[USENET] Failed Downloads Mini Guide.

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Syphonx

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Failed Downloads Mini Guide
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Sometimes when using usenet a download will fail, these are some of the causes and possible fixes (assuming you are using SABNZBD). You will need a program called quickpar, download here: http://www.quickpar.org.uk/ . Quickpar reads PAR files which can be used to repair corrupt RAR files in a download.

  1. The first reason could be that the download is out of your servers retention, this is easy to ascertain, look at the age of the download and compare that to the retention of your news provider, if it’s older than the retention offered you will need to use a usenet provider with a longer retention period. Remember that the retention number provided is an estimate so even if the download is a few days below the retention limit it could still have been removed to make space for newer content.
    Not sure how to ascertain the age of the download? Either hover your cursor over the download when it’s in the queue or view the NZB on an indexing site (it will give the age). To avoid this issue without paying for a usenet provider simply go into Sickbeard & Couchpotato and change the usenet period to that of your usenet provider, see previous guide: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/589381-SABNZBD-Sickbeard-amp-Couchpotato-Guide

    The other reasons may require more effort to overcome so I will go into more detail with them:

  2. The content in question has been removed by a DMCA takedown
  3. Propagation issues, the content has not been completely propagated on the usenet server you are downloading from, this will only happen on new content (less than an hour old)
  4. Errors or corruption occurred when the content was uploaded or propagated across usenet.

2. DMCA Takedowns

When this occurs it is likely that the whole download was removed and you will not be able to download it, if you have multiple usenet providers you can try using each provider separately (enable only one server at a time in SAB, on the rare occasion I have found this can work but the older the content the less likely it is to work). DMCA’d downloads are easy to spot, they will likely have hundreds of missing articles when you start downloading them and SAB will likely abort them almost immediately. The only way around this is to search NZB indexers for re posts of the content in question, the newer it is the better. If these fail you may have to try torrents or direct downloads.

3. Propagation Issues

This will likely be found on new content, as in a few minutes old at most, severe propagation issues may result in SAB aborting the download, re add the NZB to the queue and there should not be a problem anymore (I advise against clicking retry in SAB because SAB will attempt to download the missing RAR files and won’t replace any existing RAR files, this can cause issues because any existing RAR files are likely to be very damaged if the download failed and should be redownloaded). Usually propagation errors affect the first few RAR files but as the files are propagated across usenet the later files are thus available and unaffected.

Less severe propagation issues may result in the download completing but SAB may be unable to repair the file. In this case your first step is to ensure SAB downloaded all the required PAR2 files, go to where the failed download is stored (likely in the incomplete folder) and see how many PAR2 files there are. Now you can either pause the queue, re add the NZB, click on it and then scroll to the bottom to see how many PAR2 files are included. You can also go to an indexing site and look at the file list of the NZB to determine how many PAR2 files there should be. If some are missing you need to download them. Make sure the queue is paused, add the NZB, click on it and delete all the files you already have leaving behind just the PAR2 files you need and resume the download. (NB!! Make sure you change the processing option in SAB to download!!)

Once you have all the PAR2 files copy them into the same folder as the RAR files and run them using quickpar. If you have enough you will be able to repair the file and then extract the RAR files. If not you can use quickpar to ascertain which files are damaged and need to be replaced. You can also do this visually, healthy files will be of a uniform size, damaged files will be smaller, the smaller they are the more damaged they are, smaller files should be replaced first. So add the NZB to your queue, delete the files you don’t need, set processing to Download and let it finish downloading. Copy those files into the NZB folder and overwrite the damaged file, run quickpar again and do a repair.

If quickpar is still unable to repair you will need to download and replace more of the damaged files. If the replacement files are still damaged you might want to try a different usenet server, disable the one currently giving issues. Otherwise you can see if there is a repost available to sort out the issues with the previous NZB, you can then grab the required RAR files from the repost, in most cases they will be the same RAR files and are thus interchangeable. If the repair still fails you might need to look at torrents or direct downloads, but I have always been able to fix propagation issues, and luckily they are rare, especially with good providers.

4.Errors & Corruption

The fixes for this are pretty much the same as mentioned above, it differs from propagation errors in that it can be any RAR file that is corrupt, not just the first few and thus if the download fails it will likely be when most of the files have already been downloaded or in the repair phase. Fixes are ensuring all the PAR2 files have been downloaded, downloading damaged files from different servers or looking for reposts of the download in question, again the RAR files will most likely be interchangeable.

The reason I advocate trying different servers individually is that I have noticed that some servers seem to have missing or corrupt files while others have the complete file, if you are using more than one server sometimes SAB does not realise this and downloads the incomplete file, thus trying different servers individually can overcome this.
 
