Newsbin 6.91 RC3 - Build 5855

[Vimes]

Could you tell me what to check as to why, I am using this build, Newsbin can at times exit before it is closed down..?
I have set it to pause on extraction before moving on to the next download. I have even selected the option to ask to confirm when being shutdown.
Still, on occasion, after a successful extraction it will automatically shutdown. Even if there are other downloads queued.
When it does this, the previously successfully extracted file is then shown as being only partially downloaded and so it will complete again and then extract again.

Thanks

[Quade]

I'm not sure. I've re-worked this significantly for RC4 because of reports that it wouldn't shut down.

I'll see if I can reproduce it.

[revco]

I figured I should report this as I haven't seen any mention of it. (I might have missed it in the previous RC/beta discussions, though.) I've tried RC3 a few times now but have had to roll back to 6.90 due to a debilitating bug.

Sometimes, typically when a lot of files get queued up, it'll just stop processing the files. Downloads continue, but PAR fixes and extractions cease. The client continues to download, at least until the drive fills. It does "maybe" correlate with articles not being available on one of my providers, as I've consistently seen these in the logs each time it has occurred. But, I wouldn't jump to that being the obvious cause. A restart of the client or host machine doesn't correct the issue.

There's nothing interesting in the logs that I can tell in the four times I've seen it thus far. I have observed a consistent CPU load from the client when it "locks up", but even leaving it for many hours doesn't change anything. Although I don't know for sure, I don't think the source files have anything to do with it, especially since downgrading to 6.90 fixes the issue.

Downgrading to 6.90 has fixed the issue every time it happens. I'd love to solve the frequent crashes I'm seeing on 6.90, though, which I'm fairly confident 6.91 does address.

Thanks for the software, been using it for a ridiculous number of years now!

[Vimes]

I'm not sure. I've re-worked this significantly for RC4 because of reports that it wouldn't shut down.

I'll see if I can reproduce it.

Thanks. I did go back to the 6.90 (5524) build. Sadly this has just occurred again. Two nzb's loaded. After the first has completed the client closes down. When opened the 2nd will then complete. Nothing of particular interest that I can see in the logs....?

Again, I retained the feature for confirmation on closing, that doesn't seem to help.

[ccarlin]

[[Reported issue: Sometimes, typically when a lot of files get queued up, it'll just stop processing the files. Downloads continue, but PAR fixes and extractions cease. The client continues to download, at least until the drive fills. It does "maybe" correlate with articles not being available on one of my providers, as I've consistently seen these in the logs each time it has occurred. But, I wouldn't jump to that being the obvious cause. A restart of the client or host machine doesn't correct the issue.]]

I've experienced the same thing - 10-15 files queued for download, the files download, but par fixes and/or extraction doesn't every happen. Right click requests to resume or retry the download don't work and neither does restarting newsbin. The files just sit in the "downloading files" column. Instead of falling back to an earlier version of newsbin I just manually open the .nzb for the "frozen" file(s) and re-download it. If my memory is correct - this workaround has worked in the vast majority of cases. And, as noted, this "freeze" occurred with files downloaded that had portions from multiple news servers. I've also just deleted the downloaded files and used a different .nzb for the file I wanted.

Related, I've also experienced a similar problem. Same conditions/symptoms, except after maybe 4-5 minutes of no activity newsbin will all of a sudden start processing the downloads. I've never been able to determine why this happened or how to duplicate it, so I've not reported it either.

I may have an odd configuration, as I regularly use multiple servers (different countries) from 2 or 3 different news providers. So, I have a prioritized list of about 7-9 servers for newsbin to choose to download from. Maybe this is somehow related?
/chris

[Vimes]

NM

[Quade]

Related, I've also experienced a similar problem. Same conditions/symptoms, except after maybe 4-5 minutes of no activity newsbin will all of a sudden start processing the downloads. I've never been able to determine why this happened or how to duplicate it, so I've not reported it either.

Some recent postings don't use RARs anymore. It's one large 100,000 post (or more) files. Before it was RAR files with 60-250 posts per file. When they download, it takes awhile to assemble them and it takes awhile to scan them to make sure they're good. If they need repair it really slows down because, the process of looking for valid blocks in a damaged file is particularly slow.

