6.60 beta 5 stops downloading

[RayMark]

I had to return back to 6.60 beta 3, because beta 5 stopped downloading multiple times. Closing and restarting of Newsbin is needed when it stops downloading. Nothing else helps.

Quite possibly the problem is related to specific corrupt headers, though:
This situation occurs after numerous "no such article" messages, and I have somewhat corrupt headers in some groups, it seems.
Some time ago I scanned the same headers from a different server when they were already present, and for some reason I have posts duplicated in the group pane, instead of merged together.
It seems that those posts now expired on one of the servers.

So here what happens:

6.60 beta 5: after multiple "no such article" messages Newsbin simply stops downloading anything, even other correct posts. Downloading is possible in small increments by restarting Newsbin multiple times.
6.60 beta 3: duplicate files are downloaded, one copy is OK, the other copy is incomplete (I was using bypass filters option). Multiple "no such article" messages are also occurring , but they do not cause NewsBin to stop downloading.

[Quade]

I was looking at this yesterday. No conclusions but, a couple bug fixes in this area so, we'll have to see.

6.60 beta 5: after multiple "no such article" messages Newsbin simply stops downloading anything, even other correct posts. Downloading is possible in small increments by restarting Newsbin multiple times.

I'm seeing nothing like this. With my setup. I'm getting 100% 430's and the backup servers are the only reason the download continues.

[Quade]

When this happens, does the chunk counter ("(X/Y)" on the status bar), go to zero?

[RayMark]

I will try beta 6 first and either it fixed the problem or I will look for those X/Y values, I assume there is no need to try beta 5 again. Beta 3 does not stop downloading. I missed beta 4, never tried it.

Although my screwed up headers look the same with all of them - for some reason duplicated posts, identical lines, even if I try to download only one of them, both are downloaded anyway. But they are not combined into one and collapsed.
BTW, sometimes I encounter also combined posts, they can be expanded and contain two seemingly identical lines as well. But my problem was with duplicated non-combined lines, I somehow got them after downloading the same headers from a different server. And it seems that from one of those servers they later partially expired.

[RayMark]

I got several times this (or similar) problem with 6.60 beta 7: it stops downloading until I close and restart it.
So the chunk counter each time is this:

cache: 0/200

after restarting it is 200/200

But after restarting the posts in the download list are shown only as "Display Update Pending", so I have to delete them and add again.
Hm, perhaps deleting all the posts from the list and adding them again would work even without restarting Newsbin? I will try the next time.
I can only tell that adding new posts to the download list even at the top of the list does not work - still nothing is being downloaded.

[Quade]

"Display Update Pending",

This might mean these files are already in the failed list. Might want to check it.

[RayMark]

Unlikely, but I will check when it happens again.

Meanwhile, I have a bit different problem, both with beta 7 and beta 5, but not with beta 3.
Newsbin crashes, and after restart it shows a number of "Display update pending" lines in the download list and nothing happens. For several minutes. Until I run out of patience, because Newsbin does not indicate that it does anything.
If I try to close it, it closes with significant delay too. If I delete those "Display Update Pending" lines, after restarting they are back again - each time. And again nothing happens.
If I wait, nothing happens. If I delete those lines and add posts again - nothing happens. Post do not show up in the download list. Just empty download list.

Anyway, I had similar things with beta 5. Now with beta 7. In both cases switching back to beta 3 solves the problem immediately. After starting beta 3 "Display Update Pending" lines also show up, but for 1 second only. They are immediately resolved into specific posts and downloading begins without any delay.

But even with beta 3 sometimes "Display Update Pending" lines or specific posts appear multiple times in the download list, and "Display Update Pending" lines remain in such cases even when download ends.
In other words, adding a post generates more than one line, several of them resolved, others remaining as "Display Update Pending". When downloading, the progress indicator moves on such multiple lines (the ones that were resolved) in sync and after the download is complete, the "Display Update Pending" lines remain in the download list.

This whole approach with "Display Update Pending" perhaps was not necessary, especially with 64-bit NewsBin. Before, even with thousands of items in the download list everything was working fine, except that the last items were not downloaded, if some number was exceeded - still, it was possible to move them up to get downloaded. Not sure, if this issue was eliminated by the new approach.

[Quade]

Anyway, I had similar things with beta 5. Now with beta 7. In both cases switching back to beta 3 solves the problem immediately. After starting beta 3 "Display Update Pending" lines also show up, but for 1 second only. They are immediately resolved into specific posts and downloading begins without any delay.

Biggest difference I'd say is that the later versions are checking the DB's. What I think is happening is that the downloadsv2 is checked and the download records counted, then the downloaded.db3 is getting checked and that takes time. In that time, nothing is servicing the rendering requests for the download list.

If you want to verify that. Delete the downloaded.db3 before starting B7. See what happens.

[RayMark]

Ok.
Meanwhile, after using beta 3 I again switched to beta 7 and now it is working fine, after beta 3 handled those "Display Pending Lines" - resolved them and downloaded.

Anyway, it would be great if you could show some indication that Newsbin is doing something, that it is actually checking the DB, etc. A progress indicator - even better. As it is now, nothing is shown even in the log.

[Quade]

If it takes more than 20 seconds, it's a problem to solve. I'm thinking that I'm going to remove the checks and deliver a DB maintenance tool with the install so, you can check/compact the files out of band.