Blocknews - 100 gig usenet block for $8.99 deal

[mesaman]

For that post try Astraweb or free XSusenet backing up Giganews.

[Hypatia]

mesamen
thats not the point... seeing that BN has only 1(!) block available is a damn shame. as for xsusnete what one is gonna do when these files are not within the retention of it's servers(~400days)?

[LazyGuy]

also xsusenet is very very buggy (atleast for free usage)
sabnzbd+ says too many connections after a day or two of usage and becomes unusable after 3
so i keep registering and re-registering to make the problems go away

the oldest file i am dling is 348days old
lets see if it finishes correct

[zot]

I couldn't see the image you've posted.

Ditto. I think we all need to stop relying on embedding images. (but anyway, why post an image of Giganews' completion - the subject here is Blocknews)

I can't see Hypatia's posted image either, or the link to that Mysterbin page, so I had to hit "reply with quote" and fish out the URLs from the post text before I could see his Astraweb's completion results, (which at a perfect 100% is impressive). It seems that for the last year or so, Blocknews has always had a few random incompletes throughout its retention range, while Astraweb's completion is either 100% (usually) or ... in the toilet.

I'll repost these possibly-hidden items:

Zot's screenshot of Blocknews completion:

http://i39.tinypic.com/2873hpv.jpg

Hypatia's screenshot of Astraweb's completion:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/213/clipboard02ph.jpg

Hypatia's hidden link:

http://www.mysterbin.com/advsearch?q=Boardwalk+Empire+s01*+720p+ctrlhd&match=normal&minSize=100&maxSize=max&group=&maxAge=1194&complete=2

(I also updated my last post to show that image's download URL)


I looked at the release [39281]-[FULL]-[#a.b.teevee@EFNet]-[ Boardwalk.Empire.S01E04.720p.HDTV.x264-CTU ]-[01/43] - "boardwalk.empire.s01e04.720p.hdtv.x264-ctu. posted 394 days ago, completion which is hit *relatively* hard on Blocknews, with Blocknews' completion that looks to be close to 99%. It looks like it has 10% PARS, so it should repair quite easily.


http://i42.tinypic.com/zkizqh.jpg

As stated, Blocknews could not offer enough to complete, and certainly was not "better than Giganews".

According to my completion check above, Blocknews alone should easily complete that file (with pars) that Giganews could not. (assuming that we are both working with the same s01e04 that was posted 394 days ago.) My guess is that you probably don't have your news client set up correctly with Blocknews as a fill server. If you were to disable Giganews, and re-download the file over again using only Blocknews, it should work. It's also possible that you did not grab all the pars (or file segments) that were posted. (I'm forced to make a lot of assumptions and guesses whenever people are unable to detail the problem fully)

Skiz, whatever the reason for your (Giganews + Blocknews) download failures, the fault does not appear to lie with Blocknews.

[Skiz]

(^It's tinypic that's the problem. Even if I click the link, it still doesn't load)

This is odd... If it go to Mysterbin and create an nzb of the 's01e04 ctu 720' release, it will complete. If it create an nzb of the same episode here on FST, I get 1 completed file. Maybe this whole problem had something to do with how FST stores older nzbs?

Now my problem is that I can't get quickpar to associate the newly downloaded pars with the previously incomplete set from GN. It sees them like they're from two completely different sets.

[mesaman]

SuperNZB completion checker

I don't trust its accuracy for any news server. Each time I run it on the same NZB I get different results, and I know it isn't the server doing that.

I think the Giganews/Blocknews combo comes up short on that post, but the only way to prove it is with an actual download.

EDIT:: more...

Parts missing = 1.0%
10% PARS

You can compare 1:1 only if the source block size equals the article size, but in that post it's 9x article size, and the PAR2 files are damaged.

[zot]

(^It's tinypic that's the problem. Even if I click the link, it still doesn't load)

Don't click the link -- copy and paste it. FST creates Stealth-links. Clicking a link will go to Filesharingtalk.com and then get forwarded to the site named on the link, but the process often does not work. This is why I usually create [code ... /code] text to post URLs in, rather than just posting the web address, thereby letting FST alter it. If Tinypic is being blocked for some reason, then one solution is to try a proxy.

This is odd... If it go to Mysterbin and create an nzb of the 's01e04 ctu 720' release, it will complete. If it create an nzb of the same episode here on FST, I get 1 completed file. Maybe this whole problem had something to do with how FST stores older nzbs?

You should compare NZBs. Although it's more accurate to open them and look inside, just comparing the file sizes can be diagnostic: if one NZB is smaller than the other, then something obviously must be missing.

Now my problem is that I can't get quickpar to associate the newly downloaded pars with the previously incomplete set from GN. It sees them like they're from two completely different sets.

Whenever re-running a par set after you make any file substititions, you need to go into \Application Data\QuickPar and delete the files that have "boardwalk empire (etc)" in the title. so that when you run Quickpar again, it starts its analysis fresh from the beginning, rather than skipping over the file names it (thinks) it already checked before.

Sometimes pars get reposted. I don't know if these 'new' pars are interchangeable with the old pars; perhaps not.

On a few rare occasions, I've had to re-name files that looked like they contained the exact same file name, but actually used different text.

SuperNZB completion checker I don't trust its accuracy for any news server. Each time I run it on the same NZB I get different results

Although I've never noticed any discrepancy, I'd like to know how much it might vary between runs, especially if any significant amount. (maybe I need to do more testing) I always welcome someone putting up their own stats that contradict mine.

I use SuperNZB on Readnews servers because its checking engine is much faster than any other NZB completion checkers on Readnews. (I use NZB Download Checker for all other servers) I didn't have the time (or bandwidth) to download the actual file, which of course would have been the only true test of actual completion. So I was giving rough estimates and making assumptions -- which I'd love to see someone disprove my stats rather than just raising doubts.

[mesaman]

The main reason SuperNZB completion checker varies between runs is that it randomly shows missing parts in the wrong rows. Also, a timeout, when the Readnews server takes more than 10 seconds to send a response to the 'head' command, is counted as a missing part. Let's assume though that the total is correct and your stats are 1.0% missing parts and 10% PARS. You then assume that the files should repair quite easily on Blocknews alone. Do you understand why your assumption is way off the mark?

[Skiz]

Don't click the link -- copy and paste it.

I already did that. I had to because you posted it as a code, but it still doesn't load. As I said before I think it's a problem with tinypic. I haven't been able to get that site to load for a couple months now. Sucks, because I have hundreds of photos saved there.

Sometimes pars get reposted. I don't know if these 'new' pars are interchangeable with the old pars; perhaps not.

My guess is that's the issue. I'd already cleared Quickpars "cache" and tried rescanning several times using different naming structures but I can't get it to work. I guess I'll just redownload the entire thing from FTN or something.

[zot]

Bad news - it seems the 'block' party is over

I did more thorough checking, and can say that file was almost certainly DMCA'd off Blocknews/Usenet-News. (i.e., every file in the set has two articles missing) So for this release at least, using Blocknews as a fill for Giganews is not going to help. This is a real game-changer. I've got to take back everything I said earlier, when I believed that Blocknews was (still) flying under the radar.

We've got to assume that more takedowns are on the way. Sad day, sad week.

@Skiz, this file is complete on free servers xsnews and Binload right now (but might be deleted within a few days)

@Mesaman, I now understand what you mean - the SuperNZB completion checker is full of errors and misses many incompletes.