Astraweb completion

[jh001]

I've been using Astraweb for a while and generally I'm happy with them, but I've noticed lately that some older (300+ days) binaries are not complete. Far worse than their claimed 99%+ completion rate anyway. It's really starting to piss me off that I have to download 2 or 3 different versions of the same thing before I get one that is complete. Has anybody else had the same experience? Who is generally considered to have the best completion?

[Cubeltd]

Same probleme here. Just try the same file a few days later. works fine for me this way...but still annoying

[citycfai]

...buy a Blocknews 100GB, it will help you with completion... but this method does not address your problem of Astra incompletion...

I have Supernews ($99 yearly) + Frugal Usenet ($3.99 per month) + Astra (100Gb block)... smooth sailing...

[sandman_1]

Could of been they were complete at 1 time and then got DMCA'd. No provider, that has a server in the USA, at least, is going to ignore DMCA take down requests. The best way to go is to get a block account with another provider.

I am with Astra and so far have been lucky to get about everything I want. The few times I haven't, I can use my free accounts to pick up the slack.

[Hole69]

No problems here. Using blocknews as a filler that is only slightly used. Are you setup correctly?

[jh001]

Are you setup correctly?

Not sure what you mean. I've tried all the different servers with Astraweb (SSL) and still get the same issue. What's really frustrating is that the binaries only just doesn't have enough blocks to complete, even with all the PARs. As far as takedown notices, wouldn't the binaries be completely removed then? Or is that a ploy to get people to waste bandwith/quota?

So, blocknews is not US based? Might look into that

[mjmacky]

This could be related to a former conversation in which a lot of Astraweb postings in the 120 day range were incomplete... say 6 months ago. Perhaps they're still just incomplete, and in another 6 months we'll talk about AW completion problems about posts around 480 days old.

[Hole69]

Run NZB completion checker to get an idea of what is and isn't available, although it isn't 100% reliable 100% of the time. Blocknews is Readnews based which is European not primarily US based. What nzb's are you having issues with? There is a black hole of around 400 days where you can have issues, along with certain posts (console games in particular). Still, what nzb's?

[sandman_1]

As far as takedown notices, wouldn't the binaries be completely removed then? Or is that a ploy to get people to waste bandwith/quota?

So, blocknews is not US based? Might look into that

They won't remove all the articles associated with that file, just enough to not make it repairable. I have Newsbin Pro and it actually tells you if they have been DMCA'd.

Blocknews has a US server so they are susceptible to DMCA too. However they may not have gotten a DMCA notice for the same articles. There are some free servers you can try that have different retention rates. So far I haven't had a need for a block account using them.

http://xsusenet.com/
http://usenetstorm.com/index.php
http://just4today.net/
http://www.usegrab.com/

[Beck38]

One thing I continue to see, whether the uploader is posting to Astraweb or it comes to them via the Usenet 'bucket-brigade', is that WAY to many are still using non-correctable uploader programs, i.e., PowerPost and all the various 'variants' out there... and not JBinUp (which IS a self-correcting uploader).

There are a lot of ways that the uploader data stream gets nailed, either because of basic transmission errors or because the server they're connected to goes out to lunch, and there is no way they'll know that something is going on UNLESS they are very (and I mean VERY) closely watching the propagation or at least manually checking the server they are uploading to to see if all the parts are properly getting there. Of course, JBinUp automates that.

When I first got a fairly decent high-speed upstream link some two years ago, the first thing I did was do a series of test with several of the PowerPost's and a couple of other posting programs. I could easily see minor to major problems with all of them posting to any server, and somehow tripped across the JBinUp, which worked perfectly.

Even during the last bit of wack ops with Astraweb 2 weeks ago, where I was getting a 'weird' error, it would sit there and hammer the server until the upload was corrected. Zero errors, just slowed things down a bit as it retransmitted things over and over until it got through.

Anyone using PowerPost or the like during that time would have been generating a fair amount of 'gaps' in their upload, which of course would have been propagated. There are a lot of things going on with all the providers where some kind of connection reset error happens and it results in block errors. How many, how often, is variable.

All this these days is simply going way too fast for old non-error-correcting systems to be used. But people still use them, to various 'effects'. There's just no reason to do so.

Oh, BTW, I've posted some 11+ TB of data over the last 2 years, with the only big problem with Astraweb being the 'hole' about 8 or so months ago or so that has been corrected (at least that I can tell, in that nothing I was uploading at the time has anything beyond very minor gaps left in it after 2-3 weeks of being 'worked on').

Then again, I d/l a fair amount, and use Blocknews like anyone else, but every time I see a large amount of errors in something, it has so far always been uploaded with one of the old, creaky, programs. I have yet to trip over something that used JBinUp. Knock on wood.