Switching to Alt.Binz

[h8uthemost]

Hey everyone,

I'm still kind of new to Usenet and newsgroups. I've been using them for about two months, so I don't know everything there is to know yet. So please bare with me.

Ok, I've been using NewsLeecher. But, since I really only use NZB's, a friend of mine said I should try Alt.Binz, that it's the best reader out there. So I tried it out, and I'm really liking it. So I think I'm going to switch.

Now, one of the biggest things I liked about NewsLeecher was it's Repair'n'Extract tab. Now, I'm just now learning about PAR files. So correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only repair the same number of corrupted files of a download if you have that same number of PAR files? So, if you have 20 corrupted or missing files in a download, but the download only came with 10 PAR's, then you can't fix that whole download?

Ok, so what I'm getting at is I downloaded a game the other night with NewsLeecher that was 165 days old. And about 90% of the download was corrupted. And the download only came with maybe 5 PAR files. So, I didn't have enough PAR's to repair the whole download. So...in NewsLeecher all you do is open up the download in the Repair'n'Extract tab. Then, you right click on any of those corrupted files and click Find in Super Search>General Category> then pick a day. Which I usually picked Max 200 days.

Then NewsLeecher would automatically start downloading all the PAR's that I needed. And for that particular game, NewsLeecher downloaded a TON of PAR's.

So, I was looking in Alt.Binz, and I don't see a feature like this. Where Alt.Binz will automatically download the missing PAR's that you need. This is kind of a concern for me. So what do I do in this case? Would I just go to a NZB site and try to find the missing PAR's, download them and open them in Alt.Binz? I"m not sure how to achieve in Alt.Binz what I achieved in Newsleeher, since I"m just learning about PAR's.

So yeah, that's the question that I have. I'm not the best at explaining things, so I hope everyone understands what I'm trying to ask.

Thank you for any and all help. I"ll really appreciate it.

[Hecks]

It's unclear to me why you didn't add the PARs to your queue with the original NZB.  If configured correctly (see the Wiki), Alt.Binz will pause all PARs in the queue, and will automatically unpause only the ones that are needed to repair a file.  More PARs available?  Just search and add them to your queue to download to the same folder as the RARs (if needed).

Note that PARs repair parts of files in pre-determined 'blocks'.  You can see how many potential blocks may be repaired by totalling the numbers at the end of the filenames.  So you only need to worry about how many blocks you have missing or corrupt (which you can see on the PAR2 tab).  It's up to the poster how many are covered, and the figure is always set as a percentage.  Typically this will be 10% of the whole, so anything over 90% complete can usually be repaired fine.  But this varies depending on your source.  As usual with Usenet, it makes sense to stick with reliable groups and posters, you can waste a lot of time with n00b or iND posts.

More general info about newsgroups and PARs here:

http://www.slyck.com/ng.php

[h8uthemost]

Thanks for all the info Hecks. I read the sticky at the top of this board on the PAR section. And Slyck's guide is actually where I found out and learned what I know about PAR's/

Just search and add them to your queue to download to the same folder as the RARs (if needed).

So yeah, I guess this is still my question. If more PAR's are needed to repair the file, then where do I search for them? Do I search on a NZB site like Newzleech? This is what I"m a little stuck on. Since I'm used to NewsLeecher, and that reader would search and get the missing PAR's for me.

Thank you for your help. I appreciate you taking your time to explain what you did.

[Hecks]

Well, last time I used Newsleecher (3.9b8) it didn't actually search & automatically download 'extra' PARs, just searched against the filenames, and then you could add the results to the queue or not, so the process is the same apart from the right-click.  Or maybe it's changed? 

In any case, if the PARs are to be found when searching, then really the best thing to do is always add all the PARs you find to the NZB when you originally make it (since they're added paused anyway, you're not wasting any bandwidth).  Unless you're getting your NZBs from some other source, and for some reason the PARS are being left out?  And yes, Newzleech and Binsearch are (free) alternatives to SuperSearch, although of course if you have a license you can use that with Alt.Binz too (NLSS tab). 

[h8uthemost]

I was using 3.9 Final of Newsleecher. I'm not sure where the reader got the PAR's, but you would just right click on the broken file, and search in Super Search, then the reader would automatically start downloading them. But of course, I could be completely wrong about that, since I still don't totally understand PAR's yet.

I tried doing what the Quick Startup Guide for Alt.Binz suggested. Towards the bottom of the wiki it says to test that the PAR repair is working, delete a file from the download. Once I did that one of the paused PAR's from the bottom moved to the top. Then I just unpaused it and automatically filled in the missing PAR. So I guess I"m good to go.

It's just that in Slycks guide, in the PAR section, it says there is a limit of files that you can reconstruct. The limit is the amount of PAR files that were posted for the archive.

So, with the game that I mentioned in my first post, there were way more broken files than there were PAR's that came with the download. So this is what I'm concerned about in Alt.Binz. Since it seemed like Newsleecher automatically downloaded the rest of the missing PAR's(the ones that didn't come with the download) from somewhere for me, when I told it to.

I guess I"ll just redownload this same game in Alt.Binz, and see what it does.

