Check file before download

[Hakan]

Lately I bump against a lot of incomplete files. 100 rar files and almost all of them stop around 90-95% (this causes also out of memory errors while I have enough free RAM when I choose to keep files in RAM). It would be nice if Alt.binz could check these before downloading.
I came across this thread where Sander claims that his script can do this pretty fast:

4.5GB post takes around 25 seconds, when using 30 threads

Is there any chance that you can implement such a function?

[Hecks]

While this feature has been requested before (search), the symptoms you describe suggests another problem than incomplete files. What does your (detailed) Log report about the problem NZBs?

[Rdl]

Nah, ussual Astra behaviour from time to time. Last one was for stuff posted ~7 days ago.

I'll try to implement this, but no automation or auto decisions based on report for now.

[Hecks]

Actually now you mention it I do remember Astra falsely reporting missing articles about a week ago, and Alt.Binz getting a bit freaky as a result (with threads hanging IIRC) ...

Can't we even have a little bitty autopause?

[Rdl]

What do you mean autopause?

I also experienced that case. Article reported as missing but after few minutes it will be there. That's why I have 5x1min retry count

Astra is getting worse and worse ...

[Hecks]

Autopause the collection if too many articles are missing & collection is unrepairable perhaps? (see e.g. output of http://www.jongma.org/nzbscan/).

I also have retry count, but this was a weird case where I couldn't get anything from (700-day old) articles at all until I tried again the next day and everything was fine.  Alt.Binz in this case couldn't seem to close the connections properly, no clear 'article not found response', and soon reached my maximum connection limit on the server every time i tried. It was odd.

[Hakan]

My log says article not found. And indeed sometimes after 20 retries or a few hours, it does find it (not always). This is a behavour I normaly had with ~2 year old files, but now also with <100 day files. Only Astra I know is a satelite btw . So is there anything I can do then? I have this problem the last 1-2 weeks I think (could be longer, didnt used it).

[Hakan]

I guess the astra you are referring to is the usenet provider. I use a dutch one (XSNews, has direct peering with my internet provider). So the problem could be on their site? Took a look at their forum and no one is reporting such a thing..