Getting a lot of "not enough repair blocks"?

[semel]

There are a number of threads on different forums as well as on this one about the issue of incomplete files on the servers of different NNtP providers.

The nature of these damaged files is usually of 2 origins:

1) DMCA takedown( nowadays it is mostly HBO shows + console games on Highwinds(newshosting,usenetserver newsdemon etc) & Giganews(supernews\powerusenet etc) servers(check resellers list) )

2) Technical glithes (Astraweb is infamous for these ones. At the moment there is a ~200 days range affected( files uploaded ~200-350 days ago )


Whatever the cause,upon finding lots of incomplete files one shouldnt switch immediately to another NNTP provider.Every single one of them has its cons and pros and one might just trade bad for worse.

A proper servers' setup will most definitely help to reduce or in most cases eliminate the nasty issue of damaged files.

Proper Servers' Setup For SABnzbd


Assuming you use SABnzbd and Astraweb's main server is EU
This setup will do wonders with any usenet provider.


Server 1: Astraweb EU


-enabled


Server 2: XSusenet (free server)

-enabled
-connections=2
-retention=400
-optional or backup*


Server 3: Astraweb US

-enabled
-optional or backup*


Server 4: Blocknews (100 gb block account $15)


-enabled
-backup server


* SABnzbd cant set preference levels for servers so having xsusenet & AW US and blocknews as backup servers might result in downloading articles first from blocknews sometimes.And we wouldnt want that since xsusenet is free & AW US is unlimited.
This is why i think its better to set xsusenet & AW US as optional servers, not backup with 2 & 2 connections each.But it all depends on sabnzbd behaviour.If setting them up as backup works OK for you then dont make them optional

[wcanyon]

Care to post more technical details on this? I've been having a lot of issues lately with missing blocks, repair blocks etc. Host, port especially would help.

[Stealthyman]

I used to use SAB a few years back and after my initial burst of wanting it to just grab everything from every RSS I could find, I eventually wiped everything and went back to basics and started being choosy, while downloading with Grabit.

In the last few days I've come back to SAB so I could queue and forget, and have had a lot of these not enough repair blocks messages since doing so. At first I thought I was just getting unlucky, or that I had stumbled upon a mysterious takedown that killed a few blocks out of each of my rar files, but I have been doing some investigation that seems to point at SAB being the culprit.

My tests have been pretty basic. I downloaded a set of RAR + Par2s today that were about 6 gig total. Not enough repair blocks apparently. Almost every file showing in quickpar as 37-39/41 apart from the odd outlier at 32 or complete for example.

So I pick a file at random, and download it via grabit, and move and replace over the SAB version, and quickpar picks it up as a complete file. Must have just been a transmission thing with that one, I assume, and try again with another file. Once again complete. Getting closer to being able to repair now, I select a block of 12 that were all around 38/41ish and grab them in grabit. It works, they're all complete files. I repair, extract, happy chappy.

The server settings I used were identical between SAB and Grabit... Newsdemon (ssl europe, port 80). Same PC, similar load, nothing interesting going on.

I'm wondering if I should bother continuing with SAB now. I do like the post processing dealing with things I don't have to, but that boils down to copying out of the extracted folder from Grabit and renaming if I feel like it.

Has noone else noticed this kind of discrepency? Is there any debug I could log for developers to see a file download in SAB that would help?

I guess for now I'll be using SAB and topping up with Grabit like I did this time around. Hopefully things will come right in a future build eh.

[shypike]

I would like to see some actual evidence.
Like an NZB that fails with SABnzbd, but not with Grabit.
Be aware that SABnzbd expects the usual naming pattern for the par2 files
and not the bizarre name fest that some posters enjoy using.
QuickPar often succeeds in those cases because you tell it which files to use.
Please email one or more NZB files along with the complaint to [email protected]
Please include your Usenet provider(s).

[Stealthyman]

I've sent through the NZB that I had the issues with to the email with the info requested and a blurb of my logs from that download attempt.

As I mention in that mail, re-attempting the download now using the exact same settings and server in SAB seem to be giving me complete files now. I don't know why I had so many errors with SAB that last time but I hope it was just a bad connection or something. No idea. Going forward I have added the US servers as backup servers so ideally it should fallback if it can't find an item I assume.

Cheers.

[clambert]

I've been having issues with this myself for the last week. It's been hit & miss. Files are coming via SuperNews. I just had a CRC problem using SAB but downloaded the pars via NewsLeecher and rebuilt the file to extract. While it might sound like I'm blaming SAB, I'm not. NewsLeecher seems to have had the same issues as of late.

I'm not exactly sure what the problem is but it's a pain.

[clambert]

FWIW, early tests seem to indicate more favorable results when I disable quick check in the switch settings. I read that somewhere (maybe even this thread) and I haven't had an issue since.

[shypike]

So far we've never seen any evidence of QuickCheck failing.
That doesn't prove that it cannot fail.
A negative proof would be that the downloaded set of files does
pass QC, but subsequent verification with par2 fails.
We still waiting for an NZB to show this bad QC behaviour.

In the next release SABnzbd will do QC even if you disable it,
but it will also do the regular par2 verification.
Maybe this will catch incidents.