[Spambayes] Suddenly can't connect - Solved!

[Coe, Bob]

What exactly do you mean when you say that the machine name is aliased to localhost? I believe the usual convention is to define localhost as 127.0.0.1. If you literally define localhost as an alias for the machine name (the only direction that makes any sense), you make the definition of localhost dependent on a DNS resolution. If you can't see your name server, localhost won't be defined. Since nowadays the principal value of a Hosts file is to compensate for a missing or inadequate name server, this would be a serious misconfiguration. The reason I bring this up is that it sort of fits your symptoms: the problem you describe might occur if and only if your DNS server were unavailable.

Bob


> -----Original Message-----
> From: spambayes-bounces at python.org
> [mailto:spambayes-bounces at python.org]On Behalf Of Claude Jones
> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 10:53 AM
> To: spambayes at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Suddenly can't connect - Solved!
> 
> 
> On Monday 16 May 2005 3:16 pm, Claude Jones wrote:
> > I chanced upon this solution by accident. I once again tried to put
> > localhost and port 8110 in my Kmail client pop settings - I again got
> > 'cannot connect to localhost'
> > I checked the access to the configuration page through Firefox and it came
> > up, so I obviously was connecting - I still had the anomaly of the doubled
> > up display of settings in Firefox...
> > I opened the configuration page in Konqueror - as it was loading I noticed
> > in the URL address field that instead of localhost:8880 it was coming up as
> > viewridgeproductions.com: 8880 which is my machine name -
> > I put the viewridgeproductions.com address in my Kmail pop setting and
> > everything started working.
> > It's a mystery - I don't know why this changed - If I go to my hosts file,
> > viewridgeproductions.com is aliased to localhost, just as it should be - so
> > why is localhost not working in my email settings, and why did it suddenly
> > stop working after working fine for a long time? - go figure...
> 
> Tony: I just had the same thing happen to my other Linux box. Kmail just 
> suddenly stopped working and came up with a can't connect to localhost 
> message. I tried my above fix, putting my machine name in in place of 
> localhost, and it started working again. The only thing I can think of is 
> that something about the new patches for Fedora Core 3 machines has 
> introduced a change - in both cases, the machine name is still aliased to 
> localhost in the network settings, so I don't have an explanation, but, if 
> it's happenning to me, it's probably going to happen to others - so this just 
> a heads up.