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Hi All,
You have probably heard this all before, but every file I download from FST (movies, pc games), I am getting missing blocks, for example the most recent being Predestination and Far Cry 4. Even happening when using an indexer - nzbindex.
Any solutions please?, I am locked to Astraweb for a couple of months methinks, as I bought a years sub to keep the cost down, bur willing to bite the cost as this is getting pointless, and oh how I love FST NZBs.
Thank you
Again, which Astraweb (please)? And since the nzb used is coming from a 3rd party source (in this case FST), not the original uploader, one needs to realize that it may contain the 'gaps' to start with (even the large hoover sites like NZBIndex and Binsearch have tons of 'holes' in their nzb's).
The Astraweb/US/EU 'fades' that I reported a while back (see the thread on that) affecting things from around 6 weeks old to 6 months, has been almost completely been repaired (to 98+% completion), so it only takes a handful of pars to fix. You don't list some percentage in overall gaps that you are getting; did you run NZBcc on the nzb's beforehand (?) and I take it no fills server setup in whatever program you're using to hoover up things, not even the 'reverse' Astra plant...(eu if us main, or us if eu main)?
Hi Beck38,Quote:
Originally Posted by Beck38
Wow thanks for the response, very impressed.
I am using the EU server.
Did not know about the NZBcc remedy, so will give it a go.
Do I need to try anything else?.
I use Grabit for the downloads, Quick Par, and will for alternate software, that would be much appreciated.
Once again thank you.
I watch Astra/US like a hawk, since it's my main (and internet mileage wise, closest) posting server, but others have noted (here on FST and elsewhere) that the EU plant is a bit more than unsteady. I've noted that whereas the US plant has a near 100% completion on an nzb, the EU is, on average, a couple points lower (i.e., 100%/US and 98%/EU).
But even if you don't want to employ a 'fills' server (Blocknews is a big favorite, with both US and EU/Amsterdam plants), the first step is to always first use the 'reverse' plant to cheaply (no additional cost) as I pointed out, in your case, have the US plant as the first 'fills' server, then if you want, Blocknews or some other plant (although a lot of folks will say some other Dutch provider may be better when dealing with DMCA takedowns) but that is up to you. Some EU folks use the US server as their main, but the speed and latency crossing the Atlantic and then the North American continent is a much slower process, and ISP speeds and throughput in Europe well exceed that generally available in the US (or Canada).
But first, get that reverse plant in your setup and it should help a lot, hopefully getting you to the point where the pars can work.
I also keep harping that a lot of Euro posters have let their amount/percentage of pars get way to low, thinking that 1-2% is 'good enough', and don't realize that folks utilizing a slightly (or more than that) unsteady server need more; I don't ever do less than 10% on anything (back in the 'olden days' 15+ years ago that minimum was more like 20%), as I've seen even top-flight servers slowly 'fade' parts over time (I'm talking months to years). But folks tend to think in the short term, not the long; human nature. And saving what, another hour or two generating and posting those pars is thought to be 'too much' in their scheme of things.
Damn, I didn`t think of that so many thanks :)... my tweaknews block will now, I hope, get much less hits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beck38
Regards
Grib
Those bad speed are really killing it for me, because completion wise they're good.
I'll 'assume' you're talking about the EU plant, as others have pretty much historically said the same thing about that plant. But, the US plant 2-3 months ago was suffering the same kind of bad throughput, and it was tracked down to bad routers at Astras main feed from Level 3, have you done any testing trying (if you can) some different routing into/through Amsterdam to the input ports...? If you do traceroutes into the plant, do they change occasionally and can you figure (when it does) things get either better or worse, depending....?Quote:
Originally Posted by chakara
That was the 'hint' as to the L3 problems in SF/SJ, as occasionally the data routing hit Sprintnet on the coming out of the main L3 routers on it's way to San Jose, and everything worked fine, they it would 'go direct' L3 into Astra and it would all go to hell in a handbasket. Eventually some folks a bit closer to the 'action' figured that some older Cisco routers used by L3 were running out of routing table memory (or something like that) and when L3 made a slight adjustment, running the traffic coming into SF and pointed it at LA, then from LA back into SF, things 'cleared up'.
