newsbin.com

A few more fixes and one big internal change for RC2:

• Fixed a couple of issues with the Password Manager.
• Fixed issue with configuration backup.
• Installed a new SSL library that seems to work better with certain servers.

The download link is on the Newsbin Beta Page. Any questions, comments, or bug reports can be made by replying to this thread or by using the Technical Support Contact Form.

with autoshutdown turned on Nb will shutdown the system whilst still importing headers

with autoshutdown turned on Nb will shutdown the system whilst still importing headers

Is this new behavior?

not sure when it started, at least a few versions back though

Ok thanks. I'll look into it.

Tried to rename a GOG by right-clicking in the Groups list and selecting Rename. It goes into normal name edit mode where I can type the new name, but if I change the name and hit Enter, NB crashes. This is with 6.71RC2. Crashes also with 6.70 Final, but haven't tried any prior versions. (Windows 7 Home Premium)

Thanks for the report.

Had many problems the last days, all with 6.71RC2.:

Problem 1
In a group tab, I selected several (expandable) rows (with rars and pars inside) and right clicked "Download to Folder named for Subject".
All downloads went to a folder named for the first row. I don't think that is, what it should do.
I think every row should download to a folder named for the subject of that row.

Problem 2
While downloads were running i changed "Main Download folder" and cleared the "Unrar Folder". (I know that this does not change the folders for the running downloads.)
I selected as above to test again but my new settings were ignored. The downloads went to the old setting and the rars were unpacked to the old unpack folder.
I waited until the downloads finished closed and started Newsbin. Then the "new" settings were used.
I think the settings should work instantly for new downloads.

Problem 3
In the download tab the first group of files were downloaded and were par-checked and unpacked. At the same time the next downloads in the list were downloaded, with par2 files paused. All the rows of a group (besides the pars) went to status "Downloaded" but the icon on the left side was not the green text-lines icon, it was a green circle with a white arrow in it. The status column of all that rows says [PAR: 0 of xxx]. Then Newsbin unpaused one after another all the other par2 files and was downloading them.
But it's unnecessary because there are no missing parts. The parts are not written to a file at that time. (Maybe in memory or in the chunks folder)

Problem 4
I get many chunks in the chunks folder. Yesterday I saw 35 GB in there. I think these are the unassembled parts.
I always had checked "Pre-allocate files. Improve performance for spinning disks"
I thought this would create the whole file first and then is filling the parts in that previously created file.
In my newsbin.ini I have a setting "ChunkCacheSize=4000". (I have Windows 7 64 bit with 32 GB RAM. Available RAM is least at 16 GB so Windows doesn't have to swap RAM to his swapfile.)

Problem 5
Sometimes Newsbin hangs and does nothing. Then the Chunk "Cache Cache Use State" at the bottom shows "Cache: 0/4000 (0)".
I saw that someone else in the forum had the same problem and he wrote he opened the Help menu and clicked on "About Newsbin Pro".
I've done that too and the cache size got back to 39xx/4000 and the download continued.
At the moment my downloads were running an I looked at to Cache Use State and it said 3600/4000. When I clicked "About Newsbin Pro" the size changed instantly to 3920/4000.
I think this could be a memory leak.

Problem 6
When all downloads are finished many of those chunk files are still there in the chunks folder. That could be the virus scanner. I will setup the virus scanner to ignore the complete Newsbin folder. Maybe it helps.

Problem 7
In every group i click on the column "Date:" so it sorts all rows, that the newest postings are at the bottom.
Nearly everytime when I download new headers some of the rows are not sorted.
I have to click 2 times so they are sorted again.
I have tested this with a group reset. I deleted files from July the second. Then I downloaded 50.000 posts (with special download).
Result was the posts of July the second were at the bottom of the group list.
Some time ago someone else reported such a problem and I think you (or someone else) wrote he should wait, Newsbin would sort them after some time.
I waited long enough, but Newsbin doesn't sort my groups. I always have to click 2 times on the Date column.

