Filters Disappeared

[Kaigi]

Hopefully I'm including as little extraneous information as possible, while hopefully still including all relevant info.

I am currently using Newsbin v6.42 - Build 2146. Windows 7 Home Premium with Service Pack 1 and all supplemental important updates. I have Newsbin set up so my Download and configuration files are on my 'D' drive instead of in the default 'c:\users\owner\appdata\local\Newsbin' directory.

I use Newsbin daily. Often I leave it running 24/7, except during backups where it has to be off for SPOOL directory files to be backed up.

This morning I used an .nzb file to start Newsbin (not uncommon after a backup). But when it opened, multiple Newsbin settings were reset to their defaults. That's never happened before that I can recall. I am guessing it is unrelated to the .nzb, but instead possibly a recent automatic Windows update or possibly a Flash update today (though I have no idea how either could do such a thing). I had just downloaded the v6.5 upgrade, but had not clicked to install it yet before all the settings returned to blank.

Using my daily backup, by recopying everything in the root 'TEMP' directory I was able to get back things like my SIGNATURE.db3 and Downloads.db3 files (and the others in there) ALL of which had returned to default size (tiny, rather than the 80 and 70 mb each of the two I mentioned had been). But still, when restarting Newsbin, and clicking on the 'Filters' icon, the Filters box would come up with no filters present: no filter names at all in the 'Filter Profiles' list.

I have spent many hours since v3 customizing my filters to include and exclude specific references in downloads, with separate information sometimes in the post's title and some different things in the file name itself [e.g. in the 'Celebrities' filter choosing which names I wanted included and excluded from automatic downloading (excluding when a name I want is part of another I don't); repetitive/unwanted stuff eliminated in the 'Wallpapers' filter, and so forth]. So the standard Newsbin default filters are of little to no use to me (even if those showed up). But, despite the last monthly backup being a couple weeks back, with this being fine yesterday and only happening today, the filter size in both my monthly and daily backup, and - since I copied everything over from my daily backup - the one in the current active folder, are now all the same (40,960 bytes), which is obviously larger than the 12,288 byte default filters.db3 file.

Since I thought something might have just 'glitched' in the program's 'where to look' code, I went ahead and installed the v6.5 upgrade with the idea it might reset to my default. And, while it kept things like the groups list, whether each group was 'on' or 'off' and what filter each was supposed to be using still listed by the group name, my custom filters themselves remain absent, as do any filters at all when opening the filter window.

Any ideas how to get Newsbin to find them again? Is there anywhere in the program that would allow me to manually 're-set' where Newsbin is looking for filters.db3? Because clearly it is neither looking at my install's TEMP directory (on the 'D' drive), nor is it even looking at the default TEMP directory (on the 'C' drive) to see one.

Thank you!


P.S. The upgrade eliminated the 'old style' icons for the program. How can they be retrieved (as the new ones are actually agitating to look at for me)? Thanks!

[Quade]

Filter.db3 is where the filterr are stored. Sounds like something wiped this file. Something seems to have trashed the whole data folder. From your description, it's not clear what that might be.

If you have a backup of this file you should be able to restore the filters.

I don't think there's anything you can do about the icons.

[Kaigi]

I do have a backup of the original filters.db3, I'd copied it to the Newsbin TEMP directory before, but it was getting ignored.

Then, very oddly, to 'hold me over' until possibly something better came along, I tried 'remaking' the single most used of the maybe seven different filters I had, and exited, saving that one filter. Theoretically, that - being the ONLY filter present - should have wiped the 64,512 byte file and made a tiny one, closer to the default of 12,288 byte file. Instead, I close and re-open Newsbin, look in the Newsbin TEMP directory and the filters.db3 file had completely disappeared. There was no filters.db3 file there at all.

So I copied my 64,512 byte filters.db3 file to the directory yet AGAIN. And now, I open Newsbin and it can see it and shows them all again.

OK... so do we chalk this up to 'freaky' or what?

Thank you for the assist, Quade.


