Oh, I didn't realize it meant in the header. But why then can I reply
to others in the same thread?

SV



"Wally" wrote in message
.. .
Scott Vernon wrote:
For some reason I can't reply to Katy's posts. I get the below
error
message. Can anybody tell me why?

As it indicates, line 4 in the headers is too long. I think it has
something
to do with the references to previous posts in the thread, which is
used by
newsreaders to build the sequence of replies. There's a set limit to
how
long this line can be (might be 1000 bytes), but it's possible that
not all
servers implement the limit. The problem, to some extent, may rest
with
Outlook Express - ISTR reading that it has a tendency to write
rather too
much information into that line (or doesn't manage it properly),
such that
some servers will reject the post.

I've had it happen occasionally when using the individual.net
server, but
replying to the same post via my ISP's text server worked okay.


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com/FiatPandaRally/index.htm
www.wally.myby.co.uk

Scott Vernon wrote:

Oh, I didn't realize it meant in the header. But why then can I reply
to others in the same thread?

It depends on what gets written into the field. I can't remember exactly
what goes there, but it might be a series of message IDs, some of which can
be very long. The message ID depends on the server used by the person
originating the message - you can have a branch of a thread that is loads of
messages deep and still be able to reply to it if it so happens that the
posters in that branch all used a server which generated short IDs; but a
branch that is only a few posts deep could hit the limit if the posters'
servers generated long IDs.

IIRC, the proper way for a newsreader to handle the field is to strip out
the earlier references, thus ensuring that the length stays reasonable, but
OE just keeps adding new ones. (I might be wrong about that, it's been a
while since I read about it.)


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com/FiatPandaRally/index.htm
www.wally.myby.co.uk

Thanks Wally.


"Wally" wrote in message
.. .
Scott Vernon wrote:

Oh, I didn't realize it meant in the header. But why then can I
reply
to others in the same thread?

It depends on what gets written into the field. I can't remember
exactly
what goes there, but it might be a series of message IDs, some of
which can
be very long. The message ID depends on the server used by the
person
originating the message - you can have a branch of a thread that is
loads of
messages deep and still be able to reply to it if it so happens that
the
posters in that branch all used a server which generated short IDs;
but a
branch that is only a few posts deep could hit the limit if the
posters'
servers generated long IDs.

IIRC, the proper way for a newsreader to handle the field is to
strip out
the earlier references, thus ensuring that the length stays
reasonable, but
OE just keeps adding new ones. (I might be wrong about that, it's
been a
while since I read about it.)


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com/FiatPandaRally/index.htm
www.wally.myby.co.uk