Nduimiso said:
if you have multiple usenet providers you can try using each provider separately (enable only one server at a time in SAB, on the rare occasion I have found this can work but the older the content the less likely it is to work)
Click to expand...

Why not just set your block accounts as "backup" so SAB handles everything automatically for you?
 
Also, to possibly prevent article not found errors (which are majority of failed downloads) ensure that the "Check before download" switch is checked if you use sabNZBd.
 
Keeper said:
Why not just set your block accounts as "backup" so SAB handles everything automatically for you?
Click to expand...
That is set up, but now and again problems do occur. Usually it is done automatically, but not always. This guide is for the rare occurances when something goes wrong.

ph4t3 said:
Also, to possibly prevent article not found errors (which are majority of failed downloads) ensure that the "Check before download" switch is checked if you use sabNZBd.
Click to expand...
That is an option but I found it took too long, the extra wait wasn't worth it, 95+% of downloads complete fine for me.
 
ph4t3 said:
Ah interesting. Which provider do you use?
Click to expand...
Tweaknews and the Afrihost server are my primary servers, have a 1TB block account with Astraweb as well. Although it's also a case of knowing what content remains up and what gets removed, I find most HBO content gets taken down so I only bother with reposts and new content, however showtime, ABC, NBC, FX and most british stuff does not get taken down. Avoiding content I know has been removed obviously means my downloads have a higher success rate.
 
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Are there any local, paid servers BTW, with decent retention? I've had no issues with the IS news server yet but older episodes would be great.

I ask about local as I have issues with intentional speeds being slower than local on my line for some reason.

BTW, what is the retention on the IS news server?
 
DJ... said:
Are there any local, paid servers BTW, with decent retention? I've had no issues with the IS news server yet but older episodes would be great.

I ask about local as I have issues with intentional speeds being slower than local on my line for some reason.

BTW, what is the retention on the IS news server?
Click to expand...
Don't know of any local paid servers, you can try nextgennews which is a South African provider but the server is hosted overseas (Germany I believe).
IS retention might be 100-200 days but you need to differentiate between locally cached and fetched content. Locally cached content will be on the local IS news server, as it gets older the locally cached content will be removed to make space for newer content. Now that doesn't mean you can't get that content anymore, but it will have to fetched from an internantional server first (this is where DMCA'd content can affect you because if it's been removed from the international server you are out luck, our local servers don't recieve DMCA takedowns so locally cached content is safe). However the IS server fetches this content at full line speed so I'm not sure if you will be able to tell what content is locally cached and what isn't. I know on mweb the local cache was around 30 days because fetched content was shaped to ****. But in total I think the IS retention stretches past 100 days.
 
I use supernews. Yes its paid and international, but I hardly ever get a "out of server retention" error. Definitely worth the 130 bucks.
 
fanie.dry said:
I use supernews. Yes its paid and international, but I hardly ever get a "out of server retention" error. Definitely worth the 130 bucks.
Click to expand...

I use it too. Got that $9 dollar special. Only have issues with HBO tv series.
 
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I often end up with SabNZBd downloading encrypted series.. how do I avoid this?
 
Yes, password protected .RAR's. I know there is an option in Couch potato to select a different release. Not sure how to do this in Sickbeard though. Unless there is any other way to avoid this?
 
I'm not sure too sure about Sickbeard but if you use sabNZBd there's an option there that will check (and perform an action) as soon as the first encrypted file is downloaded. See http://wiki.sabnzbd.org/password-protected-rars

I add an ignore "password" keyword to sickbeard's ignore list, as sometimes the nzb name contains the word "passworded" or "password" if it's encrypted. I see that's hardly the case any more, so not too sure.
 
ph4t3 said:
I'm not sure too sure about Sickbeard but if you use sabNZBd there's an option there that will check (and perform an action) as soon as the first encrypted file is downloaded. See http://wiki.sabnzbd.org/password-protected-rars

I add an ignore "password" keyword to sickbeard's ignore list, as sometimes the nzb name contains the word "passworded" or "password" if it's encrypted. I see that's hardly the case any more, so not too sure.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Will give that a try.
 
Napalm2880 said:
I often end up with SabNZBd downloading encrypted series.. how do I avoid this?
Click to expand...
Hmm I don't think my SAB has ever downloaded a password protected file. It might be that your indexer is offering a lot of password protected files (most indexers try to avoid this). If it's just a certain show you could try change the quality profile to avoid the passworded releases. And as mentioned SAB has an option to pause password protected jobs, however it is not able to detect password protected jobs if the uploader makes an effort to avoid detection.
 
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