If you want to do something with any object in Ozum (such as article, newsgroup, or server), right-click on the object. A menu will be shown displaying available actions.

To download articles to a directory of your choice, just drag-n-drop them to that directory. To post a collection of files, drag-n-drop them to the group. You can drag-n-drop files from Windows Explorer to a newsgroup in Ozum to post them.

Double clicking will start the most "popular" action with the object on which you double clicked.

Ozum assembles files automatically. There is no need to select multipart posts and then start combining them as in Outlook Express or other newsreaders. Just double click on any part of the post. Other parts will be found automatically and Ozum will download and assemble them automatically as well. This will work in 99% of cases. If it does not work (e.g. the subject text is too confusing), you can use manual combine override.

When in a newsgroup, arrange articles by subjects. This will bring related articles together and make it much easier to work with them.

Do not keep all your groups in a single project. Split them into related sets and create a separate project for each set. This arrangement helps to keep your groups easy to find and access. Related groups should be kept in the same set, even if subscribed from different servers.

Such problems may be caused by inability to write to hard drive because of a lack of space or write protection. This includes the destination directories that you specified for downloading, your current project directory and the Base, Parts and Temporary directories that you can see and define in the Options | Preferences dialog box.

The other likely cause of this problem is a corrupt project file. To fix the problem, click on File | Compact Project (available in Ozum 3.0 and newer versions). This action will re-init the project database and the problem will be fixed. Your servers and subscribed newsgroups lists will remain intact.

It is not always possible to extract a valid video fragment from a part of a file. Ozum does its best, but the success is not guaranteed. The result depends on how the file is split and whether a video sequence start can be found in the part that you would like to preview.

The other possible cause is that there is no codec for processing of this video file format. Read more on this topic in the Quick Start section of the manual.

The first thing that comes to mind is that the file was downloaded/assembled incorrectly or corrupted in the process. However, this is very unlikely to happen. We don't know of any cases when this happened. You can download the same file using a different newsreader and check if it works. If you establish that Ozum is at fault, please let us know. We will fix it ASAP and give you a free license if you don't have one.

The more likely causes of this problem are:

2) Common - you don't have a codec for this file format. We strongly recommend to get a good video player, such as DivX, available from this site (free):

http://www.divx.com/divx/

Try opening the file with different players. If DivX does not work, try Windows Media Player.

1) Less common - the file copy that your news server has, is invalid. In this case, you can ask someone who has a valid copy to post it.

Just wait a bit. You will get a registration email message that will explain how to unlock Ozum. If you don't get it after a day, please contact us. This means that you may have misspelled your email address.

If you used a registered version 2 before, then upgraded to version 3, you need a new license, because version 3 is a major new release, and upgrade is not free. However, we give free licenses to users who registered version 2 not long (less than 6 months) before the release of version 3. If you registered version 2 in March 2003 or later, send us your reference number and we will send you a free license for version 3.

The most likely cause of this is that you have saved the license file to a wrong directory or with a wrong name. The license file must be saved as ozinews.oz - for Ozum versions 2.xx, or ozinews.txt - for Ozum versions 3.xx. It must replace the trial license file that came with your installation. The most common mistakes are saving this file as ozinews.oz.txt or ozinews1.oz. This will not work.

To check the full file name (with extension), you must enable viewing extensions in your Windows Explorer. Start Windows Explorer, browse to Ozum directory, open it, click on Tools | Folder Options... | View and uncheck Hide file extensions for known file types checkbox. Then click on OK. Now you can see full file names. Make sure that ozum license file has a proper name.

There must be one ozinews file in Ozum directory. It must have extension .oz if your Ozum version is 2.xx, or extension .txt if your Ozum version is 3.xx.

If it still does not work, send ozinews file from your Ozum directory to us, we will inspect it

These files are project databases. They contain your lists of articles, articles status information, pointers to downloaded attachments and stuff like this. These files may grow very large, as there are hundreds of thousands of articles in some groups. If you are subscribed to a few of such groups and don't keep your project tidy, don't be surprised if the .btr file grows to hundreds of megs.

To keep .btr files small:

1. Don't download all new headers in the group. Download a few thousand, work with them, then delete them from the group when don't need them anymore. Download next portion.

2. Delete headers that you are finished with. Don't keep them in the group. Just select them and hit the Del key.

3. If you are finished with all headers in all groups of the current project, click on File | Compact Project. This will re-init your .btr file and reduce its size to about 4 Kilobytes.

See 2. Most serious problems are caused by corrupt project files and are easy to fix. If this does not work, report it. If we can fix the problem with your help, we will give you a free license. If you already have one, we will make Ozum better for you. We will need to know about your computer configuration and we will need to know how to re-produce the problem. So, please, give this information to us.

In many cases, we will need your logs:

a) Start Ozum and set Preferences | Log options to Full.
b) Exit Ozum and delete *.log and log.txt files in your base directory - for version 3.04 and later (to see your base directory path, click on Options | Preferences.), or in Ozum installation directory - for earlier versions.
c) Start Ozum and try to do what you are normally doing.
d) Exit Ozum, pack *.log, log.txt and *.ini files in the base directory and send them to us.

Firewalls may cause this kind of problems. Zone Alarm 5.1 has been reported to wreck yEnc headers. Search newsgroups on Google. Use keywords "yEnc" and "Zone Alarm".

If you are experiencing connection problems, try disabling your firewall. If this helps, you will have to configure it properly later. Note that some firewalls leave their agents in action, even if you disable them. You may have to reboot or uninstall them completely, to make sure that they are not interfering.