newsbin.com

Hi all,
first, it was once every few days, then more often, now every few hours: While downloading articles and various files, NB started to hang since I installed 6.40. The same behaviour is there in 6.41B3.
The good news is: It wants to call home. But not Quade and friends, but Redmond! That is especially inappropriate, I think.
I am not sure if it is advisable to post here the report it wants to send:

Code: Links not allowed for unregistered users

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<DATABASE>
<EXE NAME="newsbinpro.exe" FILTER="GRABMI_FILTER_PRIVACY">
    <MATCHING_FILE NAME="FreeImage32.dll" SIZE="1193472" CHECKSUM="0x478329DE" BIN_FILE_VERSION="3.14.1.0" BIN_PRODUCT_VERSION="3.14.1.0" PRODUCT_VERSION="3, 14, 1, 0" FILE_DESCRIPTION="FreeImage library" COMPANY_NAME="FreeImage" PRODUCT_NAME="FreeImage" FILE_VERSION="3, 14, 1, 0" ORIGINAL_FILENAME="FreeImage.dll" INTERNAL_NAME="FreeImage"
....


The whole text is 13 kB sized.

The stalling seems to be correlated to the attempt to deal with empty downloads, but in a strange way. Last night, when I discovered a file that was marked black in the download ist, I tried to delete that. When I clicked on the filename, the exit appeared.
Unfortunately, the log list disappears with a new start. Is it saved somewhere with each new entry to backtrack what happened? Or may have happened? Would like to help, not only in my own interest.
If you want me to post the whole report, pls give me a shout.

Cheers,
U.

I'm confused by this. How are you getting the 'phone home' aspect? This appears to be a standard appscompat.txt file generated by windows. Yes, windows will offer to 'phone home' to MS if you wish to report an appcrash to them - that's been there for a very very long time. Is that what you're referring to as 'inappropriate'? Are you saying you are concerned about the image file name being transmitted? This is standard stuff that's being generated, so it goes without saying you shouldn't be sending that to MS if you don't want them reading that, but it's a windows issue, not Newsbin. As far as a crash or a stall, if that's what happened, that's certainly not good, no.

It's not clear to me what you meant by "When I clicked on the filename, the exit appeared."

DT

First, I'd suggest upgrading to 6.41B4. It's better than 6.40 in many ways.

Second, the DLL mentioned is a Newsbin file so, I don't see any security issues. It sounds like it's crashing and that's just a Dr Watson report. Pretty common when a program crashes. I think it's saying the crash happened inside FreeImage.dll but, I'm not certain.

As for the crashing, if it still crashes after you upgrade, it might be worth trying to figure out why. Another user was having problems like this and a re-install with wipe fixed it for him. It sounds like you have a corrupt data file of some kind.

Thanks for the reply! - I'll first try 6.41B4 but expect to see the crashing there too. If not, fine, if yes, a reinstall sounds reasonable. How can I save my settings for the new installation? Somewhere in the file menu, I guess. So I have distributed the administration and the storage of the postprocessed (unrared etc.) files over a couple of partitions.
Just save the ini file and copy it back afterwards?
Thanks,
U.

DThor wrote:I'm confused by this. How are you getting the 'phone home' aspect? This appears to be a standard appscompat.txt file generated by windows. Yes, windows will offer to 'phone home' to MS if you wish to report an appcrash to them...

Believe it or yes, I hadn't seen this consciously yet so far - blue screens and stuff, yes, but not this.

As far as a crash or a stall, if that's what happened, that's certainly not good, no.
It's not clear to me what you meant by "When I clicked on the filename, the exit appeared."

IOW: when I selected that entry that seemed to be incomplete or nonexistent on the server in the download list, the crash happened. exactly at the time I hit. Maybe coincidence, maybe not. What is 'exactly at the time' in terms of processor time... ?
_U.

Solved, cured...

Some things just happen - I cut down my groups list to just two some days agao - and haven't seen a crash or hang-up since. Probably something in that large, often hard-knocked data base had disassembled - gone. Without a complete new installation.

Thanks for your continuous high level support and work!

Cheers,
U.

There IS a crash bug in 6.41. It's been fixed in the 6.42 beta.

'My bug' reappeared yet in 6.41B4 before I cleared the groups list, but has vanished (three knocks on wood!) so far. I'll get 6.42 then. Thanks.

