Re: Hang about guys, I just realised (remembered) why I never started using Thunderbird before. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT?

Ah, that was just me reading too fast to pick up on the joke (and being eager to rant about the plague of AI search-engine spam). It's pretty funny how absurd it gets sometimes - not long ago I saw an AI-generated history web page supposedly about the invention of window glass, but about halfway through it veered off into writing about MS-DOS... because that was what people used before Windows.

Good luck! (random thought, do you also get the error when you start a new thread, or just when following up to an existing message?)

I guess this depends on how you have Thunderbird configured for Newsgroups. For example - what do you see on the window that opens when you Followup to a message (send msg to usenet) vs Reply (send email to poster)?

My setup shows:

From John Robertson snipped-for-privacy@flippers.com news.eternal-september | Followup To >>

Reply-To snipped-for-privacy@flippers.com Newsgroup sci-electronics.repair Subject Re: Hang on....

(then the text followed by my reply above)

How have you set up Manage Identities under Account Settings for your news supplier?

John :-#)#

I had to configure it. See the following url for instructions:

Go to the url below to get R/W access to newsgroups.

You need:

Account name Your name Email Address (can be an invalid one)

server name: Port: Connection security

X Check for new messages every 15 minutes.

That's all that is *needed*

Empty is correct.

You are not to use SMTP.

You are not not "Reply" to posts here.

You are to "Follow up" to posts here.

That depends ... if you have the message header pane toolbar enabled, the reply button there behaves differently to the reply button on the main toolbar.

I don't have buttons on the main toolbar, but I have the main menu.

"Message-Reply to sender only" behaves the same as "Reply" button in the message header pane toolbar and would send an email to you, but using my invalid email and the default smtp server, which will not work.

"Message-Reply to all" attempts something that will fail. I'm not clicking send.

"Message-Follow up to newsgroup" does the same as the "Follow up" button in the message header pane toolbar.

I can't remember exactly when the message header pane toolbar got added, around v60 or something? Anyway I decided I already had the main toolbar and didn't need another, so immediately turned it off.

Shortly afterwards I noticed a big increase in people sending me email replies instead of to the group, and then having to apologise for it, since I had no such button, I didn't immediately realise it was due to the "same" button doing different things in different places.

For me the main reply button always behaves itself, it sends an email reply to email messages and a usenet reply to usenet messages, on rare occasions I may use reply-all when I choose to.

But it is not the case, I get two different buttons. And on mail lists I get a "Reply-list" button and follow up disappears.

I've just turned back on my hidden toolbar, and it *is* case here that on the message header toolbar the first "reply" icon i.e. with single-left facing arrow says "reply to sender" and it acts exactly like "reply all" from the main toolbar i.e. with double left-facing arrow ... try it ...

No, mine says "Reply", not "reply to sender", and does not behave like "reply all".

The Follow up button has a droplist:

Follow up Reply all Reply

And there is another button that says "Forward".

yes, I get those ... I've even done a "reset" of the toolbar, it still does "reply all"

On news, you only have to use "follow up". Forget replies of any kind.

If it doesn't work properly, it is something you have misconfigured on your end, so ask in the Thunderbird group.

It's not configurable, but it works just fine for me as it is ...