Question about incomplete posts

[zork]

I use Newsdemon server and when downloading headers I get quite a lot incomplete posts. I asked from their support and they said that headers and data are separate mater and they can be about two hours apart. How does Newsbin determine if post is incomplete, checks if there are all articles present which are in headers and if not then post is incomplete? And does it check it again some other time or is it one time thing. I am asking because articles are definitely there. If I have incomplete post and nzb file then I can donwload nzb and get file using it and it is OK. But if I try to download incomplete file then it downloads it like all articles are present but file itself corrupted and file name is always in all caps. I quite don't know any more if this is Newsbin or Newsdemon problem.

[Quade]

So, normal cycle when using headers:

1 - Download headers
2 - Headers fed to database - some might be incomplete.
3 - Download Headers later
4 - Headers fed to database - if new headers complete the files from #1, the files get marked complete.
5 - Repeat forever.

- When you download headers, you're getting a snapshot of what the server reports it has at that moment.
- When you download headers again later, you're updating that snapshot in the header database/
- So the longer you wait between header updates, the less accurate what's shown in Newsbin's list will be.
- Headers tell Newsbin the current state of the group on the server.

If the headers you're looking at are incomplete and say a day old and you've been updating headers then they might really be incomplete.
This isn't factoring in whether the server is telling the truth about headers too. NZB's come from a different source and don't depend on headers at all.

You could have a case for example where the NZB is complete but the headers report by the server will never complete. You can also have cases where the NZB reports as complete but parts of the file can't be downloaded from the server.

I'll load a group to display, see some of the newest files show incomplete, download headers again, and see them show complete now. The point is you control how current Newsbin's header databases are.

What version are you using?

Keep in mind, incomplete doesn't mean the files won't work. That's where PAR files come in. They can repair files with missing parts.

[zork]

I am using 6.90 build 5524.
Looking at the description how Newsbin works I just must conclude that Newsdemon in fault here. I downloaded headers from one group, saw incomplete filess in couple of days old posts, day old posts and todays posts. Downloaded again after 4 hours and nothing really changed. Same files were still incomplete. Using par files really does not help mostly because par files are also usually incomplete or what I get from there is not enough to repair. Usually the nzb file is okay so I can use it but sometimes the nzb file is also missing because of header problem and then I am out of luck if I can't get it from somewhere else.

[Quade]

Even incomplete PAR files can contain usable data.

The question is whether the files are complete on a different server. If you want to PM me the group and topic I can look.

Some obscured postings these days are posted across multiple groups like some of the file is posted to one group and some of the file is posted to a different group. In that case the files might be NZB only.

you could try searching for the files in Newsbin's built in search and see if they're complete.

[zork]

I only use couple of groups mainly and these are not high traffic groups. a.b.e-book.flood and a.b.e-book.magazines. Files are small and all files are posted in one group or in e-book case crossposted to another.
I searched for one file which was shown as incomplete and in search it did not show incomplete. But I could not verify the download because I am not internet search subscriber.

[Quade]

PM me a subject and I'll tell you if it's complete on "Usenetserver". It probably is. I have the headers for those two groups I believe.