They left it running that way for 2-3 weeks until they swapped out those older routers (they apparently couldn't be upgraded further memory wise) and things have been running perfectly ever since; and one can see small 'wobbles' and changes in the routing tables every once in a while, the latest has been a new company (pccwbtn) right there off L3 in SF going to SJ.
Being always interested in 'what the heck is that?' when I see something 'new' around the internet, I looked it up and it's a somewhat new company (started in 2ooo) that is now having a submarine fiber system built between the Mediterranean (France/Italy), through the Middle East (Egypt/Saudi Arabia), through the Indian Ocean to India, and around to Vietnam and then China with a few of the other southeast Asia countries with feeders as well. Being built to carry at 40Tbits. Exactly why they have some routers in San Francisco...?
It's a main transit point, so they have some hardware there. Why any of my traffic headed toward Astra in San Jose goes through it? The wonders of the internet I guess. Wired Planet. And one has to wonder what exactly (other than Astra itself) is causing the problems around Amsterdam, maybe some good detective work might yield some answers eventually.
I have no idea what you just said :lol:
I want to set up my grabber, click connect and max out my connection. I don't care about traceroutes, I don't care about plants, I don't care about submarine fiber optic cables.
I pay a service and expect it to work. If not, I'll just change providers.
Although it looks like Usenetnow SSL servers can't connect on Newsleecher v4 (and it's a bug they know about, the tech guy asked me immediately "what version of Newsleecher ?), so I'll have to find someone else !
99% of the things i grab now from astraweb is useless and cant be repaired old stuff and brand new it doesnt matter all full of broken unfilled files and all the pars are always damaged so nearly always cant be repaired
its starting to be a real pain in the ass :(
Once again, I'll have to 'assume' you mean 'Astra/EU' when you say 'astraweb'. And I'll have to repeat (once again) you ARE utilizing a secondary fill feed to the 'opposite' plant (eu main then us fill) that would most probably get your completion up to at least the level of pars repair (?).Quote:
Originally Posted by pinhead1000
Virtually all the major plants have us/eu 'pairs' and this 'no cost' fills is the first step before 'eating' an actual fills server (like Blocknews). I rarely have to actually 'repair' anything I get from Astra/US, and I use (of course) Astra/EU as my first fills server (with a secondary Blocknews).
So I bring this up all the time here (it seems like mostly with folks who 'mainline' off Astra/EU) and I'm very quick to point out any 'wobbles' and such with the US plant as it's very close to me (both internet wise and 'as the crow flies').
So make sure that your newsreader (or something like SABnzbD which is what I use) is set up with secondary (or more) servers, and I'm sure that even with the slow(er) rates having to 'cross the pond' and then across the continent to get to Astra/US in San Jose, that the trip is worth it to get your completion rate up.
i use both and they both fail for me im using altbinz i must be doing something wrong somewhere?
Possibly, but I've never used 'altbinz' so don't know how it's set up. You DO use nzbcc to check the nzb beforehand? Other than that, you may send/post the nzb (pm if need be) and I'll check it out on the various servers.
If it seems to be everything (figuring that 'everything' isn't 'nothing but p0rn') you may look at where the posting is originating from, and perhaps what the poster is using to post it. If, for instance, the postings are all or mostly originating from a particular server plant, that may be the problem; but if they are originating from one of the Astra plants, that may narrow things down a bit, but nzbcc would help tell if it's your s/w or setup that may be at fault.
cheers beck never used nzbcc will look into that first no its not porn m8 films and tv series that i grab ;)
Most files ~20-30 days old fail on both servers. I dunno what is the exact affected range though, I haven't bothered checking, I just don't have time for this. I dunno what happened but apparently it's one of their infamous screws ups as in a large amount of random missing articles throughout a certain range of retention.Generally ~10% of data is missing.Quote:
'Astra/EU' when you say 'astraweb'
Tbh I'm thinking of switching to usenetserver for downloading stuff (yeah, yeah I know, it's highwinds, but their speed is fine, their completion atm is better than SN\GN's and especially astraweb's even with all dmca takedowns and there is simply no alternative with the same retention.) and upload as usual via my second AW block account.
