Astraweb Crapping Out Lately?

[nxtiak]

Anyone have issues with Astraweb having broken files for a lot of releases this week?
Pretty much all the popular movies and TV shows, they're all broken. SOME are fixeable with PAR2 files, but just barely.
Some can't and I have to resort to private torrents.
My 1 year sub is up in Sept. Haven't had issues with Astraweb for years, but now it's just getting ridiculous.

[myself12345]

Astraweb is garbage servers are total shit.
This has been going on for some time now they don't care to fix anything also they refuse to add new groups.
Everyone should stop supporting them and get another provider.

[Skiz]

I had a Giganews account as my primary and Astraweb as my secondary and I still couldn't complete a lot of things. It was beyond frustrating to have let all my bittorrent trackers expire years ago and then to have my availability of content on Usenet go to shit a year or so later. I would try to grab TV shows that aired that night and I couldn't complete around 10-20% of shows and movies I attempted to grab. I moved on to the free cornucopia that was XBMC and now Kodi. I currently have no reason whatsoever to go back to any of the frustrating methods of my past, Usenet included.

[nxtiak]

I've been with Astraweb for years and this week has been the worse, nothing is ever complete.
I did a Giganews trial once and I tried downloading a 400 day movie and it crapped out.
I'm trying a trial of Cheapnews since it's an EU server, but the speeds are pathetic since I'm in the USA.
Usenetserver/Highwinds has too many DMCA takedowns... man this really sucks.

[hdjunky]

I've been with Astraweb for years and this week has been the worse, nothing is ever complete.
I did a Giganews trial once and I tried downloading a 400 day movie and it crapped out.
I'm trying a trial of Cheapnews since it's an EU server, but the speeds are pathetic since I'm in the USA.
Usenetserver/Highwinds has too many DMCA takedowns... man this really sucks.

They all have dmca takedowns. If you expect to download something targeted at 400/days old you are gonna have a bad time.

Astraweb sucks and has for years now.

Automate your downloads, use frugal Usenet with a block account from cheapnews or something and be good to go.

[myself12345]

They all have dmca takedowns. If you expect to download something targeted at 400/days old you are gonna have a bad time.

Astraweb sucks and has for years now.

Automate your downloads, use frugal Usenet with a block account from cheapnews or something and be good to go.

Most of the problems with files with astraweb are due to their awful infostructure, not takedowns.
Granted most are repairable but almost everything you grab from their servers needs to be repaired due to corrupt and even missing files all together right after they are posted.
Ive been using for 3 years now and got worst every year and kept telling myself it will get better and it hasn't it gotten worst lucky my membership expires in week and already on new provider and night and day difference pulling complete post with no need to repair anything.
Also have access to all the servers that atraweb refuse to add.

[sandman_1]

I ditched Astraweb years ago and have never looked back. Almost every month at least, someone post something going "awry" with Astraweb's servers. I know from way back in the day, I always had speed issues on Sunday and apparently they do maintenance on Sunday, dumb.

Back in the day, Astraweb were up there as one of the top providers and had very few issues but now they aren't worth two shits imo,

[CVRFireWall]

I am using Astraweb and I have a lot of problems with corrupetd files.
Which alternative usenet server you can suggest to me?

[Beck38]

Very much so, on both US and EU servers. I'm trying to 'look back' to see if things at some point get 'good', and if other servers (Blocknews, Giganews, are having the same problems.

Since the files I'm using to 'test' things out were 100% when posted (to multiple servers AND the search engines like Binsearch and NzbIndex) what I'll find out will be interesting.

It will take a while, I'll try updating this message when I find out something 'interesting'.

UPDATE 1:
Using Astra/US as main, with Astra/EU as fills, very few parts come through without errors (resulting with an unrepairable archive, and this with 20% pars).

Adding a 2nd fill server (Blocknews/US) all those were totally (100%) corrected and resulted in a fully correct archive without any correction.

Now to find out when the servers went 'off the rails' (of if everything is hosed).

UPDATE 2:
As usual, hit the typical Astraweb/US Sunday PM (San Jose time) slowdown, but have zeroed in on anything that's more than a few days old, to about 150 days back or so is pretty hosed (pars unrecoverable in most cases). There may be some archives that are recoverable, but in the main are DOA.

Further back (posted around 1Feb) it starts to be pretty good, with the amount of bad blocks getting lower than .1% or so. I'm currently looking further back to see if things become even better, but I have gone back to Nov/2014 and it's all looking very good.

I'll attempt looking at Astra/EU after I look a bit deeper/back on Astra/US, I figure that if things posted a year ago are still very complete (<1% errors) then the 'bad spot' is pretty much nailed (again, from a few days or couple weeks back some 150 days).

So far, Blocknews/US has easily filled all the 'dead zone' gaps.