[Hecks]

Again, it's the amount of blocks that's important, not number of files.  The PARS are created to cover all of the files in the e.g. RAR file set up to the percentage parity.  The PAR2 tab and your Log will always show whether you have enough repair blocks to fix your damaged or missing files or file parts.

For instance, if you have these PAR2s:

stuff.vol00+01.par2   
stuff.vol01+02.par2   
stuff.vol03+04.par2   
stuff.vol07+08.par2

That's 15 total repair blocks covering the 'stuff' RAR set.  So you can repair 15 RAR files each with one block missing or corrupt, or 3 files each with 5 blocks missing or corrupt, or 1 file with 15 blocks missing or corrupt, etc.

[h8uthemost]

Ok, after reading a little more about PAR2's, I've gotten a little more of an understanding. Thanks for explaining the blocks Hecks. A combination of you and reading Slycks guide, and also reading a QuckPar guide, I have a much better understanding of PAR2 files now. Thank you for sticking with my ignorance.

So, I tried downloading a game that is 165 days old, and I figured would have a ton of broken blocks. And it did. So, this is a 532mb game. Alt.Binz said it was finished downloading it in about 10 seconds. Now, when I looked in the PAR2 tab, the game has 32/1406. So that's 32 good blocks out of 1406?

I went back into the download tab, and there's wasn't enough PAR2's(or blocks actually) to fix the game. But I clicked unpause on all the paused PAR2's anyways. And nothing happened. The PAR2's downloaded, but all those blocks are still broken in the PAR2 tab. Like I thought they would be.

Now, I opened the same game in NewsLeecher. And it's taken a long time to download. Once it's done, I go into the Repair'n'Extract tab. I right-click on one broken block, hit Search in SuperSearch>General Category>Max 200 days. And automatically NewsLeecher starts downloading all the needed PAR2's.

So I"m guessing there's no way for Alt.Binz to do that, right? I have to go back to the site that I got the game from(Newzleech), and type in the search box (the name of the game)PAR2 files? Then hopefully a list of par2 files will pop up?

I guess that's what I've been wanting to know the whole time.

Thanks.

[davidq666]

no there is no automated search for extra par2 sets that were not posted with the collection, but as i understand all newsleecher does is taking name of the post and searching for this name in NLSS. With copy/paste in global search or NLSS (SuperSearch) you can do the same. it doesn't look as slyck or elegant but should do the job all the same. if there should be to much results just filter with the word par2. But if you use alt.binz the best way (in my opinion) you are mostly importing directly from the search-engines after search so you should see even if posted seperatly. if you come to the post by browsing just use the right-click menue to copy the collection name to clipboard to see if there are seperate par2 sets. anyhow from what i have seen posts that need that many pars are quite rare except if the post is older than ur providers retention and than you would normaly not find enough par2's to repair

EDIT:

So I"m guessing there's no way for Alt.Binz to do that, right? I have to go back to the site that I got the game from(Newzleech), and type in the search box (the name of the game)PAR2 files? Then hopefully a list of par2 files will pop up?

I guess that's what I've been wanting to know the whole time.

Thanks.

No you don't alt.binz has Newzleech and couple other search engines build in so you can use the global search, at least in 0.28 they all work i don't know if 0.25 is the same in this regard

[Hecks]

So, I tried downloading a game that is 165 days old, and I figured would have a ton of broken blocks. And it did. So, this is a 532mb game. Alt.Binz said it was finished downloading it in about 10 seconds. Now, when I looked in the PAR2 tab, the game has 32/1406. So that's 32 good blocks out of 1406?

This is a fairly typical description of what happens when the files/articles can't be found on the server you're using - probably because they're older than the server's max retention.  Your Log will tell you exactly what's happened here.

And yet with Newsleecher the articles could be found?  Are you sure you're connecting to the same server?  If so, it's possible that Alt.Binz couldn't find them when first requested; some servers need time to pull very old articles from storage when requested, for this reason and others you should set your retry count & interval in Setup > Connection to something like 2 or 3 retries, delay 5 mins.

As for Newsleecher 'autodownloading' PAR2s, it's not something I've experienced myself or can comment further on.

So I"m guessing there's no way for Alt.Binz to do that, right? I have to go back to the site that I got the game from(Newzleech), and type in the search box (the name of the game)PAR2 files? Then hopefully a list of par2 files will pop up?

I guess that's what I've been wanting to know the whole time.

Thanks.

I go back to my first point.  If the PAR2s are there when you first search for the download, you should add them all to your queue at the same time.  They *must* be there, otherwise Newsleecher couldn't find them either.  I think you're probably missing them in the list - just look more carefully, Newzleech and Binsearch 'autogroup' files into collections, there may be 3 or 4 results that belong together, each a collection of different files associated with the post, one of which probably includes the PAR2s.  To see exactly what files each collection contains, use right-click > Fetch collection info.

[Rdl]

Now, I opened the same game in NewsLeecher. And it's taken a long time to download. Once it's done, I go into the Repair'n'Extract tab. I right-click on one broken block, hit Search in SuperSearch>General Category>Max 200 days. And automatically NewsLeecher starts downloading all the needed PAR2's.

Stick with whatever works for you. EOD

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