145: icmp_seq=4 ttl=123 time=40.278 ms
64 bytes from 216.196.109.145: icmp_seq=5 ttl=123 time=40.141 ms
^C
--- europe.isp.giganews.com ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 6 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 40.141/41.482/45.520/1.895 ms
adie$ traceroute news.plus.net
traceroute to europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  1.702 ms  1.163 ms  0.717 ms
2  lo0-plusnet.ptn-ag2.plus.net (195.166.128.53)  34.305 ms  34.328 ms  54.953 ms
3  gi2-2-204.ptn-gw02.plus.net (84.92.3.93)  39.381 ms  52.703 ms  36.046 ms
4  te2-2.pte-gw2.plus.net (212.159.1.106)  34.814 ms  34.073 ms  68.714 ms
5  linx.ams.giganews.com (195.66.224.67)  40.948 ms  41.212 ms  41.283 ms
6  * * *
7  * * *
8  * * *

[#5]

@biker955, have you tried playing around with your RWIN/MTU setup?

[#6]

Now why would I suddenly have to play with my MTU/Rwin setup.
It is working fine from astraweb and usenetnews, it is only the plusnet one I am having issues with, and have been for about a month since I started using it.
I can max out my connection from astaweb (and did so this morning, while being unable to contact plusnet) and have no issues downloading from any website or ftp server. I feel that changing anything just to get this working would be a backwards step, especially since I run Gigabit networking internally.
And look it suddenly has fixed itsself:-

ken@nas:~$ ping news.plus.net 
PING europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145): icmp_seq=2 ttl=122 time=52.9 ms
64 bytes from europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145): icmp_seq=4 ttl=122 time=87.8 ms
^C
--- europe.isp.giganews.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 2 received, 60% packet loss, time 4011ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 52.951/70.387/87.823/17.436 ms
ken@nas:~$ tracert news.plus.net
traceroute to news.plus.net (216.196.109.145), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  phoenix.xxx.co.uk (10.80.3.250)  0.229 ms  0.221 ms  0.245 ms
 2  192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254)  101.102 ms  100.762 ms  100.565 ms
 3  lo0-plusnet.thn-ag3.plus.net (195.166.128.80)  44.672 ms * *
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  * linx.ams.giganews.com (195.66.224.67)  92.029 ms *
 8  * * *
 9  europe.isp.giganews.com (216.196.109.145)  70.504 ms  70.835 ms  72.816 ms
ken@nas:~$ 

Still some packet loss but at least it is responding.
For info this is my network setting:-
sysctl net.core.wmem_max=8388608
sysctl net.core.wmem_default=65535
sysctl net.core.rmem_default=65535
sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_mem="98304 131072 196608"