Incomplete files

[ELSIE8888]

This program is awesome and is almost perfect - if I can get it to do what I want!

I am new and I am using v 0.32.1 in Win XP SP3.

I have googled & search your forum on how to manage partial files but I still have problems - if I have missed a help post/discussion on this topic please point me in the right direction & I apologize for wasting your time. I am also not a programmer so I might get confused if it gets too technical.

The problems I have is that:
- I download many nzb files from NZBIndex with incomplete rar's that cannot be repaired by alt.binz (when verified with QuickPar) eg prmo28D.par2
  [NZBIndex is the only site I can search for any files with a certain size eg 2.5Gb to 50Gb]
- when I search & re-download the more complete nzb file from Binsearch (as verified with QuickPar after re-downloading with NZB-O-MaticPlus), alt.Binz seems to create additional files with a suffix *.1 or *.2 depending on how many times I try to re-download but these additional files are also incomplete and alt.binz still does not have enough blocks to repair
- I cannot find a setting in alt.binz to overwrite the partial rar files with the complete rar files
- par2 repair & unrar does not occur immediately and seems to wait a long time after I have downloaded all the repair blocks
- par2 files under the par2 tab does not delete unless the unrar or all the downloads are completed

[ELSIE8888]

Sorry, forgot to add:

I use GigaNews.

I just checked & found that NZB-O-MaticPlus is also encountering errors with the nzb file from Binsearch but it seems to download complete rar's (when verified with QuickPar) [see log below] which alt.binz cannot seem to do.  [I would like to get alt.binz working so I can change to Win 7 x64bit - NZB-O-MaticPlus is not compatible]

- 16/11/2010 05:28:06 - Article decoded succesfully: prmo28D.part121.rar
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:53 - news.giganews.com,119,6 failed 4ab203a6$0$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:53 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:51 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab20390$0$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:51 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:44 - news.giganews.com,119,4 failed 4ab20576$0$6622$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:44 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:20 - news.giganews.com,119,4 failed 4ab20498$0$6622$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:20 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:18 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab20464$0$6622$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:18 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
- 16/11/2010 05:27:07 - Article decoded succesfully: prmo28D.part120.rar
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:06 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab203e5$1$6622$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:06 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:05 - news.giganews.com,119,8 failed 4ab203cf$1$6622$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:27:05 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:59 - news.giganews.com,119,1 failed 4ab20385$0$6622$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:59 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:43 - news.giganews.com,119,8 failed 4ab2031e$0$6630$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:43 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:40 - news.giganews.com,119,4 failed 4ab202f9$1$6630$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:40 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:24 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab2024e$1$6630$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:24 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:22 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab20238$0$6630$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:22 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
- 16/11/2010 05:26:22 - Article decoded succesfully: prmo28D.part119.rar
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:21 - news.giganews.com,119,4 failed 4ab20231$0$6630$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:26:21 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:56 - news.giganews.com,119,6 failed 4ab20359$6$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:56 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:55 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab20352$3$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:55 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:54 - news.giganews.com,119,5 failed 4ab20343$5$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:54 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:51 - news.giganews.com,119,4 failed 4ab20307$4$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:51 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:44 - news.giganews.com,119,2 failed 4ab202cc$1$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:44 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:41 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab202ae$1$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:41 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
- 16/11/2010 05:25:31 - Article decoded succesfully: prmo28D.part118.rar
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:30 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab20238$3$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:30 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:30 - news.giganews.com,119,1 failed 4ab20229$3$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:30 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:28 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab20222$1$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:28 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:26 - news.giganews.com,119,3 failed 4ab201fd$3$6629$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:26 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:02 - news.giganews.com,119,5 failed 4ab20329$0$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:25:02 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:59 - news.giganews.com,119,4 failed 4ab20303$0$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:59 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:53 - news.giganews.com,119,2 failed 4ab202c0$0$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:53 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:45 - news.giganews.com,119,8 failed 4ab20261$0$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:45 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:39 - news.giganews.com,119,1 failed 4ab20217$0$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:39 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:37 - news.giganews.com,119,1 failed 4ab20201$2$6628$2d805a3e@uploadreader.eweka.nl [article problem]
[e] - 16/11/2010 05:24:37 - Failed to retrieve article body with code: 430

[Jesus]

Which Giganews plan?  The cheaper Giganews plans have only 30 days retention.

