Failed download troubleshooting

[wizzle]

This is kind of a n00b post, but I've searched the forums and guides and haven't found a really good answer. Some of my downloads are failing, and I'd like to determine the cause and ideally find a solution.

Any very recent content I have no problems with, but some (not all) backlog content is failing. I set up my servers based on recommendations from others: Usenetserver Plus as the primary, and an Astraweb block as the backup. Using NZBMatrix premium for search. Sickbeard is wired up and manages searching/post-processing.

The problem files report anywhere from a couple hundred to several hundred articles missing. First I manually inspected some of the NZBs, and they all look fine (as far as I can tell) with plenty of par2 files. Next, I checked the "Check before download" and reloaded some of the NZBs. They all reported they would fail with only 10-20% of the required 100.2% available. When they failed the first time around, they all reported something similar:

The recovery file does not exist:
C:\filepath\filename.par2
[filename.sample-sample] Verified in 0 seconds, all files correct
Trying SFV verification
Some files failed to verify against "filename.sfv"
filename.r00
filename.r01
..
filename.rar

I don't get a message about retention time, so I am tentatively ruling server retention out. The only thing I can think of is DMCA takedowns because I don't know of a way to check for that -- although I thought I had missing articles that covered with the backup server. It's possible that I don't have servers configured correctly. I would appreciate any light you can shed on this problem, or recommendations for further troubleshooting steps.

Server config:



Version: 0.7.5
OS: Windows 7 x64
Install-type: Windows Installer
Skin: Default
Firewall Software: Windows 7 Firewall
Are you using IPV6? no
Is the issue reproducible? yes

Thanks for your help!

[shypike]

If it's a takedown, your backup server may be hit by the same takedown.
Lately there have been some peculiar posts and odd deletions.
Please try release 0.7.6Beta2, which will solve some of the issues with those.

[wizzle]

After installing 0.7.6Beta2 I retried one of the downloads. It still failed but this time immediately tried to repair itself, which it didn't do in 0.7.5. The message in the history is: "Repair failed, not enough repair blocks (407 short)" - Retention shouldn't be the issue for both of my servers, and it looks like there are plenty of par2 files in the NZB. So based on the FAQ, that would suggest either a weird naming convention or a takedown.

Is there a way to determine if it's a takedown? And are there any generally recommended servers that are less susceptible to takedowns?

UPDATE: I switched the Astraweb settings from the US server to the EU server, and one of the two shows will download now.

[unlimitedgeek]

I too am having the same issue.
I pay for usenetserver and paid for 5 GB at newsdemon. I added newsdemon as a backup due to retention time out issues. This did not seem to fix the issue at all. I had newdemon set to use the US servers and the error was "Unusable RAR file" when i switched it to the europe severs it get the Out of servers retention. Any help would be great. Thanks. Also Couchpotato is downloading many movies in foreign languages, any idea how to force english only?