Problem 8
I started another download with a nzb file. I got four rows in the download tab. The first row only contained the rar files. Row two to four were par2 files for rar files. For example par2 row one contained repair information for the rar files 1-100. The second contained it for rar files 101-200 and thirs row contained pars2 files for the rest of the rars.)
I had such nzb's before and Newsbin handled them without errors. Well sometimes some of those par rows were not cleared from the download tab, but the unpacking worked.
This time all packed files were unpacked several times so some files were unpacked 6 times other only 3 times. It seems, maybe because of 3 par2 groups all these pars were unpacking again and again. I don't know why some files were unpacked six times and other only 3 times.
This time I had the Unrar path filled. I should test it without, if I'm able to do that (see above))
I can send you the nzb file for testing, if you want.

Problem 9
Yesterday I had a group open and it showed files for one month. I clicked on the button "Load older files into the list" but nothing happened.
I clicked several time but nothing happened. I clicked on "Display Age" and had chosen "16: May" and clicked on "Load older files..." and clicked on "Load newer files into the list". Again, I did this several times, but nothing happened. I also clicked on "Reload from Disk" but canceled that dialog. Then I wanted to try another Date from the "Display Age". It dropped down, while the blue progress bar at the bottom, was running to about half of the screen. Then the Newsbin gui stopped working, with a click on the windows, it was greyed/whited and Windows said program wouldn't answer. I saw in the download folders that the downloads were running fine, so I waited for completion. Then I had to kill the Newsbin process.
With no downloads running I just tried again:
"Display Age" box is showing "Display Age". Clicking on "Load Older files..." had no effect.
Then I chose "16: July" and the list of files got shorter. Clicked on "Load Older files...".
The blue progress bar appeared about to 40 % of the program width.
Now Newsbin hangs. The header shows Newsbin.ini - Newsbin Pro 6.71RC2 - Build 4740 (Keine Rückmeldung) Translates to "No response".
Rest of the program is white. Mouse has the hour glass icon.
Have to kill the process...

Problem 10
I don't know the exact version number but I think since 6.70B11 or 6.71B2 I very often get "Display Update Pending:..."
I never saw it with 6.62 and before. I don't think it's my computer, it's fast enough.

Problem 11
"Time to finish current downloads" at the bottom showed a wrong time. Maybe it counted the paused par2 files, but 10 seconds before the last rar file it said 18 minutes.
Then after the last downloaded rar it went to 28 minutes and then after a few seconds to 00:00:00 and the header of that group of files showed "[UnRAR] xx%: Completed"
I thought paused download were not counted to the finish download time. I think they shouldn't, they are paused a were not needed/downloaded.
This download had about 48 par2 files with 109.3 MB each. My download speed is about 6.2 MB/s. I calculated 14.1 minutes download time for the pars instead of 18, so I'm not sure if the paused par files were the reason.

Hope you can fix at least some of the problems.

But I could live with all those above problems, if you would error the downloads, which could not be unpacked to the original position, due to the too long path problem. (And of course the downloaded files shouldn't be deleted, so one can manually unpack then.) I know I've written all that before

It would be my personal priority, because all problems above doesn't corrupt the unpacked downloads.
I needed 6 hours to wrote this, so please don't be offended by my post. (I hope it's the correct translation)

All the best,
Calahan

#1 is just how it works. The problem is that sometimes what you want is what people want and sometimes it isn't. There's just no always correct answer.

You can do this though by adding $(SUBJECT) to the download path in the main options. Then just selecting the group of files and hitting enter, they'll all get unique paths.

#2, I can't reproduce.

- I added a file to download. It used the default path.
- I changed the path
- I added another file to download, it's using the new path.

NZB Files have their own download path. I'll bet you didn't change that one. Most people seem to want "$(NZBFILE) on the download path. So I automatically make a temporary NZB Download path. I expect in your case if you're using NZBs, you need to manually change the NZB Download path and not the download path to get what you want.

#3,4 - If you want it to wait for the unrar to finish before it moves on, in the performance options select select "Pause download during unrar/repair. This also explains why the chunks folder fills up, because it's downloading the chunks during the unrar/repair.

#5 - Don't know. I've never been able to make it lose chunks but I know at least 2 of you see this.

#6 - Newsbin always saves the first chunk of every downloaded file. They get purged automatically when they get older.

#7 - New headers are always sent to the bottom. People complained when the new headers were inserted on top causing the list to scroll.

#8 - Email me the NZB file. ts@newsbin.com and I'll look. What's happening I imagine is that Newsbin thinks a set is complete and it tries to unrar it but because part of the set is in another grouping, it's not actually complete. I imagine moving the the pars up would make it stop once it realizes if doesn't have all the par chunks.

