newsbin.com

While the Pause and Speed Limiter help during actual downloads, if an automatic header download kicks off, it is not slowed by these settings so large header downloads can still swamp your network connection. I think this is an issue and not really a new feature, but I guess either way I would like to see a way to control header downloads, just like actual downloads.

Header downloads go through the same throttle code as the files. The difference is headers are compressed so, their effective speed is much higher than the speed over the network.

Basically, what I'm saying is I think this "swamping" might be an illusion brought on by header compression.

I get what you are saying, but that seems awfully strange. If I turn on pause it does NOT pause header downloads regardless of compression. And if I set limiter it a particular mb/s setting, the limiter does not drop the download rate to that setting. Rather it stays at my network (ISP) max. I seriously doubt, limit rate + compression plus = network (ISP) max exactly, regardless of my limit setting.

Thanks for the response...

To Astraweb, I regularly get 350 Mbps download speeds during header downloads on my 50 Mbps connection. What does the task manager network speed meter say?

My header downloads are 17 and if I go do a network test (after exiting newsbin) I get the same 17mb/s.

Note: I do have disable XFeatures set for my ISP, so that might be why I don't see the header compression effect, but as I said, pause does NOT pause header downloads.

cgardude wrote:Note: I do have disable XFeatures set for my ISP, so that might be why I don't see the header compression effect, but as I said, pause does NOT pause header downloads.

I think it may do so but take some time to take effect (possibly minutes). I know that Newsbin requests headers in large 'blocks' and that once a block of headers has been requested it will run to completion.

but as I said, pause does NOT pause header downloads.

Pause never paused headers. If you want to stop the header download, just delete it from the list. It'll continue where it left off when you download headers again.

I have applied some patience and have done some more testing. One thing I did note (I saw this before) is when using a speed limit schedule, pause gets turned off. I assume this is every time the schedule is reapplied. If I keep setting pause, it stays for a few moments, but then is turned off...

Yes. You can disable the scheduler from the status bar if you want to manual override it. It's the block just to the left of the selection count (second from the right).

Ultimately that is what I have been doing. It is cumbersome to have to disable the schedule, which turns back on header downloads, and then set pause, which then takes quite a while to actually stop header downloads again.

This all stems from poor VOIP performance at times during automatic header downloads; so, would like to just pause newsbin downloads (including headers) during a conversation and unpause when conversation is over.

To me I think pause should override the schedule, rather than the other way around, as it is today. Oh, well...