Astraweb retention question??

[sadsack]

Hi chaps....

Just wondered if any one else is having similar problems.... Ive tried a couple of rather old nzb's

celebrity juice s05e02 ws pdtv xvid sqt 1268.7 days

celebrity juice s05e05 1249.9 days

grange hill all of series 2 dvdrip xvid infinite 1996.2 days

would these be to old for astraweb, as my downloads drop at anything from 65% to 97% per file... I only managed to download one whole 20mb part of s05e02.

any info / details would be much appreciated, thanks for reading chaps...

sadsack

[piercerseth]

Did you check the completion on both the US & EU servers?

Feel free to PM me any nzbs, I'll be happy to double check, whatever good it'll do.

[Beck38]

I run checks on 'way back when' to Aug08 ('day one' for most plants including AstraUS/EU) every 2-4 weeks or so. It's has led to some interesting 'gaps' and such being found, although usually the 'way back' stuff is still there 100% (now realize these are my postings I'm checking, that were 100% or 99.9% when posted, and have been rechecked virtually every month since.

I haven't done a 'mass check' back in about 3 weeks right at the moment, so maybe something has happened lately. And I don't really do much severe checking with the EU plant is it's on the other side of the 'sphere', so to speak, whereas the US plant is very close (and is watched like a hawk).

You should be setting up your downloader to have the 'opposite' plant as your primary fills, and then another fills beyond that.

I'm right in the middle of a couple of hardware repairs right now (one UPS needed batteries changed out, and a PC is ;showing signs of having the heatsink drying out, so may need to be redone as well.

But I'll have NZBcc do some basic runs over the next couple of days, and back it up with a couple of dl's as well.

UPDATE: that 1996 days back is 29 Feb 09, and the 1268 is 11 Feb 11, and a quick check reveals (on Astra/US) zero missing. So I don't think it is a server issue (it may be a posting issue at the time, what did they use to post the thing would be another question).

You do mention the approx. file size is 20Mb(its), I'll 'assume' you meant 20MB(ytes), but even that it pretty small. Just how much of a percentage of the rar main package were included pars? For something as small as 20MB, it should have been pretty hearty, for 20Mb even more so. But I'll hazard a guess it was in the single digits (percentage wise).

Folks around here laugh at me for suggesting decent percentages of pars (anything below 1GB should be at 100%) but usenet storage and transmission pretty much demands that if you want something to be retrievable 3-5 years (like you're trying to get) it's a necessity. You may be able to get a bit more completion at another server (like Blocknews), it may be worth it and their rates are low (and bought chunks don't 'expire' so they'll last forever).

[sadsack]

Many thanks for the help chaps....

I tried to resort to torrents.... managed to fill my "celebrity juice" missing programs, but the "grange Hill" is a no go-er.

I Tried both the EU (for me) and the US but both gave the same problem. also had XS Usenet & free hitnews going as well. also tried with ssl to see if that would make any difference. (but it didn't). Pity about xenna as that may have made a difference (or possibly not).

Have attached series 2, and series 3, but not the extra sample files.

I think I've attached them correctly, thanks again chaps... (I'm starting to think it could be Vermin Med that are causing the problem)

cheers
sadsack...

p.s. all I did manage to get without a problem was all the .nfo's and all the par2's.

[Beck38]

You must have been 'holding on' to those nzb's for a while, as the ages of both are beyond the retention of either Binsearch or NZBIndex (or you got them from some other site?). But I occasionally do the same, see something that looks interesting, put it in a directory for 'later processing' when I have some time/bandwidth to get it, and either forget or find something better.

Oh well, like folks say, usenet isn't perfect by any means, and if one expects something to be around for x years, more additional care is needed to do so.

[sadsack]

Looks like I may have possibly gone too far with this one....

http://nzbclub.com/nzb_view/16262860/a_b_mm_EFNet_REQ_71745_Grange_Hill_S02E01_DVDRip_XViD_iNFiNiTE_infinite_gh_s02e01

Looks like I'm about 6 or 7 months too late as Astra hangs on a lot of the files at anything from 80% to even 98% but just not enough to finish.... Oh Well, I may be lucky and someone from the 80's may post them again in the future.
I did try T-O-rrenting and I thought my luck was in,..... I managed to get first four ep's of second series, but with only 6 sharing I knew there would be problems. last remaining ep's all have just one or two bits missing..... 96.8% for the whole lot... I think I'll hang on to these as someone may pop back up with the remaining parts.

Thanks again for the help chaps....
sadsack.