If they use passwords and you are depending on a large password list instead of assign the passwords to the download, it's even slower.

I have a feeling the problem is more that you're not getting visual feedback than that it's not working. I've been thinking about re-working the way progress is shown in light of these new massive single files.

[stavros]

Quade wrote:
I have a feeling the problem is more that you're not getting visual feedback than that it's not working. I've been thinking about re-working the way progress is shown in light of these new massive single files

Hi Quade,
If you get a chance to look at the progress feedback, could you have a look at what is happening when the
"Pause Download during UNRAR/Repair" option under performance is enabled, please?

I have this set, but I am seeing downloads not pausing when a repair and/or unrar/extract is happening.
It could easily be that it is happening too fast for the gui to keep up, but It looks like it is not obeying the pause properly.

I have set the cache to 600 and have a 3Gb/sec download link, with 3 servers at priority 1 with 32 connections between them (8, 16 & 8 )., this generally saturates the download pipeline for large downloads.
The Unrar and download locations are set to use separate dedicated 2TB NVME SSDs.

I am seeing that during a repair and unrar of, say, a 7GB file, the download continues.
This could be that new chunk download requests have ceased, but there were incoming data chunks from previous requests, but it seems to keep on going,
sometimes for long enough (> 20secs) for the entire extract process to complete.
Also, the status does not change to "Paused" in the status bar - again this could be GUI update lag, but it seems to be nearly always "Running" during this time frame.

I used to see (in pre 6.9 builds, not sure when this started) the download complete to the point when a repair and unrar start, then the status would change to "Paused" until the file was landed in the ultimate destination,
then the status would change to "Running" and downloads would continue.

thanks
Stavros

[Vimes]

FYI. Just to keep you informed. I *think* that I have finally found out why Newsbin was exiting almost after each and every extraction completed, if there was more than one.

I have removed this....

https://www.startallback.com/

and now I get no more...

Faulting application name: NewsbinPro64.exe, version: 6.8.0.0, time stamp: 0x62069fdb
Faulting module name: explorerframe.dll, version: 10.0.22621.4391, time stamp: 0x8f2cefa4
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000000d91f7
Faulting process id: 0x0x59F0
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DB3827E632CF66
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Newsbin\NewsbinPro64.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\explorerframe.dll
Report Id: 6d0e5bc3-f584-43c1-8d9a-2bc2d06cac26
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

according to the event viewer.

if this continues it will confirm that particular utility, in my case, was the problem.

Thanks

[Quade]

1 used to see (in pre 6.9 builds, not sure when this started) the download complete to the point when a repair and unrar start, then the status would change to "Paused" until the file was landed in the ultimate destination,
then the status would change to "Running" and downloads would continue.

I'll check it out. Thanks.

and now I get no more...

That's interesting. What does this software do?

I have a feeling it has something to do with the task bar decorations. For newsbin to crash from this is probably still a Newsbin bug. In the sense that Newsbin shouldn't crash no matter what the task bar is doing.

[Vimes]

1 used to see (in pre 6.9 builds, not sure when this started) the download complete to the point when a repair and unrar start, then the status would change to "Paused" until the file was landed in the ultimate destination,
then the status would change to "Running" and downloads would continue.

I'll check it out. Thanks.

and now I get no more...

That's interesting. What does this software do?

I have a feeling it has something to do with the task bar decorations. For newsbin to crash from this is probably still a Newsbin bug. In the sense that Newsbin shouldn't crash no matter what the task bar is doing.

For those who wish to restore a lot of functionality, both functional and aesthetics, to Windows 11, that they have been used to in previous versions of Windows, it is a most wonderful utility.
Taskbar visual and functional changes are part of it, as are Explorer changes.

It took me some time to figure that one out and quite a lot of searching for faults with "explorerframe.dll", or should I note crashes. The clues, somewhat vague, was using a utility that altered in some way the way that explorer functions, or is expected to function.

Newsbin is the ONLY software application that I have that acts in such a way to cause such a crash ONLY when the circumstances noted previously apply.

