whats the easiest way to see what newsbin is doing?

[beany]

HI,
I've had lots of files stopping newsbin from continuing recently. I have been resolving the issue by moving stuff to the bottom of the queue and eventually the queue starts to go again. Until it reaches another problematic article. All this has been trial and error.
How can I see where newsbin has stopped? Or in fact what it is doing whether waiting or unzipping etc? I have too many articles to click on each + icon and expand them. Also when it is halted there is nothing even expanded to say that it halted at that particular article.
Hope you can help
Cheers

[Quade]

What version are you using?

You see the status bar on the right side?

...[PAR: 438 of 577] D:1 DL:6 Inc:0 P:0 R:1 N:8

[PAR: 438 of 577] - How many par blocks you need, how many you have.
D: - Number of files downloaded.
Dl: - Number of files still downloading.
Inc: - Incomplete files.
R: - Retries.
N: - Time of next retry.

I'm going to guess you have files in Dl: still. Not finished downloading. It Par counts are withing about 10% of each other, you might right click one and "Assemble Incompletes" and see if they assemble and repair.

[beany]

Yes most are like that. I have over 2000 and 170gig in that state. Ive seen this before when downloading a big project and noticed that generally the data files I need are complete its just the paused par files which are left (not sure why NB deletes some completely but not others). - this is normal behaviour though - yes?

The stopping is the bit that I've not experienced before. It seems that some of these are not allowing the queue to be processed any further. These are the ones causing me the problems. BTW I guess no point in me trying to assemble them as most are PAR 0 of 500 or similar.

How do I know where NB is up to in the queue? If I knew that I could delete that one article and continue.

Also how do I know if NB is working on pars and rars? Would all processing of this type always show up in the status columns or could there be some stuff going on with no external indication? I mention this because I've frequently seen the cache numbers change even though things look like they have stopped. At rest it is 200/200 when downloading it starts at 0/200 and then the first number varies. - I thought I remembered it being 0/200 at rest mostly but probably wrong with that.

thnx

[Quade]

Normally I'd say it's a bad idea to get this far behind because you can't really tell what's happening.

What I think is happening is that Newsbin is looking at what's downloaded, looking at how many PARS it thinks it can download and deciding the file is too damaged to repair. Rightly or wrongly.
I'd probably take the top one, open it up, unpause all the pars and see what happens. The par counts tell you how many repair blocks you need to finish the download. If you can't download that many PAR repair blocks then you might as well delete the download because it'll never finish or be repairable.

So, start with the top one, look at the PAR counts and the repair blocks (you can right click/properties) and see where you are. If you can't get enough repair blocks to finish the download. Delete it and move on.

Usenet is far from 100%. You sort of need to asses the downloads and see if they look like they're going to work. If you get 430 errors in the logging tab then you know there are issues with the download. Many people use multiple servers to fill in the parts that might be missing from just one server.

You understand I'm just guessing here. Without actually seeing what you're seeing, I can only guess.

[beany]

Nothing of note in the logs just 1000s of HIGH Open post messages and some group download
Failed files are only 58
If I unpause the status goes to downloading and the window shows only virtical (segement) lines never colours in. - I think these articles are really redundant though.
I have a main "all you can eat" server and 2 backups with block subscription.
Can I send you a screen shot via email?


edit...
Okay I think I found the problem...
I noticed that there were long pauses of 0mbs between downloads and that the log just said server disconnected so I turned off my block servers (astraweb and newsdemon). This showed me what was happening. With the servers off there were no pauses between articles and red bars began appearing on the very article-types in question. Once the payload articles were downloaded and deleted newsbin then deleted the red articles (pars only). The logs now show errors for those files and indicated that the message body has been deleted. So it looks like newsbin maybe handling these well where a single server is used but something else is happening to stop newsbin doing the same thing when backup servers are in play.

I am happy to leave this at that. But also happy to talk via email if you wish to investigate further.
cheers

[Quade]

I'd turn AW back on. I'd set the connections to say, 5 for AW. Then see what happens.

If one of the block servers is active but, non-functional, Newsbin will wait for it. Do you have "Typical Retention" set on any of these servers? I use Newsbin with up to 4 servers and don't have stalling problems. I really think it sounds like one if you servers isn't working.

[beany]

I just tried both servers and both work as primary. No worries...Downloads have been great for last 30 mins.

Lets say I do have some incompletes which could be rectified by the backup server would newsbin delete them if there was no other server. Or would I be able to run a pass with no backup then turn on the backup and they would be filled automatically on the retry?

[Quade]

Lets say I do have some incompletes which could be rectified by the backup server would newsbin delete them if there was no other server. Or would I be able to run a pass with no backup then turn on the backup and they would be filled automatically on the retry?

It won't delete them. They might end up on the failed list or they might sit there stalled or if it thinks it has enough PAR files, it'll assemble what it has and try to repair it. Incompletes up to about 10% incomplete can typically be repaired up to 100%.

[beany]

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