A couple requests on auto repair functionality.

yatzr · Post by **yatzr** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:34 pm

First off, let me say that I love the auto repair/unrar/join function of usenet explorer. With that said, here's a couple shortcomings I found.

I just had a set that was missing one .rar file and an .sfv file. I had plenty of .par files to make up for that, but usenet explorer would attempt to repair and then say that verification failed. I noticed that it didn't create the missing files, so I made new empty files with the appropriate names and told usenet explorer to repair it again. That time, everything worked perfect. I'm guessing that usenet explorer just didn't know to create the missing files and that this is just a lacking feature, so could it get added please

Also, I had a set where I didn't grab the first .par2 file. Quickpar allows me to open any one of the other .par2 files and it will still find and add all the other par2 files. Usenet explorer didn't do this. When I clicked on a par2 file that was not the first par2 file, it only added that one par2 file and attempted to repair with just that one. It would be nice if it acted like Quickpar does on this.

If those two things get added in, then I can completely forget that Quickpar ever existed

. Thanks!

edit: just realized this should go in the development section. Sorry.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:32 pm

Firstly, if you have an example of which post could not be repaired it would help. Alex can't account for every strange bug that can occur so a pointer to the post you mention would allow him to see where the problem lies.

Secondly, if you're downloading and there is no initial PAR2 file, move the next one to the top. It should be found and treated by UE as though it were the first one. This one I haven't tested too thoroughly but it's worked for me in the past. I've only done it while UE has been downloading so I have no idea about doing it after everything has downloaded. Having said that, I have UE associated with PAR2 files so just double-clicking will open UE to perform the verification and any necessary repair.

yatzr · Post by **yatzr** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:42 pm

I'm fairly certain that the first issue is not a strange bug from a specific post. Take any post, download all the rars and par2s, but don't auto repair/unrar. Delete one of the rars and then tell UE to repair it. You should see what I'm talking about.

I too have UE associated with par2 files. The issue I had was with a set that had already been downloaded. If I don't have the initial .par2 and open one of the other ones, UE doesn't add in all the other .par2s, it only adds the one I opened.

edit: I just tried downloading a post minus a .rar file and it did successfully create the missing .rar file. So I've only had the first issue happen when everything was downloaded and then imported into UE.

edit again: Okay, I take back what I said about the first one not being a strange bug. I tried reproducing it with a different post and wasn't able to. The sets that I had the issue with were actually downloaded a long time ago (pre UEv2). One of them was incite-samurai.x.cd2 (don't remember which group I got it from). I was missing the .sfv and the last numbered rar file.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:43 pm

I knew it would be specific to the post you were working with because some of us during testing processed RAR sets heavily in this way. UE will recreate any missing RARs. However, if you have a problematic PAR set then that is another matter. I didn't know it was an older post you were repairing, I thought you'd just downloaded it. That makes it tricky to source the original files for Alex to be able to reproduce it. If you can find the subject, date, author - anything to help track it down then this could be a problem to be fixed and then forgotten about for the future.

If you process the files using QuickPar, do you get any messages there? Usually a memory problem would be indicated in QP.

alex · Post by **alex** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:17 pm

you shouldn't delete par2 or data files yourself since UE doesn't track changes in the directory automatically (it could but i didn't go into this direction).

there is an option to synchronize files in the context menu->advanced, "reload exact files" option to synchronize completely it will also cover the case when the files changed. the option works on selected items since it scans all related files in e.g. par2 set - all its par2 files and all data files which are in the set. it was added in v2.1

if you only deleted files you can use context menu->advanced->synchronize files, it will take care of deleted files only, it doesn't scan files so it is done for the whole unpack pane content. this one was from the beginning, v2.0.

just i can run in limited length after users changing, renaming, deleting files, at certain point it should be user responsibility, say if to pour acid on the motherboard UE will stop working for sure

what i did in UE i added options to synchronize files to cover all cases so there is everything needed, but "reload exact files" is a manual option and the "synchronize files" option is also performed every time when you launch UE (so deleted files are handled on every start) and in addition you can invoke it in the middle of the session as well. e.g. if you change a byte or two in outlook express database inbox.dbx file or it changed because of sudden shutdown when you run outlook express next time you may well lose all inbox emails with shrinked file and there is no option to repair that

if you didn't delete any files and you see verification failed try to do repair several times (select the par2 set and invoke "repair" from the context menu). if repair succeeds it means faulty RAM (so better you run memory tests to find the faulty stick) if it doesn't - then invoke "reload exact files" (especially if you changed files), try to repair again, if repair doesn't succeed let me know what was the post, but what i had in the past only one case which was faulty RAM, then you should see the same with quickpar as well rarely, UE is using also system file cache for repair to make things faster so if RAM is not well the probability of verification error is maybe somewhat higher in UE, but not using the cache makes things much slower, sometimes 2 times difference in repair time in my test repairs when i was checking which method is the optimal.