Subject: "Error Posting Message...."

From: Hank Burchard <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 13:49:40 -0500

When I tried posting a reply to a newsgroup, using precisely the 
same procedures as usual, I got the message:
   
      ERROR POSTING MESSAGE 441 400 NO SPACE LEFT ON DEVICE WRITING 
ARTICLE FILE.

     Say what?

     I got the same result when trying to post this message; I postponed 
both and later was able to send the first. If you see this, it obviously 
finally got out also. What's happening?

+ + + + +

Hank Burchard * Weekend Section * The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW * Washington DC USA 20071-0001
VoiceMail (202) 334-7243 * Email: [email-masked]

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 21:25:36 -0800

This message comes from your NNTP server, not from Pine.

Although it seems to be saying that the disk is full on that system, my 
experience suggests that the disk is out of inodes.  In other words, 
there are too many files.  It's possible for 50% of the disk to be free 
and still get this message.

Nag the sysadmin of the NNTP server to rebuild that disk with more 
inodes.

If you *are* the sysadmin:

1) rebuild that disk with more inodes.  You need a lot more inodes on a
news spool disk than on an ordinary filesystem. 

2) As an interim measure to get the news flowing again, blow away a few
thousand files on the server.  Good places to look for garbage are some of
the more active rec.* newsgroups, and especially the alt.* and *.pictures
newsgroups (groups with names such as alt.sex.dirty.pictures are good
targets).