I kinda do, and I haven't run into any 'gaps' in the last 30+ days or so, including all my usual hyper checking of posted 'stuff'. I usually take a couple of days a week to load up on downloads, the age of most are fairly 'new' (1-3 weeks or so) and didn't run into any gaps or missing parts whatsoever in my 'run' of last week (zero repairs). All were in the BD25-50 range of sizes, 25-50GB each (total around 500GB) so if something was seriously amiss I would have thought I'd have run into it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hypatia
That and like I said, I take an almost anal review of what I've posted (through Astra/US) particularly that from 1-8 weeks old, so any large gaps and such would be instantly noticeable, and only the 'usual' 1% drop-off in Astra/EU v. Astra/US is there, whereas both Giga/US-EU and Blocknews/US-EU are virtually 100% as is usual for them.
Will continue as usual my 'routine', but I simply haven't seen any large gaps appear lately.
Check Efnet uploads (movies\teevee series ~20 days old) for instance.
erotica will do too. You can start from the top of the page.
Just an example:
gush.b720p
blocknews - 100% completion
AW US - 221 articles missing
or, say, welcome to sweden web-dl
Welcome.To.Sweden.S01E01.Day.One.720p.WEB-DL.DD5.1.H.264-Coo7
AW US -350+ articles missing
blocknews us - 100% completion
Everything is severely broken
try this beck ive tried on both us and eu servers and both fail for me Ghost.Stalkers.S01E06.Farrar.School.720p.HDTV.x264-DHD see if you can get it to work as mine wont repair or d/l with out major missing data
ive tried that nzbcc but it just keeps giving me an error Article[[email protected]] not found on server and all different file names but the same not found on server any ideas becks thats with the above file
Maybe I'm crazy, but I think many of the incompletes are because of the newsreader. Altbinz doesn't seem to be able to handle multi-server downloads very well, and my friend has to use the Astra European server in Newsleecher to get something that was incomplete in Altbinz despite using both servers.Quote:
Originally Posted by pinhead1000
Some Preliminary Results:
Yes, Astra/US appears to have developed some 'soft spots' (or maybe a 'soft range' is more a more appropriate term) in it's retention. In doing an A/B on known 'good' (i.e. nzb's that were posted (and checked multiple times) in the same dates as those folks supplied above.
BUT... (and one can disagree with me on this)
All those nzb's were posted with, IMHO, far fewer par's than they should have been. I follow a regime that takes into account the complete size of the files protected, according to the following amount of included pars:
Size > 25GB (BD25) - 10% minimum
Size ~8GB (DVD5) to 25GB - 20% minimum
Size ~4GB (<DVD5) - 30-40% minimum
Size ~2GB - 50% minimum
Size ~1GB and lower - 100% minimum
The largest nzb given above is 'gush' and it has the typical 5% pars (4GB size), which is WAY too little. The next is 'ghost stalkers' at a bit better 10%, but with only a size of 1.3GB it needs a LOT more as well. The 'welcome to sweden' has a fair amount, but at under 800MB it needs a lot more that a paltry 30% pars.
Now yes, if usenet worked 100%, 100% of the time, then little if any pars would be needed. And yes, Astra/US (I'll assume that Astra/EU may be doing worse) is falling off the rails a bit, but not laying on it's side quite yet.
Putting more pars into a posting takes only a few extra minutes of generation, and the same in posting, but if one actually wants their work to last beyond a few days, or only on a few servers, then one needs to take the time and effort (we're only talking about machine time here, it's not as if it's taking that out of one's rear end).
So yes, Astra needs to be better. Put in a ticket and see what that gets you. Or you can give up and 'pay the man' over at Giganews/Blocknews, and they have eventual problems as well here and there and over time.
But bottom line is, and this is something I've been harping on, for just about forever, more pars never hurt anyone.
Meanwhile, I'll take a look at some historical data and see where the fade gap starts and ends, will take a day or so.
Some more information:
Usually (like every other time some gaps have been found and noted) they start at x and go to y with several weeks or months between. Not this time.
The first gap starts about one week back. Goes for about two months back (at this point from the first week in December to about the first week in October), then things look fine for about 3-4 weeks, then another drop-off for x weeks/months.
The gaps aren't large drop-offs, just down into the 90-85% completion range, with some slight hints down to the 65-75% range upon occasion.
So in the case of the three nzb's that folks are having problems with, they are all within those gap ranges and don't have enough pars to recover. But obviously, it should be working better; however, I'm sure that once again the folks running the plants simply can't see the forest for the trees.