[ELSIE8888]

I am on the GigaNews Platinum plan with unlimited download & 830 days retention - very good newsgroup/news server that I have been with for yrs. Completion is usually complete and I think it was the nzb files that were corrupt from NZBIndex

[ELSIE8888]

I think I have discovered the solution to 1 of my problems.

I changed the settings in Setup/ Connection/ [423,430] Article not found/[502]/Retry count to a high number eg 999 in my case and now all the rar files are complete even with nzb files from NZBIndex.

Woo Hoo! that is 1 problem solved!  Now if only I can figure out how to get AB to overwrite downloaded files... and ...

[Hecks]

I doubt this has fixed your 'probem', and in any case is quite unwise. You want Alt.Binz to follow it's standard behaviour: if it can't find articles, it should retry a couple of times, and if they still can't be found should finish yEnc decoding and save the incomplete file. Only then can Alt.Binz download the par2s and attempt a repair of the file.  Setting retry count so high means repair will never (in effect) be attempted, and your temp folder and queue will become clogged with undecoded files.

[ELSIE8888]

I was using a default setting and I ended up with a bunch of incomplete files and with too many missing blocks & not enough parity blocks for par2 to repair.

Now by increasing the retries, I have complete files with virtually no need for repair - can't really complain about this!

So if I reduce the number of retries I get build up of undecoded files VS increasing the retries and I get a build up of undecoded files. This is a difficult dilemma! Is there a solution?

What is a reasonable number of retries? Maybe I will reduce the number of retries and I will check whether there is a build up of undecoded files.

I have been using NZB-O-MaticPlus v0.52 and it seems to automatically get the complete file or if there are really missing blocks it will download the partial file and move on. I am not a programmer but can you see how this program does it and can it be incorporated into alt.binz.

[Rdl]

How about setting retry count to 10 with 1 min delay?

[ELSIE8888]

Thanks. I will try this.

Any chance putting in some default setting buttons for various complicated controls for the newbies? Because I have no idea what I am doing with some of these controls

[Rdl]

Nothing complicated there:

Server responds on article with "430 Article not found"
Altbinz will retry that article 10 times with 1min delay between retries.
If it fails it will declare that article missing and will move on.

[Jesus]

In testing that particular post on Giganews, I haven't been able to get a 430 response even once.  Giganews always sends each article on the first try, 100% of the time.  It makes no sense to me how a 'bad NZB file' would result in code 430 responses that are completed by retries.

[Rdl]

In testing that particular post on Giganews, I haven't been able to get a 430 response even once.  Giganews always sends each article on the first try, 100% of the time.  It makes no sense to me how a 'bad NZB file' would result in code 430 responses that are completed by retries.

Not sure about giga, but it happens on other providers.

Astra 2 days ago comes to my mind at first.

Also I remember newshosting having similar problem last time I was with them (2-3 years ago)

[zoned]

https://www.altbinz.net/forum/index.php?topic=3310.msg13911 i had similar problem as advised in that thread, i have left it at zero for retries and never had the problem since.

Also with above if one server has the need rar parts grab them and download them to same diretory. Use same name for download as the first nzb you saved. Then it should complete without needing par repair. Since par repair depends on how many bad parts there is and if has enough data blocks to repair the bad rar parts.

[Hecks]

https://www.altbinz.net/forum/index.php?topic=3310.msg13911 i had similar problem as advised in that thread, i have left it at zero for retries and never had the problem since.

No:

set your retry count to lower or zero (Setup -> Connection)

The OP in this case needs 'lower' not zero.

[ELSIE8888]

Ok Rdl,

I tried your settings and it works perfectly too - obviously! I was a fool to doubt you. But I noticed that several rar parts would linger at 98%-99% before completing decoding though not quite for 1 min as we would expect.

So from this I can only conclude that with my setting of 999 retries & 0 min interval, AB is retrying 999 times very very quickly with no delays before giving up which would be very quick I suspect but not actually 0 min in total because each retry would take a small but finite time.

I have also concluded that the only bad setting is when retry is set at 0 & this gives me a lot of incomplete files that are too incomplete to be repaired. Maybe my internet connection is bad but at least now I have a solution.

Thank you zoned, since everything is working out with Rdl's suggestion, I haven't had to try your fix but I thank you anyway for your time and effort.

I am going to run AB for a while to test its reliability and whether it will save me time (which I definitely think it will). If it works out, I will definitely make another donation!

Thank you everybody all your help! Very much appreciated.