f.root-servers.net is FTP'ing its COM zone even as we speak. AXFR to a.root-servers.net is giving wierd results. i'll be fetching the zone manually until we find the smoking gun.

btw, i've taken F offline while the FTP happens. though the response f.root-servers.net was sending back (an upward delegation) was just a "lame server" and would not have caused errors, whereas the error that f.gtld-servers.net was sending this morning would have caused false negatives (bounced mail, etc). -- Paul Vixie <paul@vix.com>