Ensisoft releases Newsflash Plus 3.3.1

[ensisoft]

MAJOR BUG! - automatic deletion of paused or "incomplete" downloads

I hope this 'deletion bug' only applies to par files, which happened to be my case. I think the only situation in which software should ever be allowed to automatically delete downloaded files might be *optionally* upon successful par-repair and unrar of the finished files. (even if a download is properly judged as being "unrepairable" just means I need to download the missing parts from another source) I had just paused the download and I did not even complete the download and Newsflash deleted all the files that had already downloaded. (I will turn this thing off in the scripts page and do my own par checking and unraring - and suggest that other users consider also disabling those functions for now)

Are these logs written to a file? I couldn't find any log files, so I had to post a screenshot instead. I had several other suggestions to make, but for now I think this problem is of the highest priority.

Hi,

yep deleting any par/rar files should only be done after a successful repair.

Can you provide me steps to replicate the problem and I'll fix asap. Btw you can report this through the built-in feedback system. Thanks for reporting and sorry for the inconvenience.

-ensi

[zot]

No need to apologise, that's part of being a beta-tester or early adopter. Believe me, I've had much worse things happen in the past, like having critical system files irreversibly overwritten by an application's installation sequence. (That's why I greatly prefer to try out software offered as a zip file instead of an installation package.)

I also think there would be a lot more user response if there was a public discussion forum for talking about Newsflash and reporting bugs. I always try to see if other people have already discussed an issue before starting a new topic. With sending a email or PM directly to the developer, there's no way to know if the same problem has already been reported a hundred times before.

But back on topic...........

As for the deletion bug: I had paused the downloading files, but because I did not see the PAR2 files (since they were out of sight below the edge of the window in the download pane) I did not pause the pars and they continued to download. Only the pars were downloaded, not any other files (which were all paused). Once the pars downloaded, Newsflash performed a parity check (on the non-existent files), reported a failure, and then deleted all the par files.


That brings up another point: pausing and resuming a download

If I need to suddenly pause all downloads and close all connections, Newsflash requires a series of mouse-clicks and scroll actions to accomplish this. In recent years it seems it's become a kind of universal standard on various P2P and NZB clients to have a "kill switch" on the upper left corner of the GUI - where Newsflash's existing "pause" button sits. But Newsflash's "pause" button only pauses the previously highlighted file/rar being downloaded --not the entire set- so then the next file in the queue will automatically start downloading when the current one is paused. It's a very convenient feature to have a button to open and close all connections to the server in one click - and many other applications do this.

So I'd like to suggest a one-click "kill-all-connections" -switch/"resume-all connections" -switch. Similar to Emule and Altbinz.


A tiny issue:
Newsflash's default port setting for "Secure Server (SSL)" is 443, rather than the standard SSL port 563.

[baskinghobo]

hmmm interesting. i prefer sabnzbd+ though.

[Duron]

Newznab is what Newsflash Plus uses.

http://www.ensisoft.com/index.php

Can you explain this please? I thought newznab is supposed to be a web based service not in a newsreader?

[ensisoft]

Newznab is what Newsflash Plus uses.

http://www.ensisoft.com/index.php

Can you explain this please? I thought newznab is supposed to be a web based service not in a newsreader?

Newznab is a server side service. It is a a set of automated scripts to build a NZB index using headers. But it also it comes with a web frontend so you can easily run it as a web site similar to nzbs.org. But on top of that it specifies an external API for for applications doing searches against the index over HTTP. In other words Newsflash can run searches against Newznab indexing sites. The search performs on the server, search response comes back to the application which displays it. When an item is being downloaded the NZB content is also fetched from the server.

[ensisoft]

No need to apologise, that's part of being a beta-tester or early adopter. Believe me, I've had much worse things happen in the past, like having critical system files irreversibly overwritten by an application's installation sequence. (That's why I greatly prefer to try out software offered as a zip file instead of an installation package.)

Those who know me personally know how much I rant about crappy software. IMHO there's no excuse for it. But software is a difficult undertaking and bugs happen.

I also think there would be a lot more user response if there was a public discussion forum for talking about Newsflash and reporting bugs. I always try to see if other people have already discussed an issue before starting a new topic. With sending a email or PM directly to the developer, there's no way to know if the same problem has already been reported a hundred times before.