[Beck38]

Okay, here is kinda the final 'scoop':

There does seem to be, after the ~10-150 day 'gap' fairly good completion using the typical US/EU pair (or EU/US), with usually around 2-3% of corrupted blocks (again, IF the poster has included at least 5% Pars then one would be good to repair; I usually tell folks to not get lower than 10%).

However, there are 'mini-gaps' of poor completion from the 150 day point out to at least 1 year (365+ days). They seem to be pretty random in nature, and maybe I 'found' them through sheer luck or are more 'common' than my basic search would allow. I'll continue to see back further than a year to see if things really drop off the cliff at some point, in the next couple of days or so.

But that first 4-5 month gap is what's really killing folks. And everything that I tested was fully indexed by the raw indexers out there (Binsearch and NZBIndex) and I tested several with utilizing Blocknews/US as the 2nd fills server, and they all came out perfectly with no errors whatsoever. I could try Giganews as well, but I think that it's a done deal if Blocknews has it.

I don't know if it's worth it complaining to Astraweb. They have in the past followed up, and occasionally seem to blow folks off.
I'll give it a try this time, I'm a glutton for punishment.

[Beck38]

And a bit more info from 'way back when' (as in 2010):

The percentage of corrupted parts is pretty steady through 2014 and 2013, around 4-6%, so if the included pars are more than that (my usual 10%) then it can be easily recovered). In 2012 to 2010, it seems to drop to 2-3%, and then for whatever reason, drops to zero or almost zero errors by early 2010. Again, it should be noted that in each case, fills from Blocknews/US completed all the archives tested at 100%, or zero errors, so their completion rate continues to be excellent, and it continues to be a top-notch fills provider, at least on the completion (non-takedown of course) providing.

That's as far back as I'll take it for now, as everything from about mid-2011 through late 2009 was coming through at 100% (zero block errors), so it appears that there (somewhere in 2012) is the 'cliff' where things start going a bit south before going completely hosed around 6 months ago (up to ~10 days ago).

My Astraweb ticket is still open (at least not dismissed out of hand) but no response as of yet.

[Beck38]

Ticket still open, no response as of this date/time.

I've posted (on Astra/US) a test file and will monitor it's reception (since it's posted with JBinUP it should on completion generate a NZB) and will check the propagation (which I've never seen a problem on Astra) to both Giganews and Blocknews and of course the two major indexers Binsearch and NZBIndex.

Some 'stuff' I posted some 2-3 weeks and 2-3 months ago is what I used to check the completion (or failure thereof), and this will give me another checkpoint, and I'll probably upload a couple more of the coming days, and watch them like a hawk as well.

And watch the earlier stuff as well, and see if they improve anything.

On thing I've noticed, in using JBinUP on Astra/US, is that the 'lag' time between posting a rar part and the time it gets 'confirmed' is over 30 minutes; on other servers (Giga/Block/AstraEU) the lag is no more than 5 minutes, at the same speed of uploading. That may be another 'clue' as to what's going on, although the 'gaps' on the US/EU servers are pretty identical.

[Stehle]

Beck38 is quite right! I switched to a Frugal server and got fills with absolutely no errors today! :)

I've always enjoyed Astraweb... BUT I will continue to monitor this thread for his concise analysis, commentary & useful information for the casual as well as the advanced Usenet user. :)

NOTE: Files that were corrupted on Astra 2 weeks ago are STILL corrupted on Frugal today. I have no explanation for this, but might recommend a block account if these are important.

[hdjunky]

NOTE: Files that were corrupted on Astra 2 weeks ago are STILL corrupted on Frugal today. I have no explanation for this, but might recommend a block account if these are important.

Can you tell if those posts were posted on astraweb originally? Suppose it is possible astraweb fucked it up for everybody.

[Beck38]

All the files that I looked at were originally posted, with JBinUp (so 100% verified on upload) on Astra/US. A couple were posted on Astra/EU and Giganews/US due to posting problems I saw on Astra/US, at the time.

But all were 100% verified on both Astra/US and were also 100% on Binsearch and NZBIndex in the day or two after posting. I have, in the 15 years watching Astra/US, never seen any propagation problems whatsoever (there have been a couple wobbles on that front with Giganews, years and years ago).

The latest problems with Astra/US seem to hit the highest (or lowest) right around Dec 1, 2014 or 8 months back. The 'slope' to that is pretty constant, starting as soon as it's posted, and starting to get really bad as soon as two weeks in.

[Stehle]

No corrupt files to fix on Frugal again today! :)

(Still using Astra for 680+ day files (audiobooks only), but corruptness is maybe... 5-8% and will repair with pars.)

(They are old!) ;)

@hdjunky: I have no idea on those files origin.

[Hypatia]

Beck thanx for all your work,man.

It is really sad to see how AW has fallen. ..I really don't want to have usenet dominated just by highwinds thugs and giganews\supernews...It's bad for usenet and it's bad for us.