PURE SPECULATION (i.e. 'no real reason to read this unless curious'):
I suspect something in the program got slightly corrupted ('losing' the address of the filters file). When I installed the update, it showed no filters at all, but when I made a single filter, when the program went to exit I'm guessing it tried saving it, but found one already present that it was not familiar with. Then it just deleted the old (without saving the new) - HOWEVER, by trying to save a filters.db3 file, it now 'confirmed' for itself that this was where to look for filters. So when I again (for the 3rd or 4th time) recopied the filter profile into the correct directory, it was able to see it again. [I suppose I could make up any old shit theory and it would be 'reasonable' since the fluke only occurred on my computer apparently, so no way to ever confirm any part of it.]

[Quade]

I'd be more inclined to think that maybe Newsbin will still running when you copied the file into place or something like that. It reads the file when it starts up.

[Kaigi]

The thing is, I made sure it was closed each time I'd tried recopying the file. Now whether it had completely cleared out of memory may be a different thing. In other words, I closed the program, waited a couple seconds after the icon disappeared, (as I've seen it takes a couple seconds for files like signature.db3 to save on exit) then copied the file over and re-opened the program. Possibly I should have rebooted before copying it over, or at least waited til I'd used the memory for something else long enough for it to completely clear out of the pagefile.sys memory. [In Win7, if opened quickly after closing, I've seen other programs return with the settings they'd had on exit even if those settings or files were manually changed while they were closed.]

[Kaigi]

OK... some new information.

Since my last post, the filters.db3 file disappeared twice more. This second time I had a very specific change I'd made, and there was a very specific event that took place (that, theoretically, should not have been able to, because the file was supposedly in use).

I specifically went into Microsoft Security Essentials and made sure that it would ignore anything in the Newsbin TEMP folder.

Tonight, I left Newsbin running while I was not sitting at the computer. When I first turned it on, I realized that the filters.db3 file wasn't there, so I closed it, added the file to the folder, and started it up again. It showed up. Newsbin ran for roughly 6-8 hours (with not a heck of a lot to download, and only one likely check for things to download in that time (set for Automatic Update every 360 minutes).

I come upstairs before heading to bed and look, and - with Newsbin still running - the filters.db3 file is gone. Yes, not only did it disappear while being ignored by Microsoft Security Essentials, but it disappeared while Nesbin was running.

Any new ideas on what might be going on?

[DThor]

You've got something on your computer deleting files. I run MSE and have never once seen behaviour like that, db3 files aren't exactly a hot spot for viruses, and besides, if MSE does quarantine or delete files there's a very clear log of such actions. At this point you'll just need to wrack your brain for any times you've installed some sort of security software, or go hunting for it. Alternatively, I suppose it's possible you've got a defective drive, but other bad things would be happening too. You should be seeing SMART warnings or similar. Bad memory is always a possibility but unlikely to see just that one bad repeatable over and over, should have other issues too.

Short of that, something nasty might have infected your computer. The behaviour you're describing doesn't really jive with either some sort of aggressive net nanny getting in the way, or a virus which should be playing havoc elsewhere too.

DT

[Quade]

I specifically went into Microsoft Security Essentials and made sure that it would ignore anything in the Newsbin TEMP folder.

Don't use the Newsbin temp folder for anything ("..\datafolder\temp"). It's Newsbin's folder and it'll delete anything it feels like in there. I saw your temp comments above but, couldn't fathom the idea that you might actually be using it so, I just let it pass. You can make your own folders but, the folders Newsbin uses are managed by Newsbin and you should mostly leave them alone. The temp folder is one that Newsbin uses for temp things. It periodically purges it along with other folders in the data folder.

[Kaigi]

I'm not sure if we are both thinking of the same folder. Because clearly if I had filters.db3 in the wrong folder, Newsbin wouldn't register and read it, right; it would only look for it - and use it - from the correct folder?

There are only two folders in the folder I've directed Newsbin to for downloading (for me that is "D:\2"). Those are "Newsbin-temp" and "TEMP" [using the upper case and lower case in all examples just as they were created by Newsbin]. So those - as full pathnames - are: "D:\2\Newsbin-Temp", and "D:\2\TEMP".

The D:\2\Newsbin-Temp folder has only ever had three files in it (since at least v5): my ".nbi" file, the ".bak" of that file, and "guiitems.db3". Other than "D:\2\Newsbin-Temp", and "D:\2\TEMP", there are no other folders in the folder I directed Newsbin to for downloading.

