Newsbin 6.50 final does not work at all

[atnnews]

I just installed 6.50, it does nothing!
I added 5 items to download list.
It loads first PAR2 file, then nothing. In addition, when it opens, it opens some TXT file in external TEXT EDITOR that I read days ago!
Newsbin also won't close, I need to kill the process.

I rebooted computer, no help.
I installed good old 6.42, everything works fine (the same files starts to download immediately without problems).

My system is Win7/64 Ultimate, Intel Core i7 (6-core)

Even the search is broken in 6.50, it only found fraction of results that 6.42 search found.

So 6.50 is totally unusable to me so far, please help

[Quade]

I've asked Dex to answer you since I'm going to be on the road all day today. He should come online in a couple hours.

[dexter]

What firewall, antivirus, or Internet Security software are you running? When people report strange issues like that, it almost always is due to some conflict with other software. There have been thousands of installs of 6.50 already and you are the only one with these symptoms so I have to assume it is a local issue.

Version 6.50 will look like a different program to Internet Security software. If it was configured to allow 6.42 full access, you'll have to do the same to allow 6.50 out.

[atnnews]

Version 6.50 will look like a different program to Internet Security software. If it was configured to allow 6.42 full access, you'll have to do the same to allow 6.50 out.

Ah, ok, that must be it then, so far I have had no such problems with updates.
I only use Windows7 software firewall, in addition to that I have Cisco SA-520W firewall box.
It's strange the installer didn't fix that for Windows firewall

I'll try that tomorrow and get back here if it does not help

Thanks!

[dexter]

The installer makes an effort to poke a hole in the firewall but it can't do anything about external firewalls. If you really only use W'indows 7 built in firewall, it could be some other software in your system that is also monitoring Internet traffic, like some antivirus software that claims to also have "Internet Security".

[barkbarkwoof]

Is this version getting blocked by Norton> I have 6.50RC4 fully operational but the final will not install. I get both a connectivity error and write errors. Newsbin isn't running during the install.

[dexter]

Norton is notorious for blocking Newsbin and the installer.

You could try the full installer instead of running the Internet based installer to at least get 6.50 installed. The link is on the download page under the title: "Alternate Installer"

[atnnews]

The installer makes an effort to poke a hole in the firewall but it can't do anything about external firewalls. If you really only use W'indows 7 built in firewall, it could be some other software in your system that is also monitoring Internet traffic, like some antivirus software that claims to also have "Internet Security".

I know it cannot do anything to the external firewall but that cannot be the case as newsbin has been working fine until 6.50 final (didn't try betas). I use Microsoft Security Essentials in addition but it shouldn't affect that kind of activity.

But I will try it again tomorrow, thanks for info

[dexter]

I run the same thing here, windows firewall and microsoft security essentials. There must be something else going on with your system that is preventing 6.50 from working.

[flechblech]

I had the same problem.

Windows 7 64 bit, windows firewall (pretty lax) and Microsoft Security Essential. Installed 6.50, started it, it loaded the download list, and then... nothing.

Process showed 0 % cpu utilization, closed it down, and the GUI closed, but process hung around. Killed that, started it again, same thing happened. Left it running for a couple of minutes and then closed it down, only this time the UI didn't close. Tried again, fiddled with some settings (turned on NNTP logging) and it showed it read 8 articles, although I suspect this was more checking already downloaded bits than getting new ones). Also tried to set it to run admin in case there were some restriction on socket calls, but no luck. Still no network activity and no nice shutdown.

Set everything back, started again. Yup, 0 % cpu, nothing coming down, went to make and eat some dinner. Came back, and Newsbin is happily going through the download list. Tried to close down and start again, to see if there would be a delay in starting it, but it picked up right where it left off.

So, start newsbin, go watch a tv show or something (or maybe you _have_ to eat dinner, who knows what arcane magic these computers demand) and see if it starts working.

*speculation*
I upgraded from 6.42, maybe there was a db format/chunk store change between version that might have had to be processed?

[dexter]

Awesome, you got it. Newsbin was doing a conversion from some of the 6.42 data files. Let me tell the others that's what's up.

Good job. I guess we should have put something in the Logging tab saying what's going on in this case.

[atnnews]

Awesome, you got it. Newsbin was doing a conversion from some of the 6.42 data files. Let me tell the others that's what's up.

Good job. I guess we should have put something in the Logging tab saying what's going on in this case.

Thank you very much, *flechblech*!

I installed 6.50 again and started it, nothing indicates it is doing anything (not even task manager as this process is 0% CPU, the only way to *guess* it is newsbin is to see some drive activity) but how do I know it is done? Should I just put one file to download list and wait?
VERY unprofessional

This VERY bad behaviour, in worst case it may have corrupted the database as we have killed the process in the middle.
Earlier versions nicely gave progress bar while doing conversion, why not this one? Or at VERY least in the logging tab.

[atnnews]

Another question, a bit off-topic but related to this moment

I changed news provider, should I reset the whole database to make sure it is getting correct data? And if so, how to do that properly? Preferably so that I still have my groups last read status up-to-date.

Are the article numbers identical in all news providers and servers so that it does not matter if I start using another server after years of collected newsbin database?

[atnnews]

Ok now 6.50 downloads again.

BUT it HAS messed up the database somehow, on the groups list it says like 20 new but when I open that group, there may be 500 'new' that I have seen 110% surely

And now probably the 6.42 won't work anymore so I now really need instructions how to completely reset newsbin except for duplicates database (which has been very unreliable for about last 8 weeks, it may pick some dup but mostly not even very recent one that I recognize and have marked as read) and the last read articles.

Is there some easy way to do this or should I just delete the data folder and start from scratch, only copy the -nbi file?

[atnnews]

This 6.50 does not really seem to work.

When I do download latest headers for a group, the last update field in groups list is NOT updated
Even if I do the all groups download latest headers, the last update time is NOT updated. Even the new counts are not updated.
Still the update times are not same for each group.
The last update times do not even match the latest article or any other content of that group.

In groups the 'new' files seem to be random, nothing to do with reality.

Newsbin updates have caused a lot of unnecessary extra work before but never this much.
I will try to go back to 6.42 but I'm afraid it will not work anymore so I will probably need to start from scratch.

(10 mins later)
It seems that 6.42 still works so the 6.50 did not mess the database (so I wonder WHAT it actually did for that over half an hour ) so everything is fine again. The update times are now correct and files that I have seen are not displayed when I go to groups.

But I will not touch 6.50 until someone confirms that it really works.

[barkbarkwoof]

Thank you Dexter, the full install worked.