#9 - looks like a legit bug. I'll check it out. Thanks.

#10 - Every now and then Newsbin has to go to disk to get information to display in the list. When it's doing that you see "pending".

You might want to check the size of the signature.db3 file in the data folder. Someone else who was also a heavy downloader was having "pending" problems and he resolved it mostly by deleting this file which had grown very large.


#11 - It's best effort. It doesn't know about stuff in the chunks folder that needs assembling for instance.

Appreciate the feedback.

I'm still thinking about the "don't unrar if the path is too deep" thing. It would have to be an options. It's probably not going to change for 6.71.

I sent you a link to a newer version in the other topic. I'd like to know if it's making the empty paths for you.

#1 It worked some months ago. I used it before, not daily, but from time to time. Every selected row went to a folder named for the subject.
If I need it again I'll try the workaround with $subject...

#2 I used the correct path settings, but as you saw in my other post, the path settings came from the databases. So now we both know the reason

#3,4 Selecting "Pause download during unrar/repair" would be a workaround, but I want performance. What I don't understand is, why the downloads are going to the chunk folder as chunks and not as downloaded files. in the download folder. Then Newsbin would see and count them to the par count ([PAR: x of y]) and wouldn't download all the unnecessary par files.
The rar's were downloaded but no files were written . I thought "Pre-allocate files. Improve performance for spinning disks" would do that.
What dows "Pre-allocate files. Improve performance for spinning disks" do?

#5 ok, it's not that often, so I can live with it. Should only be a heads-up for you.

#7 So the column shows that it's sorted upwards or downwards. But after another header load everyone have to click again 2 times on the column to get the correct sorting?
I don't think it should work so, but I can live with it

#9 You're welcome

Just saw another oddity: a Firefox download should download faster, so I clicked on the big "Pause the Download" button in Newsbin. Then I saw the first row in the download tab showed "[PAR Repair]" in the "Current Progress" column and the row beneath stopped downloading.
Then the upper row status went to [UnRAR] and the Pause-button was "auto unclicked" (auto-resumed) and the downloads continued. My "Use Pause Time-out: Resume Download after" is set to 30 minutes, so it was not this setting which resumed the downloads.

I again pressed the pause button about a minute before the unraring should be complete.
And after the unraring was complete Newsbin auto-resumed.
I think when a user activates "Use Pause Time-out: Resume Download after", only that time should auto-resume the downloads and not a complete autopar or unrar.

All the best,
Calahan

After installing the RC2. and doing a update ALL for my groups. any of the NEW updates I see ........ and no new list of items in my various groups.
Do I need to reset anything?

What did you upgrade from? Shouldn't have to do anything. Down in the "Cache" line do you see a number in parens?

Cache: X/Y (N)

Particularly interested in "N".

I again pressed the pause button about a minute before the unraring should be complete.
And after the unraring was complete Newsbin auto-resumed.
I think when a user activates "Use Pause Time-out: Resume Download after", only that time should auto-resume the downloads and not a complete autopar or unrar.

That makes sense. To make this work there will have to be multiple tiers of "pause".

Sorry, it's me again

It's the second time I got double postings (rar etc. grouped) in a binary group.
The reason could be, that I did a get new headers and the last posting (grouped) was incomplete.
Now a little later I did a group update again and I have two groups of the same posting (same time, same files etc.)

I deleted the last groups (including the doubles) did a reset to download age and downloaded 50.000 headers again.
Now there was only one grouped posting.

At the time when there were two postings, I saw that the first row (grouped) ended with a name xxx.r00 which was posted first, the second group found the last posted xxx.rar and made a group title with xxx.rar so I think, at that time the titles didn't match and a new (second) group was made.

I don't think it has something to do with my settings, but you never know...
I'm downloading headers from 2 servers and have set a posting overleap of 1000.

All the best,
Calahan

At the time when there were two postings, I saw that the first row (grouped) ended with a name xxx.r00 which was posted first, the second group found the last posted xxx.rar and made a group title with xxx.rar so I think, at that time the titles didn't match and a new (second) group was made.

I'd just ignore it. There's really only one set of files but because a partial set was reported during the header download, you see two but underneath it's only one. It's a function of file posting order. If you'd just reloaded the group, it would only show one (re-loaded, not re-downloaded).