'Off The Rails' Event Being Monitored, Appears Some Peering Is Creating 'Skips'

[Beck38]

72 hrs later, and both Astraweb/EU and Blocknews/EU have yet to 'fill in' the gap at all.

The 'event' lasted approx. 12 hours, with about 35-50% of the blocks being skipped.

Will continue to monitor for a few more days, but after 3 days, I doubt that any missed parts will be 'filled in' like Blocknews/US was.

[zot]

Beck - Are the headers or bodies missing? Or both? (I've found that the headers on older posts - especially in text groups - are much more likely to go missing than the bodies )

How does a free server such as Just4Today compare?

I've noticed that Highwinds, Readnews, and Astraweb all appear to use the other US/EU server for backfilling missing articles on old posts, but I don't know how long the process takes. I think that Astraweb only had an American server until about 6 years ago when the Amsterdam location was set up. For several years, Highwinds had consistently better completion on the EU server, but now completion is identical - at least on old posts. (If a 500-day-old file has 73 parts missing from Highwinds' US server, the EU server will be missing those identical 73 parts) So Highwinds is obviously back-filling between server locations and therefore it would be pointless to setup Highwinds US and EU servers as primary/secondary anymore.

It's interesting that the US servers seem to be in better shape now than those in Amsterdam, since for many years it seemed the opposite was true, at least in my experience. (Giganews being the exception)

[Beck38]

Yet another large 'gap' today, starting around 2000hrs GMT or thereabouts. Astraweb/US, Giganews/US no problems, and with some gaps but fairly quickly filled (within an hour) at Blocknews/US. All three EU servers of each, the gap is still going on (not filling in).

All the original gaps from 96hrs ago, no fills whatsoever on Astra/Block/EU. I'm willing to bet they won't fill in at all.

Today's gap lasted at least 4 hours, I'll take a hard look in about another 4 to see if anything changes.

FYI it's been years and years since I looked at any 'free' servers, sorry.

I might add that except for extremely minor, and usually filled in within an hour or so, these are the most major 'gaps' I've seen in several weeks to 3-5+ months. Are their personnel starting to take spring vacation, or what...?

Fast Update: it appears to me, that Astraweb/EU has not been updating for well over 6+ hours now (I try to 'update' the article scan, and get 'no update since last scan'). No fills on any other EU servers, including Bocknews/EU and Giganews/EU. Something out there has completely broken down. All US servers appear to be and continue to update.

[Hypatia]

did you write to support explaining the situation?

PS When i download headers the speed is awful

[Beck38]

Minor 'skips' still occurring in 'near real time'.

The three parties mentioned have been told, but I'm sure that I'll get the same response I have in the past, that usenet is not a 'perfect system' (of course not, but...), and that's why they always recommend a secondary server.

Why the companies don't at least do 'database rectification', in making sure that their US and EU servers are more 'in sync', is beyond me. That would eliminate a lot of the gaps I've seen over the years, whether it's US or EU with the gaps, and the other non-gap'ed. Although it's very interesting that Bocknews/US seems to both have more gaps yet 'cures' them very quickly. I'm seeing the same thing occurring with Giganews/EU, where it takes some 6 or so hours, but it 'fills in'.

Astraweb/EU is still 'lagging' 12+ hours behind Astraweb/US. Hasn't filled in any of the missing headers but I'm talking 'real time' where the Us server is v. the EU one. Weird.

[newcster68]

I really don't know what you all are talking about with these so called gaps but is this the reason why some of my shows that i am downloading are not complete? Checking files and all are there but when downloading them it is only downloading like 375kb per file...wtf? what is going on? Im on Newsgroup Direct

[Hypatia]

some of my shows
Newsgroup Direct

it happens most likely due to DMCA takedowns. Newsgroup direct uses highwinds servers as far as i know
several shows are taken down extremely often on giganews and highwinds

[zot]

I really don't know what you all are talking about with these so called gaps but is this the reason why some of my shows that i am downloading are not complete? Checking files and all are there but when downloading them it is only downloading like 375kb per file...wtf? what is going on? Im on Newsgroup Direct

375 KiloByte is a typical article size, so I assume that you have one (complete) article per (rar) file - kind of like what HBO does to submit DMCA takedowns

You can also look inside the NZB file (open it using any text reader) to check if it looks like all the articles are there.

Binaries are posted as articles, and these articles are supposed to be automatically grouped into rar files, and these rars in turn are automatically grouped into releases. But sometimes the system breaks down and auto-grouping does not occur.

[Hypatia]

Astraweb replied to me that they are doing "maintenance on the headers" =)

[Beck38]

That's the same 'announcement' I got.

Vis-a-Vis Astraweb/EU, the Major gaps from the 13th and the 17th are still there, haven't 'filled in' at all. Some minor wobbles from the 18th, 19th, 20th, have partially filled in, the same with Blocknews/EU. But the only servers without the 'gaps' from the 13th/17th are Giganews/US and EU, Astraweb/US, amd Blocknews/US (the latter after filling in over some 2 days).

I doubt very highly at this point that, in particular, Astraweb/EU will fill in at all. I'll try to watch for the next week or so, but the gap(s) are very extensive, near 100% loss of parts for hours at a time.