I'll continue to monitor this situation, and maybe things will improve at some point.
Thanx for the info.
Seeing as you have identified the retention ranges that have problems , perhaps, you could send them a note or something.They practically know you now ;) and trust your findings.
I've sent an email to Astra letting them know of my issues and I have to try both us and eu servers and send them a log off my newsreader
Is it only me or AW has limited (again) upload speed to 5+MB.? Remember they did this several times back then when their servers started getting lots of missing articles (especially during upload process)? They claimed that some users were hammering their servers (I guess uploads via VPS). I dunno maybe it's just me experiencing some problems atm.
Since my pathetic ISP (Comcast) barely exceeds that level (5Mb/s) of upload speed without (quite literally) throwing my cc or wallet at them every month (current costs are now up to $125/month for 25/6, to get the the next 'tier' of 50/10 is double that amount which I'm not going to pay) I don't see any speed problems, even going 24/7 at max uploading.
If I can ever get moved from my current location, my primary reason is to get on (at least) 30/30 fios for less than half the bucks I'm shelling out to Comcrud. They also have 100/100 as well for about half Comcrud. I'm sure I've mentioned before, that FIOS is right at the entrance to my cul-de-sac but neither Verizon (when they were running it) or Frontier (current owner) will plumb down the street due to non-competitive agreement with Comcrud. Luckily, I've had satellite for TV for 35 years, as my street is not under any 'no satellite' deed restrictions which is probably the reason why it's under the non-competitive agreement.
Put in a ticket to Astra as well, don't really think it does any good at this point. It will either get better on it's own, or not.
^ holy crap that's expensive for bandwidth.
Using a basic conversion to US$ for an unlimited u/d account:
In one region I'm at around US$37 for 120/30 (copper - CBD).
In my other primary region (different Continent) it's about US$80 for 100/25 (glass - CBD).
Sucks hard to be raped for bandwidth.
The US is a BIG country. Get outside the big cities (>1M households) and the average distance to a telco Central Office is something like 35,000 feet, so even low speed DSL is, without large scale deployments of DSL extension cabinets and the like, a non-starter, and that leaves coaxial cable and/or fiber, and most telco's blew off fiber deployments throughout the 70's to today, simply because they could keep their copper plants generating revenue.Quote:
Originally Posted by DngrMs
Now with a good chunk of their old subscribers moved to wireless/cellular, I know they wished they'd spent those years deploying that fiber, as most traditional telco's are now scraping the bottom of the barrel, barely keeping alive.
Add to that all the 'tricks' the cablecos use to stop any true competition, and most folks are left with no competition and those high rates.
^ probably this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beck38
Yeah - Astraweb seems to be on a 'permanent' shit completion path.
And yes, I am utilizing both of their US and EU servers, and yes, I have a completely separate fills server which gets depleted almost immediately because of their issues.
I think Astraweb might be a poor choice for provider going forward.
I'm moving on to another unless by some work of magic they clear up an issue they've obviously had for quite a while now.
It's a shame too, because they were the best out there - I've been with them forever and they were always top tier and quick to fix the rare occasional issues that sprung up.
(Note: these are two recent posts using NZB directly created by the poster whom I've downloaded 100% from Astra MANY times in the past. Others using same NZB on other Usenet SP have been DL fine.)
Shame about Astraweb. When I joined a few years ago they were pretty close to being 100% reliable. Right now, none of their servers work well for me with missing pieces approaching 10% on a regular basis. I'm still completing files most of the time but resorting to a fill server is becoming more common. I guess I'll be looking fir an alternative sooner rather than later.
The folks currently running (I'm talking 'day to day' plant operation, not the 'suits' pushing paper) can't see the forest for the trees.
Every time anyone complains about poor completion, they simply ask 'what file?' and figure that it's only one little part that's hosed and not any large part. They don't seem to know anything about statistical analysis.
ive still had no reply to my email i sent them after giving them screen shots and logs :(
As of sometime this morning (San Jose time) the Astra/US plant is basically failed.
It appears that the upload/posting/propagation continued for awhile (that is still a bit under review) but the downloading/leeching has pretty much ground to a halt, or very intermittent at best, with minimal requested connections (or the number of those going up/down/up/down you get the picture).
