strange behavior

[rons]

I've noticed a few things about newsbin 6.5.3 build 3311 that tends to annoy me. They're small, but when you add them all up and all the failed DMCA or missing articles it drives one crazy after a while.

One issue has to do with exiting the program while a download is in progress. If the program shuts down then all the previously downloaded articles for that NZB file are deleted. This isn't all the time, so I can't figure out off hand what triggers it. I use CCleaner, but it doesn't touch newsbin.
My download folder is C:\downloads
nzb download folder is set to C:\Users\MY computer\Documents\Newsbin\$(NZBFILE)\
newsbin data folder is set to my external hard drive.

To the best of my knowledge CCleaner doesn't touch any of the newsbin folders or files, but something is setting it off to wipe out and force me to restart the NZB all over again after the program is restarted. I also notice this issue from time to time even when I pause the download.


I noticed another issue people are having with an error code:
[23:13:19] ERROR 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.

I have never seen this error code with supernews/giganews. It only really started happening with offshore providers. I contacted nextgennews that was having this issue all the time for files that were DMCA's, but remained in their backup. I was told their service is overloaded because they reached their capacity to service all their users.

The only problem with this is that newsbin will see the attempt as a failure and mark the article as failed. This requires many retries and eventually the news server will just start refusing your IP for a small period so many attempts. It would be nice to be able to leave that article attachment labelled blank as if it was never tried before instead of failing it. Right now I can't tell if the article attachment doesn't exist or if the news server is just rejecting my connection attempt.


One last issue for now is that newsbin doesn't always assemble incompletes and auto-par the file. It attempts to keep downloading failed articles until it decides it gives up then labels the whole thing as failed, or stops attempting to download the nzb and doesn't want to assemble the incompletes then autopar repair itself. I notice what tends to set this off is if I am modifying the individual files within the nzb and changing them from download to pause back to download. Once I have made a modification like that it tends to ignore any auto commands after that. This isn't a big deal unless I'm receiving a bunch of red error bands for an nzb that is typically DMCA'd by highwinds and their subsidiaries forcing me to move over to the offshore pirate party servers.

[Quade]

1 - You're using a relatively old version. I don't trouble-shoot old versions (because there's no real point since they've been superseded) so, your best bet is to update to the current release. 6.55 then try again.

2 - Not as all unusual if your server is Astraweb. This seems to be a connectivity issue though and I'm not sure it's something that can be fixed in Newsbin. Same as #1 though, update to the latest. It's not a good idea to run max connections to the server. If you run max connections any disconnects will push you over the connection limit.

3 - #1 again. How many retries to you have set? Newsbin won't assemble incompletes if the file doesn't have at least one par and if less than 90% the file has been downloaded. In 6.55, if there's a par with the file, they'll never fail to failed list. If there are no pars then when retries are exceeded they get dumped to failed. This an area that I'm constantly tweaking. I believe I'm going to optionally remove the PAR and percentage check so, you can tell it to download and assemble. Then it'll be on you whether you want it to assemble immediately or not.

[rons]

Hi Quade happy new year.

1. I'll upgrade to the latest and get back to you.

2. I don't use astraweb as I previously stated, however it seems other users on your forum do. The problem isn't the news server. It's how newsbin behaves once it throws the miscommunication error and automatically decides the article is lost even though it might not be. I'll upgrade and see if it there's new behavior.

3. I'll upgrade as requested and get back to you. I wouldn't write about assembling incompletes if par files didn't already exist. I should've been more detailed in my response. Assembling and repairing automatically can be complex to program. Another issue I see is if I ask newsbin to assemble incompletes it still wants to keep retrying certain volumes within the NZB file. Most volumes of the rar will assemble as incomplete, but there are some stragglers. newsbin just keeps trying to download instead of forcing the volume to assemble as is. The result is I need to force each and every single volume to assemble. A side effect is that most volumes can be forced assembled, but not all. Running quickpar will show you one or two volumes are missing even though it appears as downloaded in newsbin. I'll try and grab a screenshot since this has been happening regularly. thankfully I had enough pars to repair even the missing volume.