That's a very nice approach. However I think that for a lot of people posting and issue on a forum that requires registration etc. requires too many steps. I know I'm quilty of this. So therefore using an email or the built-in feedback system is ok with me.

But yeah.. I started a forum which you can find here http://www.ensisoft.com/forum It will probably always remain empty cause getting some discussion would require some actual users hahaha Let me know if you want to move the discussion over there.

But back on topic...........

As for the deletion bug: I had paused the downloading files, but because I did not see the PAR2 files (since they were out of sight below the edge of the window in the download pane) I did not pause the pars and they continued to download. Only the pars were downloaded, not any other files (which were all paused). Once the pars downloaded, Newsflash performed a parity check (on the non-existent files), reported a failure, and then deleted all the par files.

FIXED in the next release! Thanks for reporting that was nasty.

That brings up another point: pausing and resuming a download

If I need to suddenly pause all downloads and close all connections, Newsflash requires a series of mouse-clicks and scroll actions to accomplish this. In recent years it seems it's become a kind of universal standard on various P2P and NZB clients to have a "kill switch" on the upper left corner of the GUI - where Newsflash's existing "pause" button sits. But Newsflash's "pause" button only pauses the previously highlighted file/rar being downloaded --not the entire set- so then the next file in the queue will automatically start downloading when the current one is paused. It's a very convenient feature to have a button to open and close all connections to the server in one click - and many other applications do this.

So I'd like to suggest a one-click "kill-all-connections" -switch/"resume-all connections" -switch. Similar to Emule and Altbinz.

A tiny issue:
Newsflash's default port setting for "Secure Server (SSL)" is 443, rather than the standard SSL port 563.

Hmm.. I guess that makes sense in some volatile circumstances like leeching at work As for pausing... Ctrl+A to select all and then click Pause (or hit Ctrl+P)

Anyway.. new version coming this weekend. Stay tuned.

Thanks for the input as always.

-ensi

[ensisoft]

Hello, I've released 3.3.0b7 with a bunch of fixes and some small new features.

Fixes include the par/rar file deletion bug pointed out by zot and RSS sorting bug pointed out by MultiForce.

Other changes include, Connect/Kill switch logic in the connection button, connection # is per server instead of being global, Newznab account creation/registration and some other shit which I now cant remember.

Thanks guys.

-ensi

[MultiForce]

Hello, I've released 3.3.0b7 with a bunch of fixes and some small new features.

Fixes include the par/rar file deletion bug pointed out by zot and RSS sorting bug pointed out by MultiForce.

Other changes include, Connect/Kill switch logic in the connection button, connection # is per server instead of being global, Newznab account creation/registration and some other shit which I now cant remember.

Thanks guys.

-ensi

Downloaded now so going to test right away.

I have some issues though (the previous version that is):
[18:20:51:214] critical error:connection timeout
[18:20:51:214] thread exiting now!

I have no idea why it is disconnecting as everything else is fine. Iv'e also had Alt.Binz up and running at the same time to see if it disconnects and it doesn't.
Sometimes it disconnects only a few of the connections that is in use.

The biggest problem with this is that it doesn't make any new connections when a new NZB file is loaded so the program just sits there all day with a bunch of connections not working till I'm home from work and give it a kick in the nuts. I guess that it doesn't use more connections than you specify in options even though half/all of them are dead?

[ensisoft]

Downloaded now so going to test right away.

I have some issues though (the previous version that is):
[18:20:51:214] critical error:connection timeout
[18:20:51:214] thread exiting now!

I have no idea why it is disconnecting as everything else is fine. Iv'e also had Alt.Binz up and running at the same time to see if it disconnects and it doesn't.
Sometimes it disconnects only a few of the connections that is in use.

The biggest problem with this is that it doesn't make any new connections when a new NZB file is loaded so the program just sits there all day with a bunch of connections not working till I'm home from work and give it a kick in the nuts. I guess that it doesn't use more connections than you specify in options even though half/all of them are dead?

Hmm.. correct it's not spawning more connections even though some are dead. Not sure if it should. You could classify this as a kind of a bug.

However I'm more interested in why the connections are dying. Can you send me a full log for a single connection when it b0rks so I can have a look. (You can send it through the Feedback/Report bug tool as a attachment)

Thanks for reporting.

-ensi

[MultiForce]

I'm going to send the logs (next time that is).

I still need the program to retry/reconnect on disconnects whatever the reason for the disconnects is (external, internal, whatever) though so I'll be happy if you add such an option