many downloads incomplete - astranews

[Beck38]

Undeniably, even though they knew of the problem(s) several days before the 4th holiday, obviously that slowed down the response if they needed to do a fair (or more) amount of work in that area (and getting a vendor to go faster is a big IF under those circumstances), then if they can get things started to turn around by the end of the week is pretty fast.

I don't think they could do it much faster; the only thing is if they had found out the problems earlier. They need a better system rather than relying on their 'customers' as to things going 'off the tracks'.

[loubarlow]

I downloaded 5 items yesterday and although a couple needed significant repairing, all were successful, including a couple around that magic 150 days mark, so maybe things are slowly improving.

[Beck38]

Probably not; most of the RAR's that had serious skips and such could have been repaired IF (a big IF) they had enough pars to do so; it's one of my particular 'bitches' that with the (generally) improved propagation and retention of most major providers these days, particularly compared to 'years past', that it has lulled a lot of posters to 'ramp down' the percentage of pars they include in posted archives.

'Back in the Day' (10+ years ago) that percentage was at least 20%. Despite having much faster connections, and much larger archives, many posters have pulled down to 5% or lower. That has proven to be an 'accident waiting to happen'. With the majority of 'skips' I've looked at (including my own postings), if 10% had been supplied, virtually all would be easily 'fixed'.

What's interesting to me (as well), is the insistence of many posters to include multiple groups in posting (like a.b.hdtv along with a.b.blufay or the like). Again, 'back in the day/, most providers allocated space on a 'per newsgroup' basis, and that resulted in having to do this multi-group posting routine. No providers plant s/w does that today that I know of, and so posting to one group is sufficient, it helps not one wit to do multiples (in fact it may be detrimental). Just my 2 cents.

From the 'word' we are getting, it will probably be at least the end of the week before things improve. I have my records and a 'baseline' of errors to go back and look at, to see if/when things start to do so.

[Hypatia]

What he said, guys!
im damn glad we have you here. =)

PS to be honest,10% par2 takes some time and not every poster has a powerful PC...
i myself have switched from 10% to 6%
the % doesnt matter when it is 700Mb that needed to be PAR2ed ,.. but if its something considerably larger)2gb+) than it becomes nuisance.

[Beck38]

Update 7/9 02:30 UTC: Did some short tests on known good/bad files, no change from earlier in the week.

So either they haven't done any upgrades, or haven't started to repair the original damage.

[zot]

As for the ideal percentage of pars, I think it probably makes little difference in the long run. This is because, I strongly suspect, most NSPs probably aren't going to get up and take action until the level of incompletes on the servers exceeds the (currently about 5%) PAR-repairability limit - and their customers start leaving in droves.

That's my theory on why Highwinds' completion on older files (which I both tested and complained about fairly extensively) has been a constant 98% to 99% for many months; I finally came to the conclusion that it would need to get worse before it has any chance of getting better.

It's even possible that Highwinds might have more incompletes than Astraweb, but because Highwinds' missing articles are spread out over a much greater range (+/-500 days vs. +/-100 days for Astraweb) that means most of Highwinds' damaged files can be par-fixed, and so -- unlike Astraweb -- Highwinds' problem never rises to a level that corporate management would consider critical.

[Beck38]

A good portion of it is, we have gotten, over the past three years (oh, since the retention ramp-ups of mid-2008), had it pretty good. More than pretty. That's why I made the comment that (posting) folks were getting a little bit complacent in ramping down the amount of pars a bit too much on the lean side (<5%) especially when the transmission pipes (your ISP) has (generally) gotten much faster over the years. Post 10%, how much time/effort extra does it take, on both 50GB postings and especially on 1-2GB ones.

Just about any 'examples' of Astra skipping files would easily be repaired in place IF they had 10% pars. So I think you're just about correct, we've all been spoiled by how well things have, overall notwithstanding the occasional veering off the tracks that we experience. I just think back to my first introduction to usenet circa 1987 or so, on a 2400baud modem. Rock bottom Stone Age.

How's things going, Mr. Flintstone?

[Hypatia]

It's even possible that Highwinds might have more incompletes than Astraweb,

Astraweb had had the best completion+speed+price right till the moment they had some hardware failure.
Highwinds was nowhere near unlike readnews(yet slow speeds on "old" and inconsistent speed on new)
As for now its hard to say what is the best choice..
because mark my words- this is the day they will be talking about for years - "Giganews Strikes Back" lol

supernews+ blocknews account== very neat, indeed. considering their speed< stability, and now retention+price. what is not there(dmca) blocknews will cover.
i would say it beats usenetnow\ngroups+something. though that is if you dont have more than 50mbit

[mysticbertie]

i have a crappy internet download speed anyway so which news server should i try as im fed up with astra news, i cant be bothered writing to them i would rather just jump ship.

had more files incomplete and wont repair.

rubbish

[zot]

If you don't want to (or don't know how to) set up a fill-server using Blocknews.net or Usenet-News.net to pick up Astraweb's missing parts, then these would be my choices in a (similar-monthly-priced/similar retention) Astraweb alternative:
[*]Supernews.com:[/*] outstanding completion, but a lot of copyright takedowns.
[*]UsenetNow.net or Ngroups.net:[/*] good completion, fewer copyright takedowns

You can also use a trial Binload account (400 day retention) as an Astraweb backup.