[fetchmail]fetchmail-socket error

i just discovered after a long and painful email chat with earthlink
that sometimes a corrupt email can wreck havoc upon a mail server.
once i stopped trying to download the corrupt email fetchmail works
fine.  i still think that when fetchmail crashes it does affect gnus
in strange ways.  

> i just realized that when fetchmail fails, posting to gnus times out,
> i.e. 503 Program error or time out.
thanks for the help.