Help, please! My Gnus is sick

[Joseph Fineman]

I use Emacs 26.1 (build 1) and Gnus 5.13 under Windows 10.0.  Since 29
April Gnus has behaved badly.

First, it refused to display incoming mail, giving error messages of
the form

  Mail source [...] streamssl error (Memory exhausted -- use C-xs then
  exit and restart Emacs)

The advice was useless.  I tried pruning some bloated backup
directories in ~/News & ~/Mail, but that did not help.  Then, several
days later, it also refused to send mail ("too many bad auth
attempts").

Using the Task Manager, I checked memory usage with & without Emacs
running.  There was no change.

Gnus still accesses newsgroups, but with very long delays both in
bringing up a newsgroup and in bringing up entries.  Nevertheless, I
posted a query on gnu.emacs.help, and received one reply, suggesting
this mailing list.  I tried twice to subscribe to it on the Web site,
but received no response.

Signing in to Gnus has a bad effect, afterward, on Emacs as a whole.
Its response to keystrokes was sporadically slowed, and commands that
required access to many files (such as dired on a directory with many
files) became extremely slow.  When I restarted Emacs, it behaved
normally.

I will be grateful for any advice on (1) subscribing to this mailing
list and (2) restoring Gnus to its proper working.

Yours faithfully,
-- 
    Joseph C. Fineman     
    495 Pleasant St., Apt 1      Answering machine:  (781) 324-6899
    Malden, MA 02148-3505        I will pick up if I am in.
    E-mail:  joe_f@verizon.net   Call ahead for fax.