Download List Order Is Not Always Download Order

[BauerFL]

I have noted that if I have move download items around in the Download List using the <Ctrl>Up and <Ctrl>Down arrow features, some of those download items may be skipped and never download no matter whether they are at the top of the list, somewhere within the list, or at the bottom of the list.

If I perform a <Ctrl>End followed by a <Ctrl>Home on these items, they seem to be recognized and their download begins immediately.

Would you consider allowing the Download List order always be the download order no matter how an item reached its position in the list?

Thank you, Fred.

[DThor]

Hmm, again, never seen this. How are you determining this? Skipped means...? There would be a message in the log stating that a file didn't download, and why.

DT

[BauerFL]

By skip I mean that the item is at the top of the Download List, there has never been an attempt to download it or any part of it, no related message of any kind in the log, and other item in the Download List (below the skipped item) are downloading just fine. Hours later the state is the same. Then I select the skipped item, select <Ctrl>End, then <Ctrl>Home, and the once seemingly not recognized / skipped item is once again at the top of the list but this time it is downloading as expected.

[Quade]

Open it up and look inside. If it can't download the PAR2 for instance, the rest of the set won't unpause. B5 or B6 is more aggressive about the small par2. I can't remember which one it's in though.

[BauerFL]

Good thought. If / when it happens again, I'll see if I can determine if any attempt has been made on any parts of the post, especially any of the PARs. I'll also check to see which PAR, if any, is downloaded when downloading of the post is "restored" via MoveToBottom/MoveToTop. I'll also look at the status of the individual items in the collection. I've no idea if they were Paused, Idle, Downloading, etc. I should have thought to have checked that. Lastly, I'll see if MoveUp & MoveDown mouse clicks behave same as keystrokes.

Thanks.

[flat_beer]

I've seen this too. I know one of them had started downloading then I wanted something else sooner so moved it down.... I might have moved it back up some or maybe added more to the download list. But when it got to the top the second item in the download list started instead of continuing. I had to explicitly move it to the top to get it to download. It has happened to me several times. I know it happened in version 6.01B1. I just upgraded to 6.01B5 about 2 days ago so I don't know if it occurs there.

[itimpi]

At the time that you move these items, what values are showing for the 'Cache' usage in the Status bar at the bottom of the Newsbin Window? If you have a lot of items currently cached in memory then there can be an apparent delay while the cache entries get written to disk before NB starts working on your new order.

[TRex]

Whenever item gets moved "down" (i don't know, does "bottom" have the same effect), it will be skipped until it will be moved to "top" ("up" has no effect).
So to kill all the speculations about content etc. download is on top and sitting idle, after "top" command has been given, download starts. So there is definitely a bug.

[Quade]

I'll try it. I move things around but, they tend to be "top" or "bottom". Not much micromanaging in between.

[mjr_havoc]

Hi,

I am having this exact same issue. If I move stuff around in the download list, it does not respect the list order...

I cannot seem to accurately replicate the problem, but I think it is something to do with the up/down buttons (I have to move this to the *top* and then move it down to get the ordering to work - even then I think it doesn't respect the download order sometimes).


Regards,

mjr_havoc

[itimpi]

It SHOULD always respect the order.

One issue that can confuse things is caching. If you have a lot of items in the memory cache, then when you change the order in the download list until the cached items have cleared the cache you will not see any new order being reflected in the active downloads.

[mjr_havoc]

Hey itimpi,

Thanks for the quick reply, but I don't think I'm having any caching issues. I never see my cache go under 195/200. Other than this how do I tell if I'm having caching issues?

PS, below are my (PC's) specs:

CPU: Core i7 980X Extreme
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Extreme
Memory: 6GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 Triple Channel (2GB x 3)
GPU: Nvidia GTX 470 1.25GB
Primary (Windows) HDD: 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300 (SATA 6Gbps)
Primary (Programs, inc. Newsbin + Downloads) HDD: WD VelociRaptor 300GB (SATA 3Gbps)
Secondary 1 (Primary Data) HDD: Samsung F1 1TB (SATA 3Gbs)
Secondary 2 (Backup Data & Mass Storage) HDD: 3x3TB WD Caviar Green (RAID 0 - SATA 3Gbps)


mjr_havoc

[Quade]

How many servers do you use? The only time I've seen it look like it wasn't following the proper order was when one server had a "Typical retention" set and so, it skipped over the topmost, older files.

[chimmyjim]

Hello,

I'll +1 this issue. I have figured out a scenario to reproduce:
- Create a download list containing several items (~10 used in my test)
- While downloads are in progress, shift-enter or shift-double-click an item to add it to the top of the download list (.nfo used)
- Newly added item completes download
- Normally add an item to the download list, it appears correctly at the bottom
- Move normally added item to the top of the download list

Expected
Normally added item to begin download

Actual
Normally added item is last to download

Note: After restarting the app, the normally added item is at the bottom of the list rather than the top. After moving it back to the top, the download list order is respected and the item begins to download.

HTH & let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Jim

[itimpi]

I just tried your scenario, and when I moved the 'normally' added item to the top of the list it started to download.

The fact that on a restart you say the moved item was not at the top of the list suggested that something did not work out properly in the move. Did you check the Logging tab to see if any errors were reported?

[Quade]

The move happens internally and then a notification is sent to the GUI telling it to update the order. Itimpi's right, I wonder if the order change just isn't happening for you for some reason?

[chimmyjim]

Couldn't see anything, I have debug logging turned on.

