new 'fetch' warnings & repo errors on update?

[snowcrash+smart]

hello,

i have smart 0.42 (base, gui, addons) installed on OpenSUSE 10.1, via
rpm from the guru-repo.

i've been using it successfully for quite awhile to manage my package updates,

today, however, on "smart update", i've suddenly started seeing the error:

	# smart update
	Loading cache...
	warning: You must fetch channel information to acquire needed filelists.
	warning: You must fetch channel information to acquire needed filelists.

and (currently) 2 repos are failing:

Fetching information for 'XFCE'...
-> http://ftp.opensuse.org/pub/opensuse/repositories/X11:/xfce/.../repomd.xml
repomd.xml                     ####################################### [ 42%]
-> http://ftp.opensuse.org/pub/opensuse/repositories/.../filelists.xml.gz
-> http://ftp.opensuse.org/pub/opensuse/repositories/X11:/.../primary.xml.gz
primary.xml.gz                                                         [ 42%]
filelists.xml.gz               ####################################### [ 45%]
error: Failed acquiring information for 'XFCE':
error: http://ftp.opensuse.org/pub/opensuse/repositories/X11%3A/xfce/SUSE_Linux_10.1/repodata/primary.xml.gz:
timed out

Fetching information for 'SUSE Linux Online Updates'...
-> ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/pub/suse/update/10.1/repodata/repomd.xml
repomd.xml                     ####################################### [ 37%]
-> ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/pub/suse/update/10.1/repodata/primary.xml.gz
primary.xml.gz                 ####################################### [ 40%]
-> ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/pub/suse/update/10.1/repodata/filelists.xml.gz
filelists.xml.gz               ####################################### [ 43%]
error: Failed acquiring information for 'SUSE Linux Online Updates':
error: ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/pub/suse/update/10.1/repodata/primary.xml.gz:
None


afaik, these are new, previously unseen errors (to me, anyway), AND,
i've not knowingly changed anything to cause this.

an update to smart 0.50rc1-3 does not cure the problem either; same
warnings & failures are reported.

before I attempt/undertake any new updates with smart, can anyone
clarify/comment:

	(1) IS this a real problem, or just a noisy waning?
	(2) are the repo failures typical? frequent?
	(3) if a problem, is it with smart itself, or a result of repo issues?
	(4) either way, what to do about it?

thanks.