The D:\2\TEMP folder has all the subfolders in it (including "chunks", "Import", "NzbLoader", "Read Posts", "Samples", "SPOOL_V6", and a "Temp" directory under the D:\2\TEMP directory). The D:\2\TEMP folder was the folder that Newsbin put the filters.db3 file in the first place (side-by-side with the subfolders of "TEMP", not in one of them), and from where it just started disappearing a week ago, after maybe 10 years (possibly more) of working fine there. This is the same folder that it created - and keeps - Signature.db3 in (except for the time it disappeared recently).

Since this was NEVER a problem up until about a week ago, something changed. Whether it was Newsbin or not I don't know and that is what I am trying to figure out.

Does this help clarify?

Thanks again for any help you can give trying to figure this out.


EDIT (about an hour or two later than the above):
[These were all done when the program was closed, just to be clear.]

The latest time it disappeared (just in the last hour or so), I tried copying the Filters.DB3 file to "C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Newsbin\Filters.DB3" but it had NO effect at all (even when copied for "C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Newsbin\Filters.DB3.<username>" also).

It ONLY showed up in Newsbin's interface when I copied it back into "D:\2\TEMP" (with D:\2 my download directory).


The same was true with Signature.DB3 (which also just disappeared again, being replaced in "D:\2\TEMP" with a 24 byte file of that name - obviously empty and newly-created).

[Quade]

I made a statement about not using the Newsbin temp folder. If you don't then it doesn't apply does it?

The D:\2\Newsbin-Temp folder has only ever had three files in it (since at least v5): my ".nbi" file, the ".bak" of that file, and "guiitems.db3". Other than "D:\2\Newsbin-Temp", and "D:\2\TEMP", there are no other folders in the folder I directed Newsbin to for downloading.

That Guiitems is probably unused. Newsbin won't even look at it in that folder.

I really have no idea why this is happening to you. None. Nobody else is reporting it so, at this point I assume it's all you.

The latest time it disappeared (just in the last hour or so), I tried copying the Filters.DB3 file to "C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Newsbin\Filters.DB3" but it had NO effect at all (even when copied for "C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Newsbin\Filters.DB3.<username>" also).

None of these filter files will ever be the correct one unless that's where the data folder is. More than likely they got generated when Newsbin first ran with the default NBI. Meaning they're empty. The only files you need to worry about are the ones in the data folder (Except GUIItems which doesn't live in the data folder).

Only idea I have is try renaming the folders to something without temp in them. Temp normally means "Can be purged". I'm skeptical that this is a Newsbin issue. I think you have something running on your PC that's purging these files.

[Kaigi]

I really am sorry this is taking so much time for you.

I made a statement about not using the Newsbin temp folder. If you don't then it doesn't apply does it?

I'm sorry... from this it sounded like you thought I was angry or something. I wasn't. It was just that there were three folders that were either named just "temp" and one named "Newsbin-temp". Since I couldn't tell from your post which you were referring to, I got specific because I thought it likely MY initial comments were unclear.

The D:\2\Newsbin-Temp folder has only ever had three files in it (since at least v5): my ".nbi" file, the ".bak" of that file, and "guiitems.db3". Other than "D:\2\Newsbin-Temp", and "D:\2\TEMP", there are no other folders in the folder I directed Newsbin to for downloading.

That Guiitems is probably unused. Newsbin won't even look at it in that folder.

Cool, I'll delete it. The fewer extraneous files in an operations folder, the easier it is to see if/when something changes.

I really have no idea why this is happening to you. None. Nobody else is reporting it so, at this point I assume it's all you.

Only idea I have is try renaming the folders to something without temp in them. Temp normally means "Can be purged". I'm skeptical that this is a Newsbin issue. I think you have something running on your PC that's purging these files.

Thank you. When I did a search of the forum and found no other reference to this I kind of suspected it was just me. I had hoped that possibly by accident I'd clicked a setting of some sort, or option, in Newsbin that resulted in this happening.

