Deleting and re-adding a group

[dane]

HI All

I'm running N/B 6.56 build 3339 on a windows 7 machine. Sometimes in working with a group with a very large number of headers, if I delete many of them at once my system will be overwhelmed and that group will act strangely thereafter. I've found that sometimes the best solution is to delete the group, and after closing N/B delete its file folder from the spool folder.

Then I restart N/B and re-add the group. I've got my download age set to 1 and my display age set to 8, yet when I d/l latest headers for the newly added group, I get 8 days of headers, not 1 - which is way too many headers to d/l or process at once. Am I missing a step or doing something wrong? How can I delete a group and than re-establish it as if it were a new group and only d/l 1 day of headers?

Thanks for the help,
DaDane

[Quade]

If one day's worth is some small number of headers, Newsbin will default to 100,000 headers I believe. A tiny number by most groups these days.

What group is it?

[dane]

It's alt.binaries.boneless - which is huge but if you keep after it it's manageable. I had set the new groups to one day, but got 8 days which in the d/l window was 70 million. Of course not that many were actually d/led (I don't think) but still the 8 day total was tremendous.

[dane]

HI Quade

You seem to have lost interest after I mentioned a.b.boneless, but it's not the group that's my problem. If I add a.b.dvdr, the groups tab says it has "never" been d/led. If I right click it and choose "download latest headers", I expect 1 day of headers 'cause that's my setting for "download age."

When I did this, the oldest post d/led was 306 days old. For some reason, the download age setting seems to not be taking hold. Am I misunderstanding the use of download age?


Dane

[Quade]

I'd try it with 6.60/6.61 and tell me if it's working or not.

There were some changes in how it's done since 6.56. It should work the way you expect it to.

[dane]

Thanks for the reply. I downloaded 6.6 and after installing it added a.b.automobiles.carshows expecting 1 day of activity - that's my setting for download age. Downloaded content ranges from 12 days to 2,132 days old. The download age setting seems to not be working at all. Thought it might be downloading all, but deleted the group and re-added it,then chose download all - content ranged from 12 days to 2368 days.

Sorry to be a pain,
Dane

[Quade]

That's a tiny group. Newsbin doesn't even try to age limit tiny groups. Try it on a large group. I use this mode all the time and it works for me.

Right click a normal group "Post Storage/Use Download Age" then double-click the group. Or right click "Post Storage/Delete Stored Posts" if you want to clear the deck.

I've had some people hit "Download all Headers" and expect it to range limit it to download age. Just keep in mind that "All" means All with no age limits.

[dane]

Yes! That worked! I never thought you had to use the "post storage/use download age" - I thought it was invoked automatically. This probably would have worked in the older version I was using as well. Sorry for the bother.

While I have your attention, I was surprised to see incomplete posts in my filtered groups - they have in the past been screened out. However, as long as they were there, I tried to download one - and n/b worked it until it was complete and d/led the completed file. Pretty neat.

Thanks,
Dane

[Quade]

es! That worked! I never thought you had to use the "post storage/use download age" - I thought it was invoked automatically. This probably would have worked in the older version I was using as well. Sorry for the bother.

Downloading headers from a large groups is SO much data. Gigabytes of data, that Newsbin will try to avoid downloading headers you already have. "Download Age" works the first time you visit a group but, once you start downloading headers, it keeps track of where it is in the group and always downloads from that point forward. "Use Download Age" resets this to treat the group like it's new without deleting the data you've already downloaded.