Problem with resume downloads when open NB again

[fischli]

I have an real annoying problem since my update to 6.xx.
I have had a download list with some RAR sets for downloading from NZB files, some with PAR files some without. First it works great. NB have loaded the RAR sets and if there are some PAR files for this set, they have been marked "paused" and newsbin has continued with the next RAR set (automatically autoRAR disabled, autoPAR not disabled ), exactly as I want it to do. So far so good. Then I closed newsbin for a few hours, with some sets already finished downloading, one RAR set downloaded about half, and some still waiting for download on the list.

When I was starting NB again to finish the downloads, it loaded the download list with all files (finished files or waiting files), downloaded a few hundred bites of each RAR or PAR set of the whole list and stops. Nothing happens anymore. Even the already downloaded RAR sets showed empty progress bars now.

I closed NB after 15 minutes and started it again, but same procedure. So I have put NB in the background do do some other stuff, but was checking NB from time to time, but minutes after minutes no progress. Suddenly, after a few hours, when I checked it again I saw NB has started to finish the half loaded RAR set again, and has set the old downloaded RAR sets to the correct download status in the progress bar. It finished now all the downloads on the list properly.

And now NB always need sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, to continue after I closed down NB with a old unfinished download list. NB 5.xx on my laptop, still works fine, it not seems to be a server problem.

That`s only if I start NB with an old download list. If I delete the download list before I close NB and make a new one (even with the old files, or with new files), after starting NB again, it works fine.


By the way there was all the time no error entry in the logging list, no entry at all except this one: " HIGH - High Speed File Creation Mode: Enabled"

[Ribble]

Download List, "Move Items To The Top" icon, restarts a download for me, even if already at the top of the list.

[itimpi]

There is a difference in behavior on restarting Newsbin between v5 and v6.

In v5 status information was stored within each download file so that on a restart NB could immediately get the state of files. This information was written out immediately as NB did no memory caching/ However maintaining this status information was proving to be a bottleneck in performance when downloading at high speed.

With v6 NB this status information is not written to disk. Instead NB does memory caching until it can write a file out to disk. On restart v6 instead starts grabbing the first chunk of every file. If that is the same as the file already on disk it can assume that file ahs already been downloaded. It can therefore take v6 a while to catch up to where it was, and there is the download overhead of re-downloading the first chunk of each file. This is inherent in the way it currently handles this. Whether Quade can come up with a way to make the restart better without impacting performance in the high-speed download cases I am not sure.

[fischli]

Hello Ribble

I tried to move files, still waiting for download, on top of the list (and NB indeed moves this files on top, but not start the download of this file), I tried it also with "retry download" to reactivate the download process but it did n`t work too.

itimpi:

I understand this behavior of NB 6, and it`s maybe OK if there are not too much files or RAR sets in the download list. In my case I had maybe about 20 RAR sets with about 100 single RAR and/or PAR files each (that`s not very much I think), and it was for sure much more than 1 hour until starting the real download process. This is not normal even for this way to handle the download list. Re-downloading the first chunk of each file works pretty fast, maybe 1 minute only, but then happens nothing anymore for a long time.
I don`t know what happens inside NB between downloading this first chunks, and starting the real download( when NB compares the chunks with the files in the download folder). But I think at this "verifying process" of the chunks, or at least one of the chunks, NB maybe get a "variable" that is out of it`s "variable limits" and make to stop NB or slow it down so extremely, that it looks like a stop (sorry, I have only very, very basic skills of programming).

I just tried to delete all the database files for the download list before I set up a new small download list, but when I close NB after it started downloading some MB of data and restarted it again, I had the same problem ( I was waiting 15-20 minutes before I broke up this test). Maybe I remove NB and all its data folders completely and re install it again. I use most time NZB files, so its not a big deal to loose the headers and groups and the configuration.

I also want to tell some general ideas about NB 6:
I saw that NB 6.xx do n`t use chunk folders within the download folders anymore. I think this was a good feature, should be implemented again. Also in my opinion the options slowly getting too much for most normal users like me. Its sometimes difficult to imagine what effect a combination of switches will have on NB`s behavior, especially if you are not native English .

Oh, I remember that I wanted to complain about the newest 6.01 B1. There is no way to chose the language at setup. My 6.00 with German language was replaced by a English version . I extra re installed it again to see if I missed this option, but no, there is nothing to choose. I normally not use beta software but I thought maybe this new release solves my problem, I was wrong.

[dexter]

Oh, I remember that I wanted to complain about the newest 6.01 B1. There is no way to chose the language at setup. My 6.00 with German language was replaced by a English version . I extra re installed it again to see if I missed this option, but no, there is nothing to choose. I normally not use beta software but I thought maybe this new release solves my problem, I was wrong.

Language selection is turned off until the beta gets closer to final release. The new options will need to be translated.