rescan topic - watch list

[rh]

I've been away a few weeks how do I catch up? Search shows what I expect to be there, but the watch list does not have it. If I rescan topic for 15 days, I only get 173 posts. Using * as the search string. I thought this had worked before. Just recently updated to 6.80.

[Quade]

Are you using search or headers?

[rh]

ummm, well, a Watch Topic. I can see the last posts from 17 days ago - before I shut the system down. When I did a re-scan topic, it pulled in 197 posts for the past 17 days. Should have been in the tens of thousands.

So, headers I guess. When I use the search window for things I normally look for, I can see all of the things I would expect to see posted over the past few weeks. So the posts are all out there, I just can get the Watch Topic to pull those posts that occurred over the past 17 days.

Basically, what's the best method of getting a watch topic "caught up" when it's been OFF for a while. Like, how do I get a Watch Topic to "download latest headers"?

I suspect it will work OK from today forward, for new things, as it had been. Just trying to "catch up". In the meantime I started a download latest from the usual GOG (about 180 days since I last did that) and it's still going. So that's my fallback if I can't get Watch Topic caught up.

I had done this successfully only once before. But it was just for a few days - 3-4. I did a re-scan topic (using 5 days) and it did just what I had hoped/thought it would. Essentially it pulled in the headers that it would have had if I had left it running those few days.

[rh]

Also, in the Watch Topic, after doing the re-scan topic and with the filter profile dropdown set to 'none' in the view, sorted by date, I see the 17 day old posts from when I last had the system running, then almost 200 posts that were shown as 0d:00h:00m. So it did load "some" new posts. But somehow (this time) re-scan didn't seem to be able to go back 17 days.

[Quade]

Watch topics can use search or headers. Only you can know how it's actually set. The answer is different if it's headers or search. If it's headers, you need to have downloaded headers for the time span between that last time you downloaded headers and now.

It sounds like you haven't downloaded headers so, there's nothing new to scan.

[rh]

OH, sorry, finally occurred to me what you're asking. It's "search", Internet Search. That's the "source". I've used nothing but that since the first of the year.

[rh]

as I let it sit and run now, it's updating as normal, showing new things as they arrive. So the basic functionality seems intact and unchanged. Just don't know how to get it to move the needle back 17 days (and catch up) since I had it off for that long.

[Quade]

"Rescan" is just another search like the search tab. I have a watch list with the filter word being "blond" then I did a re-scan and got 747 days worth of results.

I'm not clear what to tell you. You could PM me some specifics about what you're searching for. Then I can try it.

[rh]

When you did that re-scan, how many Scan Days did you specify? I was only interested in 17 so that's what I supplied.

Also, in mine Pick Topic is a GOG. A GOG which gets a significant amount of traffic.

[Quade]

These days GOG's aren't nearly as useful as they used to be. People are posting to random groups now. Just something to think about.

I'd try it without the GOG then try it with the scan age set longer and see what happens.

[rh]

Ok, excellent point! Was just being conservative but again your point is right on point! So, no more GOG, used * and 20 days. Still weird results. Looking at the list sorted by date, there is a "hole".

It's like all newsgroup traffic ceased for 17 days and there is really a 17 day hole out there. Which we know is not true.

In the post list (again sorted by date) there are a bunch of posts 20 days (and older) and at the end of the 20 day series the very next post is 3 days old. Scroll down from there and get to 0 days old.

So a 17 day hole.

Created a brand new Watch Topic. Using *, 100Mb min, All Groups. Re-scan 20 days, 421 hits.
Changed Watch Topic. Using *, All Groups. Re-scan 20 days, 9072 hits.

In both cases, the posts all show 0d:00h:00m

6.8 5058

[rh]

and after a few days Watch Topics is mostly not working anymore. Some posts that regular search finds just are not showing up. I can see the polling in the log window. Similar to the problem I had before that we attributed to groups being spammed and my search window of 4 hours. But I've got that set to 30 min now.

[Quade]

Does your watch topic have a GOG set to it?

Only you can tell if the GOG will still work. If you do a search and look at the group listed, if it's not in your GOG, it's not going to be included in the watch.

[rh]

No GOG anymore, as you suggested on Monday and I implemented (described above) on Tuesday.

So, let me ask this. If I find a post, via internet search, and it's say 4 days old. Then, I open up my watch topic (or even create a new one) and re-scan for 10 days, in theory, that post from the initial internet search should be there in the watch topic, right? Because it's not. It's almost like Watch Topic has some mechanism that makes it think it's seen some posts and does not retrieve them again even with a re-scan.

Several months ago I was away for a while, did the re-scan, got the expected results, and thought I knew what to do next time since it actually pulled in the posts (into the Watch Topic) that had occurred since I left. But that's no longer working. Including the simple test I just described.

[Quade]

Right click "Post Storage/Delete Stored Posts" will clean out the watch so you can see exactly what returned. "Hide Old" can hide posts.

A rescan is the same as a search so, my gut feeling is that you have some filtering on that watch topic that doesn't exist when you do a plain search.