Par2 files not arriving on some servers

I recently posted a large audiobook to a newsgroup. I have done this quite a few times without problems. The post was made up of 28 mp3 files, 8 Par2s, 1 jpg, 1 nfo and an nzb which referenced all of them. After posting, I checked the newsgroup and they all showed up correctly (and they still do several days later).

However, when I checked on Newsleech.com, that website only lists the mp3 files - none of the Par2s, nfo or nzb show up.

Today there was a posting on the newsgroup saying that the Par2s hadn't arrived on his server and asking me to post them again.

I am relatively new to newsgroups - can anyone tell me why this might have happened? It seems very strange to me that they would be listed on my server (in Australia) and I would like to make sure that it isn't the result of some kind of mistake at my end.

I use a direct feed to Astraweb provided by my ISP, Grabit, Yenc-Power-Post-A&A-v11b & QuickPar.

The 'bucket-brigade' of usenet, proper term 'propagation', may be a fault of the posting server (Astraweb?), or the transmission between that sever and some/all of the receiving servers.

Basically, if things 'get' to one of the 'super-majors' like Giganews or Astraweb, it's kinda gotten everywhere. Good posters will monitor their upload on one (or both) of the 'super-majors', and have to figure that everyone (servers) will follow in line.

BUT, one of the things that folks forget about, is that nothing is exactly 'instantaneous', in that it may take a bit of time for the bits to crawl to the receiving server in question. There may be some that will 'fill in' in several hours/days.

Most decent usenet plants these days do run an 'auto-correct' program that uses your par2 files to correct any transmission errors, and that may result in your par2 files being 'delayed' for some reason.

But you'd have to know WHAT server the files are not showing up on. I'll 'assume' you know that the files did arrive okay (not just the posting program response, but do a sight check to make sure they got there okay), but like I said, 'good practice' says you need to verify that they made it OUT of Astraweb to, like, Giganews.

If they did, then at that point, you've verified that it's 'in the loop', and if someone out there on POS isp server or whatever doesn't receive it, well.... kinda tough luck.

But it appears that this site Newsleech.com is probably the source of the problem. For some reason their system (auto, manual, or whatever) simply didn't see your files. Now, you didn't change the filename on these things right in the middle of preparing or posting them, did you? That can 'confuse' the collection system (machine or human). I see that all time time, where the rar-parts are one name, and the nfo/nzb is another, and again the systems can't make 'sense' out of it. Of course, the main thing is that your nzb/nfo files are the same name (except of course for the .nfo and .nzb).

I'm grasping at s straws here since you didn't provide most info. But if you followed the last sentence above, folks shouldn't have any probs. But if they run the nzb and it comes back with 'file(s) not found', then... we're back to what server are they using to d/l from.

Thanks for your helpful reply. Sorry if this is a noob question, but - if I am with Astraweb, is there any way to check if my files have "made it OUT of Astraweb to, like, Giganews"? - other than by subscribing to Giganews, which I'm not about to do?

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Originally Posted by doctordogalog

Thanks for your helpful reply. Sorry if this is a noob question, but - if I am with Astraweb, is there any way to check if my files have "made it OUT of Astraweb to, like, Giganews"? - other than by subscribing to Giganews, which I'm not about to do?

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Of course... but if Astra is what you subscribe to (as do I with the $11/month deal!), you need to find another server somewhere with a bulk or 'one off' as Astra calls them, so that one simple up front payment gets you unlimited posting for... forever, essentially. Watch for those that put 'time limits' on their deals, though. I actually have an Astraweb account (25GB I think) from over 7 years ago. Still works. But that's when I paid Giganews and used Astra for 'checking'.

Then use your Astra account to d/l and check the propagation of your files. You 'could' do it the other way, but if you need to actually d/l anything from that second server, it'd be using up your bits, something you don't want to do.

I'm very conservative on this, but things have gotten tons better over the years.

I would suggest checking a few other usenet index sites in addition to Newzleech.

www.binsearch.info
www.nzbindex.nl
http://alt.binaries.nl

It might be less error-prone to browse the group rather than using keyword search to locate the files.

Also, you can get a free trial account at Ivacy.com and this comes with read-only access to newsgroups at news-service.com's server. (Ivacy's trial accounts are consumption-limited (@100MB total download bandwidth) not time-limited, so a trial account can last virtually forever if you don't consume much bandwidth.)

I agree with above, Newsleech has went downhill, Binsearch detects and picks up alot more than Newsleech does, or just use SS in Newzleecher...and it will show if they are ok or not, personally I use Astra, and haven't had any problems upping.

Did you use stunnel with PowerPost?...b/c newzleech has trouble picking up SSL posts(also they suck anyway nowadays...i find nzbindex.com to be the best also binsearch.info)

This is def just a newzleech problem...im sure if you update the headers for the group all par2 files will be there