Cheers,
U.

Follow-up, after 6.42 RC3 installation:

All goes fine, no hang-up, no "Newsbin was shut down..." messages, UNTIL:

I was searching for one specific download, because the version I had here was faulty. So I loaded "All headers" of a pretty frequented group (just have two other groups in the groups list panel now) and fetched all headers from the past 900 days. It took a while despite my 100 Mbit line, but finally the headers were there. I left the machine alone then for some minutes, and after my return - Newsbin had to be shut down... - the same message that made me start this thread.
I cleared the big list then completely, and no hang-ups since.

I don't think it's a windows or hardware problem, because a) the message would look different, b) several tests using chkdisk and harder means did not reveal any problem there.

XP Pro (!) Image link not allowed for unregistered users , 32 bit. Athlon single core, something around 1 GB of RAM.

Pretty seaoned hardware, yes, but...

Anything I can do for you guys to chase the bug and track it down? Or just live with it, avoiding an overpopulation of the groups list? Which is no major problem.

Cheers,
U.

So I loaded "All headers" of a pretty frequented group (just have two other groups in the groups list panel now) and fetched all headers from the past 900 days. It took a while despite my 100 Mbit line

"Loading" the headers loads them from your disk drive, not over your connection. It's probably really slow because your machine is RAM constrained.

XP Pro (!) , 32 bit. Athlon single core, something around 1 GB of RAM.

You likely ran out of RAM. XPPro 32 bits limits Newsbin to a max of 2 GB of address space. A machine like this is fine for light duty work but, loading all of a largish newgroup probably pushed it over the edge.

Probably. Am I the only xp methusalem left over, or would it be a good idea to somehow limit newsbin's memory demands? Of course, "loading" all headers read them from the local HD, but "fetching all" first got them there. That took some time too, 1.5 million headers or so, from 900 days retention. A stress test, well, but as we say in german, if it makes you beautiful... Image link not allowed for unregistered users

Thanks, issue solved, at least explained.

Cheers, and have a nice weekend!

U.

Probably. Am I the only xp methusalem left over, or would it be a good idea to somehow limit newsbin's memory demands?

You can control how much RAM it uses. For example, you can load ranges of the group like, maybe only one month at a time instead of the whole thing.

Sure, but I just thought of an assistance of avoiding traps users who don't follow this discussion regularly might end in...

I remember to have read a message somewhere like "Not enough memory for this operation - continue or better cancel?" or similar. Probably a too rare problem to invest development time in, when even I think of upgrading that machine to something 64ish... Image link not allowed for unregistered users

Cheers,
U.

Ulrich is NOT the only user struggling with this problem since 6.40. I have a machine that sounds similar to his - WinXP 2Ghz 2Gb RAM and Newsbin crashes regularly. I have not yet found the solution, although I have cut down my groups list and reduced the number of days that I retain. I haven't given up yet, but I'm getting close... Suggestions or recommendations are welcome.

What version are you using?

The Newsbin Title bar says 6.42 Build 2146

However, I noticed in the text files accompanying the dump this morning:

PRODUCT_NAME="NewsbinPro Application" FILE_VERSION="6, 4, 1, 0"

ErrorSubPath=newsbinpro.exe\6.4.1.0\hungapp\0.0.0.0\00000000

It makes me wonder if some part of 6.4.1 didn't get updated when I installed 6.42. In the past, I've installed new updates over the existing installation.

I thought I'd try uninstalling my existing install first next time. I was actually about to try that yesterday. But the request for comment on why I was uninstalling prompted me to post here first.

I'd prefer to use a scalpel instead of a machete in fixing this problem. But I'm not sure where the problem lies.

Quade wrote:What version are you using?

I'd suggest trying the beta's then. In the course of 6.50 there was some specific fixes for XP.

Loaded 6.50B10 Build 2776

Downloading 0 Kbps/0KBps

Not sure what I broke...

Set the server priority to 10 and/or add a copy of your current server but, disable it. There's a Bug in the priority code when there's only one server.

Thanks.

I thought I had tried the priority code. But since it works when I tried it a 2nd time, there must have been something else that I missed the first time.

As a follow up, Newsbin hangs have stopped for me since loading 6.50B10.