I am confused about the latter part of this - the "try renaming the folders to something without temp in them" part - my download folder, what is on the first page of 'Newsbin Options', is "D:\2" for both "Download folder for downloads from NZB Files:" AND for "UnRAR Folder:". It was Newsbin (whichever version v5, v4) that created the two subdirectories "Newsbin-Temp" and "TEMP". The latter of which, ["TEMP"], being the one with the SPOOL and other subfolders, as well as where Signature.DB3 and filters.DB3 were put by the program when I set the download folder to "D:\2". There's nowhere I can see in Newsbin to change it's focus to look anywhere else than these two folders for the Signature and filters files, with that being where it put them.


I did something in case there's been a change in Microsoft Security Essentials. Previously I had it set to automatically do the recommended thing ('Delete' 'Quarantine' 'Allow') for anything it found, with the 'Severe' and 'High' Alert levels set to 'Delete'. I have changed them all to 'Quarantine' and to ASK me before acting. That way, if something in the Newsbin files is reading as a threat, I will now get ASKED before anything happens, and I can see from there if that is the issue. [I doubt this severely, because, as you said, I am the only one reporting it, and I can't possibly be the only person using both Newsbin and Microsoft Security Essentials. But I figured it was worth a try.]


There was this thing I wrote in the initial post:

This morning I used an .nzb file to start Newsbin (not uncommon after a backup). But when it opened, multiple Newsbin settings were reset to their defaults. That's never happened before that I can recall. ... I had just downloaded the v6.5 upgrade, but had not clicked to install it yet before all the settings returned to blank.

I am beginning to think rather strongly that that .nzb file was corrupt (either accidentally, or deliberately) and may have been the source of the problem.

I looked carefully at when the problem appears to have started (seemed to be right after using an .nzb file, because some picture newsgroups I have set to automatic and so it is easy to tell when filters stop working). I can find only two potential NZB files I downloaded with a timestamp for the file that was within 24 hours before the problem showed up. If I sent a copy of those to you (or PM'd you the exact nzb names), would it be possible to check them for faults? [i.e. do you have a spare and unused version of Newsbin on an isolated computer that would not be problematic if this were to cause it to start deleting operating/filter&signature files from its data subfolder as has been happening here?]. If it happened for you on a computer that was dedicated to ONLY running the program, then you might be able to easily see possible Registry changes made or some other change that it made to program files.

There is one BIG problem with that: you would be spending a shitload more time (more than you've already spent with responding to me) on a problem that is only affecting one user. That doesn't seem reasonable to me unless I pay SOME kind of 'Technical Service' fee. [I could PayPal additional money like I did a few years ago just because of what Newsbin did for improving my picture/wallpaper collecting.] Though, honestly, with your expertise I'm not sure I could afford what would be reasonable, but I'd like to give something at least.


If I can find nothing else, I am considering doing a system reset to a day or two before the problem started (nine days ago now, so I'd reset for at least 10 days to be sure I got whatever, if it was a system change). Since I installed v6.50 right after the problem started, I suspect I would need to reinstall v6.50 afterwards, correct?


Thank you for any thoughts on any of this.

[Quade]

I might have been a bit snippy. Sorry. I just drove 12 hours yesterday.

I am confused about the latter part of this - the "try renaming the folders to something without temp in them" part - my download folder, what is on the first page of 'Newsbin Options', is "D:\2" for both "Download folder for downloads from NZB Files:" AND for "UnRAR Folder:". It was Newsbin (whichever version v5, v4) that created the two subdirectories "Newsbin-Temp" and "TEMP". The latter of which, ["TEMP"], being the one with the SPOOL and other subfolders, as well as where Signature.DB3 and filters.DB3 were put by the program when I set the download folder to "D:\2". There's nowhere I can see in Newsbin to change it's focus to look anywhere else than these two folders for the Signature and filters files, with that being where it put them.

I might edit the NBI file with wordpad and see if the download path has garbage in it. Maybe something corrupted the NBI. Newsbin shouldn't be putting anything like that in the download path. It really sounds like something is corrupt. You don't want the downloads and the data folder to share the same base folder. I don't know if it is but, then again I'm having a hard time tracking your folders.

[Kaigi]

I am VERY sorry, Quade. I found the e-mail with the notice for this thread in the bottom of my 'Inbox' (which means - to me - I needed to still 'do something' with it). I thought I'd thanked you for this response of yours long ago. It took care of the problem.

Thank you for the help, and apologies again for the delay in the thanks.