Headers not downloading

[kbja]

Am I the only one having difficulty downloading headers for the last several days (maybe a week)? I first noticed it a few days ago when I decided to Download All Headers for a few groups since I didn't think they had the full complement of headers going all the way back. After observing the "Download Headers: Giganews - a.b.mp3"-style lines sitting apparently doing nothing for hours on end, I looked in the forums for posts about this. There is one titled "Help can't download headers for just certain groups!", but it doesn't seem to be my problem. At this point I am finding that neither of my header download methods seems to do anything -- Download Latest amd Download All Headers. Here is part of what is in the Critical Error Messages window:

[22:44:50] ERROR Socket - Error: WSARecv Socket Error Code: 10060 A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

[22:44:50] ERROR NNTPSocket - Server:127.0.0.1 NNTPServer: Timeout - Waiting for Server to send Data: Socket - Read or Write Timeout
[22:44:53] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:44:53] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:44:53] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:45:45] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:45:45] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:45:45] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:45:53] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:46:45] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:46:45] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:46:46] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:46:46] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known
[22:46:54] ERROR Socket - Error: WSARecv Socket Error Code: 10060 A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

[22:46:54] ERROR NNTPSocket - Server:127.0.0.1 NNTPServer: Timeout - Waiting for Server to send Data: Socket - Read or Write Timeout
[22:46:54] ERROR NNTPSocket - NS_Connect - 127.0.0.1-Error talking to Server:599 Proxy Error: No such host is known

While the is going on, normal file downloading is just fine (aside from another problem I have which is that very often a single file from a batch is downloaded twice -- usually the first file I think).

I am using Newsbin Pro 6.42 Build 2146, Giganews, VyprVPN 1.4.1 and Giganews Accelerator 1.0.111.1. Is there any other information which would be useful to report?

[Quade]

Most people aren't using the accelerator any more. It's built into Newsbin. I'd change the address in Newsbin to "news.giganews.com", restart Newsbin and try some downloads.

You symptoms sounds like the accelerator is being blocked, maybe by your firewall.

[kbja]

Thank you Quade. I was using Giganews Accelerator just for the header download compression, but it also replicated the encryption as well. Newsbin will look after all of that instead? I don't have any special firewall aside from what comes with Windows 7 by default, so I don't know how that could recently have changed, but I'm just happy to have the problem solved.

[Quade]

Turn on SSL and the compression compression is built in so, yeah, Newsbin can do it all.

[kbja]

Thank you again. I am now using Newsbin for all those functions now. However, I have some groups which just churn. They get to about 300,000 headers downloaded, then fail. then after a while they restart. The errors are:
[19:13:54] ERROR NNTPSocket - Server:news.giganews.com NNTPServer: Compressed Headers - Timeout Waiting for Server to send Data: Socket - Read or Write Timeout
[19:13:54] ERROR NNTPSocket - Server:news.giganews.com NNTPServer: Timeout - Waiting for Server to send Data: Socket - Read or Write Timeout

[Quade]

Give me an example group where you see this. I'll try it here. Your symptoms suggest you have something monitoring your net traffic. Like a virus scanner. Since header downloads are now binary, I wonder if the V scanner is stepping on the connection from time to time.

You might tell your firewall and/or virus scanner to ignore Newsbin.

[kbja]

I have experienced this so far on a.b.mp3, a.b.sounds.lossless and a.b.music. I'm using Avast free AV and I switch between two different ISPs -- both reasonably high-speed. I have the VyprVPN turned off for the moment as I'm trying to minimize possible contributing factors. I am unaware of a way of telling Avast not to monitor news traffic, so I just turned it off entirely for an hour. I'm attempting one group download -- and going for a workout -- back in about an hour. It has downloaded over 1,000,000 headers so far, so that's good.
Thanks,
Kevin

[Quade]

Yeah, Avast is one of the problematic ones.

[kbja]

So maybe the problem arose from the new version of Avast which seems a little more intrusive. I could try downgrading it, but for the moment I will just disable it. I still have the four groups downloading that I started with, but Avast had kicked back in, so maybe they restarted.

[Quade]

The groups don't start over. They take keep going from where they left off so, even disconnection shouldn't prevent download of headers.

That is, as long as you don't "download all headers" again. That resets progress. If you "download all headers" one time, then just update normally it if stops, it'll eventually get them all.

[kbja]

I'm sorry. I thought you understood that I was doing a Download All Headers for these groups and that was the initial problem. I don't normally do this, but I felt that I was missing a bunch of really old but still available posts, so I am trying to do a refresh of particular groups.

[Quade]

I'm sorry. I thought you understood that I was doing a Download All Headers for these groups and that was the initial problem.

Right, I'm saying do this once per group, and don't repeat it over and over for the same group. So, download all headers once on a group to reset it and start downloading from scratch and if you have to exit or something happens to the the header download, just "Download latest" on subsequent runs because it'll start the header download where it left off.

If you repeatedly "Download All Header" on the same group, it'll never finish because it'll always start from zero.

Check your storage age and make sure it's long enough to keep the really old posts. I'd set it to 1700 days if you want them all.

[noozcruz]

Yeah, Avast is one of the problematic ones.

In Avast 8, go to the Mail Settings and uncheck "scan newsgroup messages(NNTP).

FYI...

[kbja]

Thank you for the advice re: Avast V8. I had already downgraded to V7 and it is working fine, but I'm sure I'll be forced to upgrade before too long so thank you again.