Entourage Newsreader error

This is frustrating me, and I figured I'd throw it open to the world to see if someone else has an easy answer:

I'm trying to use Entourage 2004 to read a private newsgroup that requires SSL and a log in. I created a new newsgroup account with their news server, checked "This server requires me to log on," entered my account ID and password, and checked "This news server requires a secure connection (SSL)."

I am able to download the names of and display the groups on that server, which I understand to mean that my account ID and password are correct.

However, when I try to get messages for any of those groups, I get the error "Connection to the server failed or was dropped. Could not retrieve mail. Error: -17895". It appears that Entourage is trying to log me in (based on the "Logging on as dorismith" message in the Progress window) until it eventually times out.

I can view the messages just fine if I use Thunderbird, but I don't really want to have to use another app to do something when I'm perfectly happy with Entourage for everything else.

Any ideas for things to try? Google has been no help so far, so I figured I'd throw it out to the world.