[11:28:16] DEBUG - FileIOThread - AssembleFile: [This is the .nfo file]
[11:28:16] DEBUG - AssembleFiles: [.nfo file]
<snip>
[11:28:29] DEBUG - FileIOThread - AssembleFile: [Rar set for 2nd file added]
[11:28:29] DEBUG - Par File added :FileName.par2
[11:28:29] DEBUG - AssembleFiles: FileName.par2

Is there any other logging I can look for?

[Quade]

I'd pause the download and then try some moves and see if you see anything. How much do you have in the download list? How many lines of entries?

[chimmyjim]

Pausing, moving, the restarting doesn't have any effect.

Right now I have 37 files, most are about 1.5gig in size.

[flat_beer]

One time that it happened to me was:

1. I started downloading some TV show from a.b.multimedia 350MB.
2. Then I queued up 3 groups of about 300 images each (900 images total) using right click -> download to existing folder -> then actually created a new folder for each group of images.
3. Since I wanted to look at some of the images while the TV show downloaded I selected the TV show then clicked "Move Item Down one line" icon. I realized this was a stupid way to move it down 300 lines so I then used CTRL+Down Arrow. Since this scrolled it out of the visible area of the screen I used the scroll bars to find the correct place to put the TV show then continued the CTRL+Down Arrow till it got there.
4. When it completed the first group of images it continued downloading the other groups of images. It ignored the fact that the TV show was now at the top.
5. When all the images had been downloaded then it resumed downloading the TV show.

I think that was with the 6.10 version or the 6.10RC4 (probably this version). I've seen it in other 6.x versions but I can't say for sure which ones.
Win XP 32-bit.
Server configuration:
Astraweb US-ssl 2 connections to download headers and data
Astraweb US-ssl 3 connections to just download data
Astraweb EU-ssl 2 connections set as fill just to download data
several other servers that are normally disabled that I manually enable as needed for fills.

I only have a 1.5Mbit DSL connection so I had alot of time to move the TV show down while the images were downloading. I have never seen anything other than Cache: 193/200.

I was wondering if the problem was caused by using the keyboard to move the files up and down as apposed to using the GUI buttons... Or vice versa.

I see the problem just about every time I change the order of the downloads.

[Quade]

I was wondering if the problem was caused by using the keyboard to move the files up and down as apposed to using the GUI buttons... Or vice versa.

I'll try this. Maybe it is related to the problem. I tend to use the buttons and not the keyboard.

[frekwentflier]

I just ran into this issue. I moved items up to the top of the list using the keyboard and they did not start downloading. When I selected the exact same items and used the mouse to choose "Move to Top" (even though they were already at the top), they immediately started downloading.

I hope this helps.

[Quade]

I was downloading this morning and a file later in the list was downloading before one higher had finished up. I expanded the download and 2 of the files, the first chunks were delayed downloading from the server. They were sitting there, in progress but, it took a long time for the data to show up. Once the first chunks downloaded, the rest downloaded and it finished up. Wonder if this issue might be related to that?

[Draylor]

I cant add a reproducable scenario to this, but Ive certainly seen it happen.

For what its worth Id have 5-6 items queued at most when it occurs, and I typically use the keyboard (ctrl + up/down) to move items around the list.

In my experience it hasnt "fixed itself", only going back to the stalled download when other items in the list have been cleared out, but clicking any of the columns to sort the download list before reordering it as desired works.

Hope this helps (doesnt seem likely though!)

[Quade]

I'm trying to find a failure mode to so, it all helps.

[chimmyjim]

I was downloading this morning and a file later in the list was downloading before one higher had finished up. I expanded the download and 2 of the files, the first chunks were delayed downloading from the server. They were sitting there, in progress but, it took a long time for the data to show up. Once the first chunks downloaded, the rest downloaded and it finished up. Wonder if this issue might be related to that?

I checked and this isn't what's happening with mine. The items at the top are not even started, there isn't any change in the blocks showing download progress. Looking at the connections tab, all continue to make progress on the others items in the list.

[chimmyjim]

Hit it in a different scenario:
- Queue up a couple items
- Sort the download list by clicking on 'Download Descriptions:'
- Using the 'Move Item to the Top/Bottom' buttons, select a single item and move it to the top.

The item that was at the top of the download list after sorting continues to download.

[THO]

A week ago I installed Newsbin 6.20 1513 on a 4 year old laptop with Win7 64 and had this same problem. I could add 10-20 items, move them around using the icons, and it would just continue to download them in the order they had been originally added.
Yesterday I installed the same version on a brand new Win7 64 installation of a new computer and am seeing the same issue. If I move an item to the top of the list, it just sits there. If I hit the icon to move it to the top again while it's already there, then it seems to take effect and Newsbin will start to download it immediately.

[Quade]

I simply can't reproduce your problem.

1 - I try "move to top icon"
2 - I try "move up" multiple times
3 - I try "ctrl-Up arrow.

It always downloads from the one thats at the top.

[flat_beer]

This method messed up for me....

1. Add 4 items to the download queue.
2. Select items 2 and 3. Click "move to top icon".
3. After the new top item starts downloading select item 2 (originally item 3). Click "move down 1 icon".
4. After the top item finishes then (for me) the new top item does not start. The new second (the one I moved up then down) item starts downloading.

Note: I have autopar disabled so all par files download.

[Quade]

I'll try this.

[astrax]

I've had the same experience.
Items that are moved to the top (usually when they haven't been placed at the top in the first place), or generally when the order is changed, won't download in that order. Sometimes a whole bunch of entries in the list is skipped, for an item that was placed in the list before, but is down at the bottom.