One content within the download Window, that single content could be made of plenty of files and pars that would be no issue. It would extract fine and wait for the next nzb to be loaded.
BUT if there are more than one lined up to download it would more often or not crash to the desktop, with that faulting module noted, at the end of the extraction and the commencement of the next content item to download.
On re-opening Newsbin it would start again to download the file that it had just concluded to extract.

My Event Viewer was quite filled with those critical crashes, due to Newsbin. Each and every time this issue occurred. Whilst it does not happen since I removed the utility I would like to use it at some point.

I am still using build 23H2 of Windows 11

Hope that helps, somewhat.

[JayPea]

1 used to see (in pre 6.9 builds, not sure when this started) the download complete to the point when a repair and unrar start, then the status would change to "Paused" until the file was landed in the ultimate destination,
then the status would change to "Running" and downloads would continue.

I'll check it out. Thanks.

and now I get no more...

That's interesting. What does this software do?

I have a feeling it has something to do with the task bar decorations. For newsbin to crash from this is probably still a Newsbin bug. In the sense that Newsbin shouldn't crash no matter what the task bar is doing.

For those who wish to restore a lot of functionality, both functional and aesthetics, to Windows 11, that they have been used to in previous versions of Windows, it is a most wonderful utility.
Taskbar visual and functional changes are part of it, as are Explorer changes.

Quade, I'd like to add that I am also a registered user of StartAllBack (I wouldn't give up my old-school Quick Launch) and this is the same .dll file that was causing the crashes we were discussing via PM.

[Vimes]

@JayPea


Interesting, so not necessarily linked to my particular setup then, thanks for posting.
I hadn't expected it to be, as already noted, Newsbin is the only application that I have seen behave this way, in terms of crashes.

[JayPea]

@JayPea


Interesting, so not necessarily linked to my particular setup then, thanks for posting.
I hadn't expected it to be, as already noted, Newsbin is the only application that I have seen behave this way, in terms of crashes.

I haven't seen many CTD tbh, perhaps 3-4 in total since using v5855, and I haven't seen one for a while. I'll post publically on the next one, if/when it occurrs.

[Vimes]

@JayPea


Interesting, so not necessarily linked to my particular setup then, thanks for posting.
I hadn't expected it to be, as already noted, Newsbin is the only application that I have seen behave this way, in terms of crashes.

I haven't seen many CTD tbh, perhaps 3-4 in total since using v5855, and I haven't seen one for a while. I'll post publically on the next one, if/when it occurrs.

It can be erratic for me. That is what threw me for some time as to not thinking about the event viewer to see if there could have been an associated crash is assuming that Newsbin was just exiting. Even then it is not each and every time. Just enough though to be there and to be an issue.
I have gone back to the 6.90 release, not being sure if that could have helped before I noted the crashes related with the application.

But, for now, I have removed StartAllBack, not happy about that really. At least I can have several nzb's lined up knowing that Newsbin is not going crash between each one. That was a problem if not at the PC at the time of using it.

At least Quade understands about this issue now.

[Quade]

I've made code changes to armor access to the taskbar. I assume it's taskbar related because the software you're using seems to modify how that all works.

[Vimes]

I've made code changes to armor access to the taskbar. I assume it's taskbar related because the software you're using seems to modify how that all works.

Thanks for doing that. Is that in a build ready for testing, meaning this one..? Or would that be in a future one..?

All the best

[Quade]

@JayPea


Interesting, so not necessarily linked to my particular setup then, thanks for posting.
I hadn't expected it to be, as already noted, Newsbin is the only application that I have seen behave this way, in terms of crashes.

I haven't seen many CTD tbh, perhaps 3-4 in total since using v5855, and I haven't seen one for a while. I'll post publically on the next one, if/when it occurrs.

I installed "startallback" 3.8.13 in a Windows 11 VM and told it to look like Win10. I couldn't repro any crashes. I don't have a full Win11 because I installed a light version that doesn't require a microsoft account. What did you ask it to look like? I wonder if one of the other modes is crashy.

[Vimes]

For me, I was not sure if it was related to using StarTAllBack, Newsbin AND a Windows 11 updates, of some sort....? As, for a while, they seemed to co-exist alright. BUT I also did not often have a long list of nzb files queued, it would only crash with more than one nzb queued.....

