Looks like a threads problem and when launching a background thread to 
retrieve articles, perform network activity, etc, the background thread 
appears to do nothing and the foreground sits there "Loading groups..." or in 
the network-active state ad infinitum.

Since I'm not the best with fixing kde-type stuff, I wonder if someone might 
take a quick peek at trying out the knode from kdenetwork3 and seeing whether 
it works for them? :)

I've filed a pr about it--i wouldn't have, but the problem has actually been 
going on intermittently (each time I upgrade kde it's rolling the dice to see 
knode working or not) since kde1.

The pr is: pkg/17481

-Marc