I have had problems with downloading from GigaNews for a while. At times I have had to scrape files from the servers to get them.
I thought the problem was related to using SSL, but it was not.
The problem disappeared completely when I switched from using news.giganews.com to using news-europe.giganews.com
Problems with GigaNews and UE - a solution
Problems with GigaNews and UE - a solution
They ain't making bugs like Bunny anymore