Par gets confused and stops processing

[shEiD]

I am getting same problem over and over again, every day:
I usually leave altbinz over night with a long download queue. Settings are to unrar for the most of the files. Now these are mainly big downloads (x264 HD movies). And every morning I find the same thing - at some point par got confused and it got stuck. In the last set, where it got stuck, it won't recognize the files that was downloaded. I mean the files ARE downloaded and ARE complete, just par doesn't seem to "register" them, and it just sits there stuck. No other downloads and their respective pars sets, that have been downloaded after that "stuck" set, has been added to par's processing queue.
I have a fairly fast line: 30mbps, so every morning I find >100GB of downloaded files, that I need to par check and unrar manualy. That kinda blows the main altbinz purpose to bits...

Before I had another problem with those ".xxxxxx" files hoging the hdd and getting stuck this way. Not lately. Now I havent got any ".xxxxxx" files in quite some time, but pretty much always get aforementioned problem.

My relevant specs are: Q6600,  CORSAIR XMS2 2GB, SATA 3.0Gb/s Hdd.

Please, what can I do to fix this problem?
I read someone asked for an option like "pause download" while par-repairing/unraring. I agree, that maybe this would be the solution, as it very much feels, that altbinz can't "cope" with a fast download speeds and gets lost after some time. From watching altbinz "at work" I see, that par queue doesn't get updated, while its repairing/unraring. It would seem logical, that if it needs to repair and unrar a big (~15GB) set, it downloads a huge amount in that time, hence thats where it may get "confused". Let's say, I've got a full Blu-ray (~40GB) which is incomplete (needs to be repaired and unrared) and right after this in download queue I've got some sitcom series episodes (~ 180MB). In my experience thats a %100 disaster scenario, as there probably will be >100 epsiodes (other pars sets) downloaded in the time par thread was busy with previous repairing and unraring tasks. I am %100 sure the par queue won't get correctly updated after finished with that Blu-ray set, and I'm not even talking, if some of those episodes are incomplete and needs processing themselves.

Altbinz is a nearly perfect tool, thats why I love it and donated. But, from an extended experience I would say:
release sizes in download queue, completion, unrar/not ---> altbinz smooth workflow
small/complete/not ---> perfect
small/complete/unrar -> good
small/incomplete/not -> good
small/incomplete/unrar -> potential trouble
big/complete/not ---> perfect
big/complete/unrar -> potential trouble
big/incomplete/not -> potential trouble
big/incomplete/unrar -> certain trouble


Thanks in advance.

[noons]

Well par2/unrar is a much slower task then downloading files at that speed. Are you using the multicore par2 files to help speed the process up?

Also on my laptop which is a slow computer with usually a fast connection my laptop itself cant keep up with the downloading decoding and par2 checking/repairing. Not a fault of altbinz just more the computers speed and I have seen the same issue with all programs. My soultion was I usually set the par2/unrar on low priority. I dont have this problem on my desktop at home though since thats on a slower connection 6mbps and overall is a much faster machine.

[shEiD]

Yes, I have Par2cmdline 0.4 Multicore v0.4d
The problem I described is not with pc being underpowered, as I'm pretty sure with quadcore cpu and multicore par, the only slow factor is HDD transfer rate. But thats beyond the point, as it is not the solution to stripe hdds, just to solve a software bug. After all, the problem is with download speed being too fast for altbinz to cope with it.
I remember newsleecher had some sort of "pausing threads" or somesuch, when decoding was getting left behind (I dont use newsleecher anymore from the time I found altbinz  )
That is what I'm talking about. Or maybe some kind of additional foolproofing scan of the downloaded files list, just to pick up all the new par2 files, that have been downloaded during the "busy repairing/unraring" time. And I'm not even sure, what is that about when par does't see the downloaded files, when it gets stuck. I have a feeling it is related, as it seems, par thread simply missed those files, and is "awaiting" for them to be downloaded, even though they already have been. From my completely uneducated point of view, I would say it has everything to do with how was all the "par triggering" coded. How and when par gets triggered to add new set / recheck / repair / unrar. I'm not even sure: is it par2.exe that does the unraring too?
I'm sorry, I'm not a coder and thats pretty much the only way I can express what I mean, as I've no knowledge about programing, except some basic scripting I have done here and there.

[davidq666]

...
From watching altbinz "at work" I see, that par queue doesn't get updated, while its repairing/unraring.
...

i have experienced simular when nzb play stalls because of missing file parts. i usualy remove the par and put it back in for checking and normal unrar. but if its a big set and the checking takes to long it misses parts downloaded meanwhile...

[EyeBaller]

An option to "recheck par2" would work as a manual fix. When you right click a downloaded item in the par2 tab you get the choice of importing a par or unraring a set, but not to recheck.

Could this be added?

[davidq666]

well that wouldn't be much better than now since delting and importing is nearly as fast... if there would be somthing to do about this second problem the most logical would be to have alt.binz automatically rechecks an stalled (incomplete data) or manualy ended nzb play par2... but even that wouldn't eliminate the problem of the threadstarter it seems

[Watcher]

shEiD, this is happening to me as well...

High speed download that outstrips my PC's ability to process (decode, par2, unrar). Last (or next to last) item in PAR2 tab won't recognize files that exist complete in download dir (running par2 manually shows that). Subsequent *.par2 files from subsequent collections do not get added to the PAR2 tab. Another thing that happens to me in this situation is selecting the last PAR2 item in the PAR2 tab followed by "delete" does not process the delete and I cannot then do anything else with the PAR2 tab (cleanup, etc.).

The only "fix" I've found is some combination of doing par2 manually with QuickPAR, exiting the program and re-executing it, and manually deleting the par2info.abz in the misc subdirectory.

[davidq666]

shEiD, this is happening to me as well...

High speed download that outstrips my PC's ability to process (decode, par2, unrar). Last (or next to last) item in PAR2 tab won't recognize files that exist complete in download dir (running par2 manually shows that). Subsequent *.par2 files from subsequent collections do not get added to the PAR2 tab. Another thing that happens to me in this situation is selecting the last PAR2 item in the PAR2 tab followed by "delete" does not process the delete and I cannot then do anything else with the PAR2 tab (cleanup, etc.).

The only "fix" I've found is some combination of doing par2 manually with QuickPAR, exiting the program and re-executing it, and manually deleting the par2info.abz in the misc subdirectory.

i noticed that too