It isn't the internet connection (or route) to the plant (I have the ability with vpn to come at them from various directions, as see through the trace routes).
I haven't re-traced the 'gaps' that were seen in the last couple of weeks, but I'll do that now and see what gives (if I can get any nzbcc connections that hold up, of course).
Over the day into the next (now) things slowly, and I mean S L O W L Y improved, where even now it's still bouncing off zero as far as pure throughput downloading.
That 'semi-dead-zone' that is between things posted (approx.) mid-October to around December 1 still exists. About a week ago it looked like it was beginning to improve a bit (completion rate up to around 95% or so which is still pretty bad) but it's down into the mid-80's or worse now.
But the base throughput is, as I said, still dragging quite a bit, at best now is running at about 70% of the usual rate, with dips down to zero every few seconds or so.
Guess I'll see what give in another 12+ hours or so.
Generally flipping between the EU and US servers fills in broken files. Although it keeps getting worse. A few years back I never had to use the EU server.
No matter WHICH plant is closest to one, you should always utilize the 'opposite' as your first fills, your downloader should take care of that automatically if you set it up right.
Then of course use a block provider (Blocknews etc.) as a third possibility. Actually, as far as Astra is concerned, folks in Europe seem to report more problems with the Amsterdam plant than the San Jose one. My checking shows that Amsterdam seems to loose about a percentage point or two from the US/SJ. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on what you're trying to get and where (perhaps) it was posted to (a US vr Euro plant).
Astraweb is a pile of turd they don't give shit anymore they refuse to acknowledge problems and fix correctly everything with them is band aid and problems keep coming back.
Binary group count is a joke now when comparing to other providers.
They refuse to add new groups claiming they don't exist but in realty they don't want to deal with more take-downs.
Even up-loaders are reverting to other providers because their servers are too unreliable everyone else should to the same.
I don't think there is anyone else who tracks Astraweb/US as close or as completely as I do, and while there is a bit of reality in your statement, the one area that I've NEVER seen any problems with their US plant is in posting/propagation. This in over at least 10+ years.
Now, there have been wobbles in the actual connections while posting, to be sure, just as there is in downloading/leeching. As far as adding 'new' groups I don't know. I don't think there are any 'new' groups I've tripped across in ages that had any decent amount of traffic. And as far as takedowns, I repeat what I've said many times here, that in those 10+ years of use (Giganews and Supernews were my major usenet connections for at least the 10 years previous to that, so we're talking about 20 years ago) that I've NEVER had a single posted file that has been removed by any provider, and in the last 8+ years I've transferred (posted) at least 20TB every year since 'day zero', which is when most plants stopped 'rolling off' any data, i.e., around Aug2008. And yes, I've saved every nzb generated.
I do 'retention studies' on Astra/Giga/Blocknews every month or so, going all the way back to those early days. I sometime spot 'weak' retention in the plants that are data sensitive. Right now, Astra/US is still having a problem with data in the Sept-December 2014 time frame, that doesn't seem to be going away, and was some of the reason why this particular thread was started. I along with several others have complained and it doesn't seem to be being fixed or even looked at.
Then again, a lot if not all of these data 'fades' would be minor to inconsequential if folks would simply follow a few basic rules on the included percentage of parity, which I outlined previously in a reply a couple pages back, as lots of folks seem to believe that usenet operates perfectly (both transmission and storage) and that providers that aren't 100% are, as you put it, dung.
Well, then, move to other providers at 3+ times the cost. Or get a good block provider like most folks, and be done with it.
I used to have Astraweb as a supplier a few years back, (eu-user) and i loved them, however they problems with retention and DMCA, is it still the same situation today?Quote:
Originally Posted by Beck38
Thanks!
Yup what they have is usually solid.. The issue you're probably encountering is with posts that have disappeared due to "formal" requests.
-Mutantx
Quote:
Originally Posted by IWH2010I used to have Astraweb as a supplier a few years back, (eu-user) and i loved them, however they problems with retention and DMCA, is it still the same situation today?Quote:
Originally Posted by Beck38
Thanks!
Things may be improving for Astraweb. Over the last month I've been getting pretty much a 100% successful retrieval,including a 10Gb zip which needed no pars or fills.