In the app I selected "Kinda 10" as a theme but then made many smaller changed to the UI and taskbar, like totally transparent taskbar.

[Quade]

For me, I was not sure if it was related to using StarTAllBack, Newsbin AND a Windows 11 updates, of some sort....?

Funny you should mention that. MS just announced one of their updates stops Ubisoft games from playing.

These days I keep my updates disabled and only update when the coast seems clear.

[Vimes]

For me, I was not sure if it was related to using StarTAllBack, Newsbin AND a Windows 11 updates, of some sort....?

Funny you should mention that. MS just announced one of their updates stops Ubisoft games from playing.

These days I keep my updates disabled and only update when the coast seems clear.

I could be wrong here. But I have a thought that with Windows 11 updates can be deferred / paused, only some, for so long, and then they seem to be applied. It can sometimes be only with hindsight that you might find out about issues, typically too late. Other security type update just update regardless afaik.

If that is the case then it can be a challenge, and MS is not making it any easier with legacy OS's support either.

[Quade]

I could be wrong here. But I have a thought that with Windows 11 updates can be deferred / paused, only some, for so long,

Where there's a will, there's a way. Even though Win11 turns your PC into Microsoft's PC there are always work-arounds if you have physical access to the machine and control the internet that it's connected to. For example I have a box that does ad blocking using DNS. It can also block telemetry and other "phone home" by simply not letting the PC find the address of the remote server. I firewall DNS so, machines on my network are required to use this box for DNS.

I'm still on Win10 and won't change till I'm forced to. I have Win11 running in a VM under Linux so I can test with it.

[Vimes]

I could be wrong here. But I have a thought that with Windows 11 updates can be deferred / paused, only some, for so long,

Where there's a will, there's a way. Even though Win11 turns your PC into Microsoft's PC there are always work-arounds if you have physical access to the machine and control the internet that it's connected to. For example I have a box that does ad blocking using DNS. It can also block telemetry and other "phone home" by simply not letting the PC find the address of the remote server. I firewall DNS so, machines on my network are required to use this box for DNS.

I'm still on Win10 and won't change till I'm forced to. I have Win11 running in a VM under Linux so I can test with it.

Not just a will, but a skill as well.....

After Windows 7, imo, Windows seemed to go in a direction that included more online / telemetry type gathering and presence, due to the rise in popularity of the internet and its availability etc, than it had ever been.
If I wasn't so complacent and, to a point, dependant on Windows I might have jumped ship some time back to Linux. But complacency and need have, so far, stopped that from happening.
Goodness knows how far Windows will morph to a point where it itself might compel me to make changes.......Acquiring more skill to go with the enforced will.

[Quade]

I agree. They've been wresting control away from the users. I wish they had a "nomie" and "advanced" mode so, if you know what you're doing you could take the training wheels off.

Microsoft makes most of their money from the cloud these days so, I suspect they don't care as much about Windows market share. While Linux is usable and a viable choice if you know how to use it. It's not nearly as smooth or compatible as Windows.

If all you do it browse the web, consume media and run Newsbin, Linux is a good choice.

[JayPea]

If you're going to use W11 then, in my opinion, you should be using either LTSC or Enterprise. With Enterprise you can gpedit everything out to retain full control of your client and LTSC just doesn't have it in there to begin with as it's a barebones version designed for EPOS or mission-critical machines and only gets security updates over the product support lifecycle. Neither of these are end-user facing versions, ie not for sale to normies, but that doesn't mean you can't obtain them or be unable to activate them with a genuine digital license. It just needs some reasearch The W10 based version of LTSC is even supported until 2030 and it's totally possible to 'upgrade' from a version that's going EOL in October 2025 with some registry editing. Nobody needs to either give up W10 or pay MS for Extended Support if they don't want to.

IMO MS still makes the majority of their cash through Enterprise licensing. Having been around negotiations for Enterprise Agreements and the bundling they're doing to lock corporate customers into their value-added services, which prevents any meaningful competition as why would people go lookling elsewhere for the products they're getting for 'free', the sums are eye-watering. Couple that with their Azure/off-prem/cloud services and you can begin to see the reasons why they can afford to drop $70b on ActiBlizzard without batting an eyelid.