I was just wondering if you came across my initial discoveries. My responses from here on out will only have to do with the latest version. Thanks for responding so quickly and on a holiday too!

[Quade]

2. I don't use astraweb as I previously stated, however it seems other users on your forum do. The problem isn't the news server. It's how newsbin behaves once it throws the miscommunication error and automatically decides the article is lost even though it might not be. I'll upgrade and see if it there's new behavior.

It's not really a problem. It declared it failed and lets any other active servers have a shot at it. On retry, the original server will get tried again. I don't see any reason to not hand it to another server. I have no idea if the connection failure is temporary or permanent. You could just as easily have run out of quota and the failure really is a semi-permanent failure. Newsbin will always re-connect after a failed connection. That's why if you run max connections, it'll boot you over your limit because news servers are slow to release your authentication token.

You basically get N tokens, equal to max connections. The server has to release a token back to the free pool when you disconnect and it takes most servers awhile to do so. That's why you don't want to run max connections so, you always have a couple free tokens for cases like this.

This requires many retries and eventually the news server will just start refusing your IP for a small period so many attempts. It would be nice to be able to leave that article attachment labelled blank as if it was never tried before instead of failing it. Right now I can't tell if the article attachment doesn't exist or if the news server is just rejecting my connection attempt.

My AW fails like this periodically and it doesn't require lots of retries. Connection failures make Newsbin reconnect. The connection failures are what boots you over your connection limit not the retries. Retries don't disconnect and re-connect. They just tell Newsbin to try again on the same server. It sounds like you lose the ability to connect to the server and then eventually it fixes itself.

On a related note, Newsbin will never assemble incomplete files till the retries expire so, if you have say 10 retries set, it might be an hour or more before it assembles and repairs. I use 2 retries which is a minute or two.

The result is I need to force each and every single volume to assemble. A side effect is that most volumes can be forced assembled, but not all. Running quickpar will show you one or two volumes are missing even though it appears as downloaded in newsbin. I'll try and grab a screenshot since this has been happening regularly. thankfully I had enough pars to repair even the missing volume.

I don't have any problems like this so, I'm pretty much guessing. I have had reports of files left as ".nb2" files. Newsbin assembles files into NB2's then renames them to the real name. If the rename fails. You might end up with ".rar.nb2" instead of ".rar". When they get left as NB2's I'm pretty sure the problem is security software blocking the rename. Probably because they're scanning the file at the same time Newsbin attemps to rename them.

You're mixing up a bunch of different issues in a single topic so, don't be surprised if I miss some.

[rons]

so the after upgrading I can see a bit better how the automation kicks in it's just taking awhile longer than it used to.

Right now though my problem has been an nzb file that was torn to shreds and unrecoverable on most highwinds servers. I chose offshore and I am able to see quite a lot more. However, it's problematic. after downloading lots of incomplete files within the nzb there's too many red error spaces within each volume. I have tested another server that seems to be doing ok aside from being overloaded.

After downloading from tweaknews it should automatically download from nextgennews to fill those red empty articles if possible. It doesn't. I then manually disable tweaknews and make sure only nextgennews is the remaining server and choose retry. It then attempts to redownload every single volume within the NZB all over again. half the gray downloaded articles remain, but many were wiped out with a white background and newsbin is attempting to redownload the entire volume all over again instead of filling in the red empty spots.

very strange behavior.

[Quade]

You're the only one reporting issues like this so, I'm not sure where to go with it. I have and always run multiple servers. Many times the files are only on one server or the other. It just automatically switches back and forth between the servers. You have to leave the servers active through or Newsbin won't reference them. If you're enabling and disabling servers mid-download. Newsbin might end up ignoring the newly enabled servers because they weren't there when it setup the download.

You want to leave all the servers active and change the server priority in the server options to control when they're used.